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Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #543: Test/Quiz Question Generator

Do you want your students to take a quiz or test online? Do you have a test that you normally administer on paper and you don’t want to retype all the questions into Brightspace? Learning and Teaching Services at Algonquin College developed a Test/Quiz Question Generator that provides an easy way of creating a collection of questions that can be imported into Brightspace.

the word test written in chalk on a chalkboard

Quiz questions have to be in a special format in order to be imported into Brightspace. The Test/Quiz Question Generator allows you to reformat your questions and it will create a CSV file that can be imported into Brightspace.

Additionally, the Brightspace Community developed a Quiz Question Converter that you can use to add a bank of questions to the Quiz Question Library. One benefit of using the Quiz Question Converter is that you can add feedback and hints to the quiz questions you are importing into Brightspace. Therefore saving you time in importing quiz questions with feedback and hints into Brightspace.

Want more information?

Test/Quiz Question Generator (Algonquin College)
Quiz Question Converter (Brightspace Community)

About Quizzes
Quizzes, Surveys, and Question Libraries
Question Types and When to Use Them
Understanding Grading Options for Question Types
Use Quiz Results Displays to Show Quiz Results

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #541: Quizzes – Set Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes

Instructors can grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific learners that apply across ALL quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz-by-quiz basis. The accommodations option allows the instructor to give the learner more time to complete quizzes at the course level.

The Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist
The Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist
The Edit Accommodations dialog box
The Edit Accommodations dialog box

Once granted, the accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5 x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.

Accommodations for Instructors:

  • An icon appears next to the learner’s name in the Classlist to indicate that the learner has an accommodation.
  • Instructors can filter the Classlist by Accommodations.
  • Instructors can also Print or Email a list of users with accommodations by adding the filter to those pages.

Accommodations for learners:

  • An icon appears next to learners’ own names in the Classlist to indicate they have an accommodation. To view accommodation details, learners can click My Accommodations from their learner context menu.
  • When commencing a quiz, the accommodation icon appears next to a learner’s quiz time to indicate that their accommodation has been applied. If a learner’s time accommodation has been overridden by a quiz-specific special access, this icon does not appear.
Example of a Classlist page highlighting the Learner has Accommodations icon
Classlist page highlighting the Learner has Accommodations icon
Example of accommodations reflected in the quiz's time allowed.
Learners can see accommodations reflected in the time allowed when taking quiz

Quiz-specific special access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting the accommodation appears. Accommodations set for learners in Classlist are displayed in the Special Access for the quiz.

Accommodations indicator in Special Access
An example of how Accommodations set for a learner in Classlist will show up in the Special Access for a quiz

Want more information?

Set Up Brightspace Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes
Brightspace Tip #540: Quizzes – Special Access
Quizzes FAQ: Hot tips and workarounds
Brightspace Tip #254: Tests and Quizzes
Resources for the Quizzes Tool

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #540: Quizzes – Special Access

Did you know Special Access is an option available in the Quizzes tool that allows the instructor to grant learners special accommodations?

Special Access allows the instructor to assign specific learners a different set of quiz availability dates, late submission properties, and/or time limits. The instructor can change Start, End, and Due dates; the "Recommended Time Limit" and "Enforced Time Limit" timing settings; and the number of attempts allowed for a quiz to provide allowances for different needs of learners.

Add Special Access in the Quiz Creation Experience
Add Special Access in the Quiz Creation Experience

special access options in quizzes
Special Access options in Quizzes

  1. Select Allow selected users special access to this quiz if you want to give certain students different submission options from the rest of the class.
  2. Select Allow only users with special access to see this quiz if only certain students are allowed to see this quiz.
  3. Click Add Users to Special Access to select students who will get the special access.

NOTE: Instructors can exempt individual learners from the requirement to use the Respondus LockDown Browser when taking a quiz. Follow these instructions to add Special Access to quizzes that require Respondus LockDown Browser (RLDB).

Want more information?

Grant Special Access to Users for a Quiz (video)
Set up Availability Dates & Conditions
Add Special Access to quizzes that require Respondus LockDown Browser
Brightspace Tip #468: Quizzes – Set Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Updated: 2/28/2021

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #519: Quiz, Survey, or Self-Assessment?

man writing on paper

Brightspace has a variety of formative and summative assessment tools available for instructors to use in their courses. You may be wondering which tool you should use. This blog post explains the difference between the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments (SA) tools to help you determine which of the tools is the best tool to meet your needs.

