Dartmouth's Canvas Connection
End of Term Assessment Special Edition
As the end of the fall term approaches, we in Educational Technologies wanted to share some assessment ideas and best practices. Although there is no fool-proof method for preventing academic dishonesty, these tips can help mitigate it. As always, your friendly instructional design team is happy to meet with you to support your assessment needs!
Best Practices for Assessment
The following are some proven strategies to reduce or prevent academic dishonesty:
Open the assessment with a question or prompt that requires students to engage with the Dartmouth Academic Honor Principle
Shuffle test questions and/or test answers
Provide a set amount of time to complete quizzes and/or exams
Restrict the amount of time for students to view correct answers
Present your assessment one question at a time
Include a range of question types in the assessment
Give reasons for correct answers as a form of feedback to students
- Consider open-ended responses that require students to use higher order thinking skills and reflection.
Options for Quizzes in Canvas
Quiz settings in Canvas have several options, many of which can help individualize a standardized assessment for each student:
Shuffle Answers [1]. You can shuffle (randomize) answers or shuffle questions by creating a question group.
Time Limit [2]. You can choose to set a time limit by entering the number of minutes students have to complete the entire quiz.
Multiple Attempts [3]. You can allow multiple attempts.
Quiz Responses [4]. You can let students see their quiz responses.
As part of this option, you can restrict students’ view of the quiz results to Only Once After Each Attempt [5]. Students will only be able to view the results immediately after they have completed the quiz—results include both their responses and the correct answers.
Correct Answers [6]. You can decide whether or not to let students see which answers were correct. As a part of this option, you can also control when and for how long students can see the correct answers by setting dates and times.
One Question at a Time [7]. You can show one question at a time and lock questions after answering.
Disabling a Canvas Course During Exams
You might also want to disable your course site in Canvas while your students are taking exams. This way, students cannot access your course site when they are not supposed to do so. Please follow these steps:
Click Settings at the bottom of the course menu on the left, then click Edit Course Details. You need to set the start date (1) and end date (2) of the course to dates in the future (it's important to set dates to the future, and not the past). The course will display as "future enrollment" to students, and they will be unable to access the course. Next, make sure to check the box next to Users can only participate in the course between these dates (3). Last, click Update Course Details (4).
Your Canvas course will now be unavailable to your students until you reset the start and end dates.
Open Office Hours
The Canvas Team has scheduled several blocks of Open Office Hours to respond to any questions you might have about assessment, or other features in Canvas, for your fall and winter courses. No appointments necessary! Our Open Office Hours schedule is available here: http://sites.dartmouth.edu/canvas/ Please feel free to drop by, and members of our instructional design team will be available to offer you assistance with your course sites.