Assessment & Evaluation

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Remote delivery brings new challenges to assessment and evaluation. While many assessments in face-to-face classes can work online, some may need to be reimagined to work best in the online environment. Before developing your assessment plan, reflect on your course learning outcomes and consider the different ways the outcomes could be assessed. The University of Guelph has a variety of educational tools that can support remote student assessment. 

 

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Written Assignments 

Written assignments, both individual and group, can include a variety of options including reflective writing, written or photo essays, research reports, critiques, or scenariosRegardless of the format chosenCourseLink’s Dropbox tool allows for collection, evaluation and return of a variety of assessment types. Rubrics can also be attached to a Dropbox to provide students with clarity on the expectations and help you to evaluate consistently and provide timely feedback.  

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  • Peer Review: Consider bringing in a peer review component to your course assignments by utilizing PEAR. Peer review helps students to become better writers and reviewers and helps to create community in a remote delivery setting. 
  • Take-home exam: Move from a traditional scheduled final to a take-home exam. 
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Oral Assignments 

In-class assessments, like performances, lab finals and presentations, can present a challenge for remote delivery. Presentations can still happen live in a web conferencing tool or be moved to an asynchronous format using CourseLink Video Assignments. The tool can be used by students to record or upload video-based assignments, including group assignments. The assignments can be graded with a rubric and the grades are automatically transferred to the CourseLink Grades tool. The Video Assignments tool can also be used by students to meet and plan group work to be submitted online. There is a full virtual classroom system embedded in the Video Assignments tool that students can use to meet virtually. 

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  • Group Presentation: Have students present live using one of the web conferencing tools or allow them to share their presentation asynchronously using Video Assignments. 
  • Online Bell Ringer: Create an interactive video in Video Assignments and allow students to respond to prompts, scenarios or images.  
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Online Tests & Quizzes 

Regular, low-stakes testing can be beneficial in a remote delivery setting when providing students with clear assessment expectations can be more difficult.  

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  • Formative Assessment: Create short quizzes with instant feedback so that students can monitor their own progress through the course. 
  • Establish Expectations: Take advantage of regular quizzing to provide students with examples of the types of questions they should come to expect on higher stakes assessments like midterms and finals.  
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Midterms & Final Exams 

If you take a higher stakes assessment, like a midterm or final exam online, you may want to use the Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor to invigilate the exam. LockDown Browser is a locked browser for taking quizzes in CourseLink. It prevents learners from printing, copying, going to external URLs, or accessing other applications during an assessment. If a CourseLink quiz requires that LockDown Browser be used, you will not be able to take the quiz with a standard web browser. Respondus LockDown Browser has its own system requirements and is only available on the most recent versions of Windows, MacOS and iOS: 11.0+ (iPad only).

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Invigilated Assessments

Invigilated assessments are an integral piece of many remote courses. When selecting a tool for remote invigilation, you should consider the type of assessment, size of the class, requirements for additional invigilators, and student considerations.

Regardless of the chosen method of invigilation, it is strongly recommended that you provide students with an opportunity to do a practice assessment using the invigilation option selected. This will allow students to test for any technical issues and potentially reduce any stress and anxiety that might be associated with remote testing and invigilation.

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  • Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor: The LockDown Browser and Monitor combination allows for secure proctoring of online assessments delivered via the CourseLink Quizzes tool. Monitor recordings are flagged to highlight areas of interest for instructors and TAs to review. This is the most secure option available to U of G instructors.
  • Zoom: For courses that are already using Zoom, you may consider using Zoom for live proctoring of online assessments. While a Zoom meeting can support up to 300 students, running this number of simultaneous video feeds is not practical and likely not technically possible for many users due to the amount of bandwidth required. It should only be considered for small classes or groups. Using Zoom may require additional invigilation support from TAs to ensure equitable proctoring. Depending on the configuration settings, up to 49 feeds can be viewed on one screen.
  • Respondus LockDown Browser alone: The LockDown browser is a custom browser that locks down the testing environment for CourseLink Quizzes and can be used on its own without the Monitor portion.
  • Microsoft Teams: Teams may be an invigilation option for small courses. While a Teams meeting can support up to 250 participants, running this number of simultaneous video feeds is not practical and likely not technically possible for many users due to the amount of bandwidth required. It should only be considered for small classes or groups. Using Teams may require additional invigilation support from TAs to ensure equitable proctoring. Depending on the configuration settings, up to 49 feeds can be viewed on one screen.
  • Virtual Classroom: Virtual Classroom within CourseLink may be an invigilation option for small courses and has a limitation of 10 simultaneous camera feeds.
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  • Scheduled Written Tests Delivered Remotely: A high-stakes test such as a midterm or final exam where students are answering a variety of question types on pen and paper at a specific date and time.
  • CourseLink Quiz with Lockdown Browser enabled (not Monitor): A high-stakes quiz such as a midterm or final exam that is delivered via CourseLink’s Quizzes tool and the quiz has Respondus Lockdown Browser enabled, but where Respondus Monitor will not be used.
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Grades 

Setting up your grade book and regularly providing students with updates helps students to know how they are doing in the course. Many of CourseLink’s assessment tools, such as Discussions and Quizzes, can be set up to automatically send grade information to the Gradebook. 

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