  • A Quiz provides students with a score. Quizzes can be linked to the Grade Book to affect the final grade, but are not required to be linked to the Grade Book. This tool is commonly used for summative assessments (i.e., quizzes, tests, exams).
  • Surveys are not graded or scored, but do provide results to the instructor. Survey results can be viewed and downloaded as needed. Surveys can be anonymous.
  • Self-Assessments is a formative assessment tool that enables instructors to provide learners with a series of questions and give immediate feedback to their responses. A Self-Assessment is solely for the purpose of the learner to assess their understanding of the content. Instructors CANNOT view the results of a Self-Assessment, but they are able to see who has taken the Self-Assessment and the time spent on it. The omission of numeric evaluation enables learners to make reflective learning and course material comprehension their main priorities during a Self-Assessment.

The following table compares the feedback and reporting for each tool:

Quizzes Surveys Self-Assessments
Feedback for learner Feedback is released based on the options set by instructor. Feedback can be setup to be instant (upon submission) or delayed. Feedback is released after completion in the form of a report. Feedback is provided immediately after answering question.
Reporting for instructor Reporting for Instructors – yes, instructors can see summative feedback on scores and individual questions. Reporting for Instructors – yes, reports are generated, and can be done so anonymously. Reporting for Instructors – yes, but limited to who has taken SA and the time spent; instructors CANNOT view results of the SA.

This table provides some use cases for Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments:

Tool Use Case
Quizzes
  • Measuring knowledge acquisition: Assess factual recall, comprehension, and application of learned concepts. Assess skills for the purpose of determining whether instruction has been effective.
  • Evaluating critical thinking: Open ended questions requiring analysis, synthesis, or evaluation can assess higher-order thinking skills.
  • Standardized test: Deliver high-stakes tests with secure features like time limits, question randomization, paging, and integration with lockdown browsers.
  • Formative assessment: Create low-stakes quizzes for students to practice and receive immediate feedback. Assess skills for the purpose of identifying areas needing improvement.
Surveys
  • Gauging student understanding: Use anonymous surveys to assess student comprehension of course material before, during, or after a lesson.
  • Gathering opinions on teaching methods: Evaluate the success of specific teaching approaches or gather suggestions for improvement.
  • Course satisfaction surveys: Collect feedback on student experience with the course content, delivery, and overall effectiveness.
Self-Assessments
  • Promoting metacognition: Encourage students to reflect on their learning progress, strengths, and weaknesses through self-evaluation activities.
  • Identifying learning gaps: Allow students to assess their own understanding of key concepts before moving on to new material.
  • Personalized learning: Use self-assessment results to tailor learning experiences or provide targeted resources based on individual needs.

By understanding the strengths of each tool, instructors can select the most effective tool for the job.

A Note About the Question Library

The Question Library is a central repository that stores and archives questions which you can reuse within a course. You can create multiple sections within the Question Library to organize your questions by type and topic, making it easier for you to find, use, and reuse questions in your quizzes, surveys, and self-assessments.

As a better practice for storage, organization, and easy access, I recommend that you create all your questions using the Question Library. You can also consolidate questions created within the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments tools by importing them back into the Question Library.

Want more information?

Quizzes Tool
Surveys Tool
Self-Assessments Tool
Question Library

#LEX Advanced Topics:
Rethinking and Improving Online Tests in Brightspace
Allow Learners to Reflect on Their Learning
Rethinking Assessment Strategies in the Age of AI

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by StockSnap from Pixabay (image cropped)

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #517: Test/Quiz Question Generator

Do you want your students to take a quiz or test online? Do you have a test that you normally administer on paper and you don’t want to retype all the questions into Brightspace? Learning and Teaching Services at Algonquin College developed a Test/Quiz Question Generator that provides an easy way of creating a collection of questions that can be imported into Brightspace.

the word test written in chalk on a chalkboard

Quiz questions have to be in a special format in order to be imported into Brightspace. The Test/Quiz Question Generator allows you to reformat your questions and it will create a CSV file that can be imported into Brightspace.

Additionally, the Brightspace Community developed a Quiz Question Converter that you can use to add a bank of questions to the Quiz Question Library. One benefit of using the Quiz Question Converter is that you can add feedback and hints to the quiz questions you are importing into Brightspace. Therefore saving you time in importing quiz questions with feedback and hints into Brightspace.

Want more information?

