Quick Start Guide (Instructors)

• Accommodations for quizzes: Canvas makes it easy to incorporate extended time accommodations on timed assignments, by adding students with such accommodations to a group within Canvas and specifying exceptions in the assessment settings (See the How-to Guide for Student Accommodations in Canvas web guide).
  • We encourage you to ask how best to accommodate students via the Student Accessibility Services staff at 515-294-7220 or email accessibility@iastate.edu.
• Canvas quizzes: A meaningful and purposeful assessment paired with constructive feedback can help learners understand and address their achievement gaps and organize future learning. Canvas quizzes provide a way for instructors to deliver helpful feedback, assess and accommodate learning. View the Low and High-Stakes Quizzes in Canvas web guide.
• Replicate bubble sheet tests: Use the multiple-choice exam in Canvas. Create a Canvas quiz with multiple versions of the same question to increase exam integrity. For already scheduled ISU Online Testing Center exams, consider:
  • LockDown Browser
  • Respondus Monitor

• Essay exams: Use Canvas Assignments for essay exams (recommend File Upload option). Do not ask multiple graders to enter grades at the same time in SpeedGrader, or they will overwrite each other’s work; download all files and have one person submit the scores in Gradebook.

Exams pose a particular challenge in a situation where everyone is on their own. The online format does not allow instructors the same ability to proctor exams as they have in face-to-face classes. To minimize incidents of academic integrity violations while ensuring that your online exams accurately capture student learning, consider the following suggestions: 

• Start with a practice exam. If this is the first time using an online exam in your course (referred to as a quiz in Canvas), consider providing a practice, non-graded Canvas quiz so students can become familiar with the process
• Allow open-book/source exams and quizzes. Assume students will use resources while taking an exam/quiz and encourage them to do so. Ask questions that probe deeper levels of knowledge and understanding, enabling students to apply, assess, and evaluate concepts and facts in meaningful ways. Encourage students to identify where they get information and what resources they use. Encourage students to cite sources and critique sources for credibility. Focus on solving problems while showing work and explanations: Having students show/articulate their thinking reveals the depth of their understanding. Sometimes there may only be a few ways to demonstrate work, so you may ask for brief prose explanations or have students record a video talking through the process to solve a question. You could also ask scenario-based questions and require short and concrete answers, which allow students to demonstrate their application of key course concepts. For additional insight, read Tips for Creating Open Book Exams (Indiana University-Bloomington) post.
  
• Ask students to generate their questions and explain their answers. Invite each student to create one or two questions along with explanations of how these would assess a specific topic or skill in a meaningful way. You might also assign students to answer each other’s questions to evaluate whether those questions assess identified items in essential ways. This assignment may work best on a discussion board. 
• Consider question formats leading to essays, videos, pictures, and other personal responses. If your class lends itself to creative and personalized forms of writing/speaking/communicating, encourage students to create essays and use videos, pictures, and other media in Canvas discussion boards. You could also have students post their responses and critique each other’s work through peer review in Canvas assignments and discussions. Rubrics can help guide students as they develop such work, give each other feedback, and allow for a consistent method of assessment.
• Use question banks and question groups. If you have short-answer or multiple-choice questions, create question banks, or use question groups in your Canvas quizzes. This step ensures that students receive different sets of questions or the same questions displayed in random order. Alternatively, use essay questions in this same manner.
• Ensure clarity in questions. Your quizzes should measure student achievement of the stated skills, knowledge, and attitudes and be appropriate to the level of the course. Use precise language and avoid jargon unless the latter is discipline-specific and necessary for assessing the depth of student knowledge. 
• Ensure clarity in exam directions. Identify any time limitations, due dates/times (including time zone), and how the assessment links to learning objectives for the course. Give specific directions on how to answer a question or complete a task.
• Allow multiple attempts and use short and frequent quizzes in Canvas. These work well for long-term knowledge retrieval and retention and serve numerous purposes. In essence, students can quickly gauge where they are in their learning, and instructors can seize the opportunity for early intervention and feedback.
• Provide feedback for quizzes. In Canvas, it is easy to add comments for each correct and incorrect answer or give general feedback on the entire exam. This step will allow students to see their responses upon quiz completion and also receive automated corrections.
• Promote academic integrity. If relevant, consider putting a statement in the directions for the exam and include a multiple-choice question asking students to abide by the Iowa State University Academic Misconduct guidelines. Include a reference to these policies in the quiz directions and course-wide announcements to remind students of the importance of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and their responsibility inside and outside of academic life. Invite students to contribute to the creation of an academic integrity statement or have those who work in teams/groups create a Team Code of Ethics so they can hold each other accountable.
• Respect your own time. Implementing these ideas and grading, resulting in student work, takes time. Determine what is feasible in your situation and use intensive grading assessments sparingly. Consider how much feedback students need or will use. Many times, feedback can be created for the whole group based on common challenges or problems, as opposed to individual responses, and distributed via course-wide announcements in Canvas. Grading rubrics are also helpful.

Additional information may be found on the best practices for online testing for instructors page in MyCanvas Teacher.