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Taking an Assessment

 

Video Transcript

Most online courses involve testing in the Assessments area. To begin, locate the Assessments link on the left hand menu. If no link is visible, your instructor may have posted the assessments in a folder, on the course contents page, or they may not be using the Assessments tool for your course. I'll click the Assessments link from the left hand menu.

You'll see that the opening and closing dates for each assessment are listed. Be sure to note the closing time, as your instructor may set an assessment to close before the end of the day. If an assessment is currently available to you, the title will be a hyperlink, as you see here, with Quiz 5.

When you click that hyperlink, you will see information specific to the assessment, such as

  • duration - which is how long you'll have to finish the assessment once you click the "Begin Assessment" button
  • Question Delivery - which will tell you whether you will see all the questions at one, or if the questions will be displayed one at a time. If displayed one at a time, it will specify whether or not you will be able to return to questions and revisit them after saving.
  • Usually, only one attempt will be allowed for an assessment; however, in some cases you may be able to take the assessment more than once. As you can see here, I have two attempts allowed for this quiz, and one attempt has already been completed. Currently, I have a grade of 10 out of 20. I'd like to improve that, so I'm going to take the test again.

It is a good idea to read the Instructions and Troubleshooting information before you start your assessment. This provides basic information about the specific assessment you are going to take, and about how assessments run in general, and lastly, some things to know to prevent or to overcome any problems you might encounter.

When you are ready to start your assessment and begin the duration timer which can not be paused, click "Begin Assessment." If the new assessment window does not appear, you will need to disable your pop-up blockers.

The most important part of taking an online test is saving your answers as you complete each question. If I choose an answer here, say "Inua Dora," you'll notice on the right hand side of the exam, that an exclamation point icon has appeared, underneath the number of the question I've just answered. This icon lets me know that while I've chosen an answer, I haven't yet saved it. So if my browser crashed right now, my instructor would not know that I had answered that question; however, if I click the "Save Answer" button, or in this case, the "Save and View Next" button, my answer will be saved on the Blackboard server. That way, if I were to have a problem with my browser, or my internet connection, or even if I lose track of time, I will still get credit for whatever work I have completed and saved.

You'll notice that the exclamation point icon on the right hand side has now been replaced with a blue checkmark. Continue on through the assessment, saving your answers as you go. You may also navigate the assessment via the numbers at right, though you'll only be allowed to navigate backwards if your instructor has allowed questions to be revisited. If this is the case, and you change your mind regarding your selection for any question, you may choose a new answer, and when you click the button to save it, it will overwrite the old answer on our Blackboard server.

As you work, take note of the clock in the upper right hand corner and use it to monitor your progress against your remaining time. Be warned however that in some cases, due to varying speeds of internet connections, the clock may be slightly off the exact time. Use it as a general guide, but also try to save all your answers and submit your assessment before the last few seconds, to ensure their going through to our server.

Before you click the "Finish" button to submit your assessment, be sure to check that all numbers have corresponding blue checkmarks. If you forgot to save one or more answers, when you click the "Finish" button, you will receive a warning pop-up, regarding the question numbers you haven't saved. These answers will not go through to your instructor for grading, so be sure to read this pop-up before clicking OK. In order to answer question number 5, which I missed, I'm going to click cancel, go back to number 5 via the navigation on the right hand side, choose my answer, and click save. This time, when I click "Finish", the pop-up window will simply ask me if I'm sure that I want to submit my assessment, which I do, so I will click OK. This submits my assessment to my instructor for grading.