Test/Quiz Question Generator (Algonquin College)
Quiz Question Converter (Brightspace Community)

About Quizzes
Quizzes, Surveys, and Question Libraries
Question Types and When to Use Them
Understanding Grading Options for Question Types
Use Quiz Results Displays to Show Quiz Results

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #477: Quizzes – Quiz Results Displays

Quiz Results Displays (formerly known as Submission Views) can be created to allow students to go back and review a submitted quiz. Customizing the Quiz Results Displays allows instructors to choose what information the student sees upon completing the quiz, as well as what they can see when they go back to review a quiz. The default Quiz Results Display shows the overall score to the student (when they submit their quiz) and nothing else. To release more information to students (i.e. feedback, their submitted answers, the answers to each question, class averages and statistics, etc.) you need to either edit the default view or set up an additional view.

The Default View is what students see immediately upon submitting their quiz. The Default View typically does not allow students to see answers to a quiz, but does allow them to view their score on auto-graded items. You can adjust the Default View to allow students to see the answers to a quiz, keep in mind the Default View is what students see as soon as they submit their quiz. Thus, auto-publishing the attempt results and/or showing the answers in the Default View while the quiz is still in progress would reveal the score and/or answers to the quiz before ALL students have submitted the quiz.

Evaluation & Feedback accordion with Customize Quiz Results Displays highlighted

Additional Views can be created with a specified release date and time that allows instructors to release information, or answers, after a certain time. For example, an Additional View could be created for after all students have submitted the quiz (i.e., after the quiz is closed) to allow students to view their score and which questions they answered correctly and/or incorrectly, as well as answers to questions. Another Additional View could also be created to allow students to see the class statistics and could be set to release at the end of the semester. If a quiz has multiple attempts, you can also specify a score required on an attempt in order to release the submission view. You may want an Additional View to be available to the students for a short period of time. To make this happen, you would create another Additional View with the date/time you would like the system not to show any questions.

Customize Quiz Results Displays with the link to add an additional view highlighted

You may decide that you want the Additional View to be available to your students through the end of the semester. In this case, I suggest creating a “Shutdown View” with an end-of-semester date/time. Creating a “Shutdown View” with an end-of-semester date/time is good practice if you are planning to copy a course with quizzes that have Additional Views into another course. This ensures that a quiz with a Shutdown View will force you to update the settings in the course you are copying to. Thus reducing the possibility that you have a Additional View enabled before you want it to be.

Example of a shutdown view with a quiz results display that will not show any questions at the end of the semester

Important Notes:

  • Additional Views DO NOT take effect until the quiz scores have been published.
  • The Limited Duration option allows students to only be able to access the submission view for a short period immediately after completing the quiz. This option SHOULD NOT be used if you want students to review at a future date/time. In this case you should set up an additional view for the date/time you want the view to start AND set up a “Shutdown View”.
  • You should provide students with instructions on how to view a completed test submission.

Want more information?

Creating a Quiz Results Display
Customize the Quiz Results Display (video)
How to view a completed test submission (pdf)

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #469: Test/Quiz Question Generator

Do you want your students to take a quiz or test online? Do you have a test that you normally administer on paper and you don’t want to retype all the questions into Brightspace? Learning and Teaching Services at Algonquin College developed a Test/Quiz Question Generator that provides an easy way of creating a collection of questions that can be imported into Brightspace.

the word test written in chalk on a chalkboard

Quiz questions have to be in a special format in order to be imported into Brightspace. The Test/Quiz Question Generator allows you to reformat your questions and it will create a CSV file that can be imported into Brightspace.

Additionally, the Brightspace Community developed a Quiz Question Converter that you can use to add a bank of questions to the Quiz Question Library. One benefit of using the Quiz Question Converter is that you can add feedback and hints to the quiz questions you are importing into Brightspace. Therefore saving you time in importing quiz questions with feedback and hints into Brightspace.

Want more information?

Test/Quiz Question Generator (Algonquin College)
Quiz Question Converter (Brightspace Community)

About Quizzes
Quizzes, Surveys, and Question Libraries
Question Types and When to Use Them
Understanding Grading Options for Question Types
Use Quiz Results Displays to Show Quiz Results

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by geralt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #468: Quizzes – Set Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes

Instructors can grant quiz accommodations to learners through the Classlist tool. Instructors can assign accommodations to specific learners that apply across ALL quizzes instead of applying them on a quiz-by-quiz basis. The accommodations option allows the instructor to give the learner more time to complete quizzes at the course level.

The Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist
The Edit Accommodations option in the Classlist
The Edit Accommodations dialog box
The Edit Accommodations dialog box

Once granted, the accommodations apply to all quiz activities in a course for that learner. The additional time can be applied in terms of quiz time multipliers (for example, 1.5 x quiz time) or +minutes (for example, an additional 30 minutes) on every quiz in a course.

Accommodations for Instructors:

  • An icon appears next to the learner’s name in the Classlist to indicate that the learner has an accommodation.
  • Instructors can filter the Classlist by Accommodations.
  • Instructors can also Print or Email a list of users with accommodations by adding the filter to those pages.

Accommodations for learners:

  • An icon appears next to learners’ own names in the Classlist to indicate they have an accommodation. To view accommodation details, learners can click My Accommodations from their learner context menu.
  • When commencing a quiz, the accommodation icon appears next to a learner’s quiz time to indicate that their accommodation has been applied. If a learner’s time accommodation has been overridden by a quiz-specific special access, this icon does not appear.
Example of a Classlist page highlighting the Learner has Accommodations icon
Classlist page highlighting the Learner has Accommodations icon
Example of accommodations reflected in the quiz's time allowed.
Learners can see accommodations reflected in the time allowed when taking quiz

Quiz-specific special access can overwrite an accommodation for any user on a quiz-by-quiz basis. When you overwrite an accommodation and then click Save, a warning describing the impact of overwriting the accommodation appears. Accommodations set for learners in Classlist are displayed in the Special Access for the quiz.

Accommodations indicator in Special Access
An example of how Accommodations set for a learner in Classlist will show up in the Special Access for a quiz

Want more information?

Set Up Brightspace Accommodations by Learner for All Quizzes
Brightspace Tip #207: Quizzes – Special Access
Special Access in Quizzes
Quizzes FAQ: Hot tips and workarounds
Brightspace Tip #254: Tests and Quizzes
Resources for the Quizzes Tool

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #451: Quiz, Survey, or Self-Assessment?

man writing on paper

Brightspace has a variety of formative and summative assessment tools available for instructors to use in their courses. You may be wondering which tool you should use. This blog post explains the difference between the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments (SA) tools to help you determine which of the tools is the best tool to meet your needs.

  • A Quiz provides students with a score. Quizzes can be linked to the Grade Book to affect the final grade, but are not required to be linked to the Grade Book. This tool is commonly used for summative assessments (i.e., quizzes, tests, exams).
  • Surveys are not graded or scored, but do provide results to the instructor. Survey results can be viewed and downloaded as needed. Surveys can be anonymous.
  • Self-Assessments is a formative assessment tool that enables instructors to provide learners with a series of questions and give immediate feedback to their responses. A Self-Assessment is solely for the purpose of the learner to assess their understanding of the content. Instructors CANNOT view the results of a Self-Assessment, but they are able to see who has taken the Self-Assessment and the time spent on it. The omission of numeric evaluation enables learners to make reflective learning and course material comprehension their main priorities during a Self-Assessment.

The following table compares the feedback and reporting for each tool:

Quizzes Surveys Self-Assessments
Feedback for learner Feedback is released based on the options set by instructor. Feedback can be setup to be instant (upon submission) or delayed. Feedback is released after completion in the form of a report. Feedback is provided immediately after answering question.
Reporting for instructor Reporting for Instructors – yes, instructors can see summative feedback on scores and individual questions. Reporting for Instructors – yes, reports are generated, and can be done so anonymously. Reporting for Instructors – yes, but limited to who has taken SA and the time spent; instructors CANNOT view results of the SA.

This table provides some use cases for Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments:

Tool Use Case
Quizzes
  • Measuring knowledge acquisition: Assess factual recall, comprehension, and application of learned concepts. Assess skills for the purpose of determining whether instruction has been effective.
  • Evaluating critical thinking: Open ended questions requiring analysis, synthesis, or evaluation can assess higher-order thinking skills.
  • Standardized test: Deliver high-stakes tests with secure features like time limits, question randomization, paging, and integration with lockdown browsers.
  • Formative assessment: Create low-stakes quizzes for students to practice and receive immediate feedback. Assess skills for the purpose of identifying areas needing improvement.
Surveys
  • Gauging student understanding: Use anonymous surveys to assess student comprehension of course material before, during, or after a lesson.
  • Gathering opinions on teaching methods: Evaluate the success of specific teaching approaches or gather suggestions for improvement.
  • Course satisfaction surveys: Collect feedback on student experience with the course content, delivery, and overall effectiveness.
Self-Assessments
  • Promoting metacognition: Encourage students to reflect on their learning progress, strengths, and weaknesses through self-evaluation activities.
  • Identifying learning gaps: Allow students to assess their own understanding of key concepts before moving on to new material.
  • Personalized learning: Use self-assessment results to tailor learning experiences or provide targeted resources based on individual needs.

By understanding the strengths of each tool, instructors can select the most effective tool for the job.

A Note About the Question Library

The Question Library is a central repository that stores and archives questions which you can reuse within a course. You can create multiple sections within the Question Library to organize your questions by type and topic, making it easier for you to find, use, and reuse questions in your quizzes, surveys, and self-assessments.

As a better practice for storage, organization, and easy access, I recommend that you create all your questions using the Question Library. You can also consolidate questions created within the Quizzes, Surveys, and Self-Assessments tools by importing them back into the Question Library.

Want more information?

Quizzes Tool
Surveys Tool
Self-Assessments Tool
Question Library

#LEX Advanced Topics:
Rethinking and Improving Online Tests in Brightspace
Allow Learners to Reflect on Their Learning

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.

Image credit: image by StockSnap from Pixabay (image cropped)

Published on Leave a comment on Brightspace Tip #434: Synchronous Quizzes

Instructors can now set up quizzes that start and end at the same time for ALL learners with the new synchronous quizzing option. This feature was introduced with our September 2023 Continuous Delivery updates.

The addition of synchronous quizzes enables instructors to set up a quiz where the quiz timer starts on the start date for all learners rather than when the learner launches the quiz (asynchronous). The quiz timer then ends for all learners at the same time. This facilitates quizzes where the instructor requires all learners to take the quiz at the same time similar to in classroom learning and supporting medium-high stakes quizzing.

Example of settings for a synchronous quiz
Example of settings for a synchronous quiz

A synchronous quiz starts at the Start Date and ends when the time limit has lapsed, regardless of any action taken by the learner. For example, if a learner clicks "Start Quiz!" 15 minutes after the start date on a 1-hour quiz, they only have 45 minutes left to complete it. To indicate when a quiz becomes available, learners have a countdown timer on the Quiz Information and Start Quiz pages. The Start Quiz! button becomes available when the start date and time is reached.

A countdown timer on the Start Quiz page
A countdown timer on the Start Quiz page

Note: If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No Start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due Date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes because students do not choose the time frame of when to take the synchronous quiz, therefore there is no need to set a due date.

To ensure that learners are aware of upcoming synchronous quizzes, instructors should create instructional or manual solutions. For example:

  • Make a synchronous quiz visible in the calendar:
    • Instructors should use the Start Date parameter when setting up a synchronous quiz and leave the End Date field empty.
    • Instructors can select Add availability dates to Calendar or set up an event showing the whole time.
  • Create an announcement with information about the synchronous quiz.
  • Set up an event and give a link to the quiz to provide more context.

Note: Instructors must modify or review quizzes one-by-one to avoid accidentally modifying quiz availability dates for synchronous quizzes.

Instructors should provide learners with information about a synchronous quiz before it starts. Learners can also access information about synchronous quizzes in the Quiz Information page.

Follow these steps to do it

To set up a synchronous quiz:

  1. From a quiz page, expand the Availability Dates & Conditions accordion.
  2. Set Start Date and Time.
    NOTE: Leave the End Date field empty.
  3. Expand the Timing & Display accordion.
  4. Click Timer Settings.
  5. In the Timing dialog, under Quiz Start, select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
  6. Click OK.

Want more information?

Quiz Timing Improvements
Quizzes FAQ: Hot Tips and Workarounds
Brightspace Tip #254: Tests and Quizzes
Resources for the Quizzes Tool

View current, past, and preview upcoming Continuous Delivery release notes
Instructors Quick Start Tutorial
Brightspace Known Issues
Request a sandbox course
Sign-up for Brightspace training sessions
You can find Brightspace help at D2L's website.
Join the Brightspace Community.
Try these Brightspace How-To documents.
Visit our Brightspace FAQs for additional Brightspace information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Note: Are you doing something innovative in Brightspace or perhaps you've discovered a handy tip? Share how you are using Brightspace in your teaching and learning in The Orange Room.