The Assessment module type is used to administer and report on quiz, tests, and exams.
Creating Assessments
To create an assessment:
- Navigate to the course
- Select ‘Add Modules’ > Create
- Select the Assessment module type
- Populate the module title and other fields
- Click Save.
Create Questions, set the module Settings, and create Alerts as needed for your use case.
Module Settings
Module settings apply to the entire assessment. They can be accessed on the Settings tab of the Assessment Module.
- Assessment Title Change the title for the assessment.
- Description Write a description the learner can view from the Course Catalog.
- Code Set the assessment code.
- Hide the “Next Module” button tick box option
- Show the “Previous Question” button (Not available with a Question group) tick box option
- Passmark This is the required percentage the learner needs to reach in order to pass the assessment.
- Time Limit – Set the time allotted for learners to spend on the assessment. For no time limit set to 0 hours and 0 minutes.
- Nonstop Timer – The timer will continue even if the learner leaves the course.
- Lock / Unlock Assessment (Lock Assessments after…. and allow X re-attempts upon unlock) Set an assessment to lock after a certain number of attempts. This, along with a time limit, can be beneficial to keep students from looking up answers and changing them later.
- Lock the assessment after Learner completion
- Randomize Question Display Order This option will display the questions in a random order each time a learner takes the assessment and can be selected in conjunction with other assessment options including randomize answers.
- Randomize Answers All answers for multiple choice questions will be randomized each time a learner takes the assessment.
- Require Learners to provide an answer before proceeding to the next question
- Review Answers If this is checked, when a learner finishes all the questions in the assessment, they will be able to review and change their questions.
- Send notification email on user completion When checked an email will be sent when any learner completes the assessment. This is beneficial when marking is required and during deadlines.
- Notification Email This is the email address the notification will be sent to when the Send notification email on user completion box is checked
- Display of results Set the assessment to show the learner which answers they got correct and incorrect on their assessment to ‘show results’, ‘never show results’, ‘only show results if assessment is passed or max attempts are reached’, ‘only show incorrect answers’ or ”show results with question group score’
- Show Results Once a learner has completed an assessment, they may review their final answers.
- Never Show Results A learner will never get the option to review their final answers.
- Only show results if assessment is passed or max attempts are reached – A learner will only be able to view their results if they have passed the assessment or if they have reached the maximum attempts marked in the Lock Assessment field above.
- Only show incorrect answers
- Show results with question group score
- Send an email to the learner once the module is completed tick box option
- Hide Answers If checked, the learner will not be able to view the correct answers in their assessment results.
- Resit Incorrect Questions Only If selected on an assessment, the learner would keep their correct responses from the previous attempt and only be required to reattempt the incorrect questions on any subsequent attempts.
This is how the Results will appear in Learner view if the Assessment module Settings are set to ‘Show Results’:
Note: An administrator will always have assessment results shown for their own assessments.
After clicking the Results button, the learner sees their specific Q&A with results:
How to add a new question to an Assessment
- Navigate to the Assessment Editor by either creating a new Assessment or opening an existing Assessment from within a course.
- Select ‘Create a New Question’ on the right.
Question Types
Multiple Choice
This type gives the learner the option to select one or more predetermined answers.
- Text Type the Question within the box labeled.
- Answers Add an unlimited number of possible answers. Enter the Text for each answer and mark if the answer is correct by checking the box next to the correct answer.
Keyword
The answer is typed by the learner in a short answer format. The system looks for keywords predetermined by the creator of the question. The correct answer is not case sensitive and learners need to type in only one of the correct keywords to be correct.
Free Text
The answer is typed by the learner in a short answer format. An admin will need to Mark the answer Correct or Incorrect and may give a comment before the module is passed/completed. Free text question formatting includes text and image features.
Info Page
This type allows administrators to create a page within an assessment. The info page is marked correct without requiring any input from the learner or any marking.
From the Info Page screen, these are the features available to create a page (listed from left to right):
- Make text bold
- Make text italicized
- Create a numbered list
- Create a bulleted list
- Align left
- Align center
- Align right
- Change font size
- Change paragraph format
- Change font
- Change text color
- Table
- Switch to the source to insert and edit the HTML
- Paste plain text
- Paste from Word
- Undo
- Redo
- Insert table
Tip: It may be beneficial or necessary to insert pages of information in between assessment questions. Even though the features are limited within the page, they are created using HTML therefore only has the limitations of HTML.
Hotspot
This type allows your learners select specific “hotspots” on an image. Upload an image and chose the section(s) of the image the learner must select in order to get the question correct. There is no limit to the number of hotspots a single question can have; however, all hotspots must be correctly chosen for the learner to get the answer correct.
Note: It is not recommended for Learners to take an assessment with Hotspots on a mobile device due to possible lack of accuracy to choose a correct spot.
The image should not exceed 1000px wide in Horizontal layout and should not exceed 8000px wide in Vertical layout or the hotspot will not save correctly.
Match
The Match type question type involves a learner being required to match one or more items displayed on the left-hand side of the page with a list of possible options displayed on the right-hand side of the page. The learner is required to correctly match all the displayed items to have the question marked as correct.
The Learner View presents a learner with one or more items on the left-hand side, which must be correctly matched with items available via a drop-down on the right-hand side.
Sequence
The sequence type question type/component involves a learner being required to sort a shuffled list of items into the correct order. The learner is required to correctly order all the displayed items to have the question marked as correct.
Fill in the blanks
The fill in the blanks type question type/component involves a learner being required to fill in the blank spaces by selecting the correct words/options from dropdown boxes. The learner is required to choose the correct response for each dropdown to have the question marked as correct.
Question Level Options
Question Weighting
Question weighting allows Admins to set a specific weighted value for each question. By default, each question will have a weighting of 1. Admins are then able to set certain questions with a higher value than others. This is especially useful for more complex or free text questions to make them represent a greater proportion of the total assessment score.
When a free text question is manually marked, the Administrator will mark the question as correct or incorrect. If incorrect the learner will attain 0, if correct, they get the full marks (weight) for the question. For all assessments the score is calculated as (total of weighting values for all answered questions/ total value of all questions in the assessment) X 100= score %.
Optional
All question types can now be optional. Where a question is optional, the learner can progress without answering the question. Optional questions will have a weighting of 0 when calculating the assessment score.
The optional flag is not displayed to learners so that they aren’t encouraged to skip those questions. Optional questions are ideal when you are looking to gauge extra information from learners without impacting their scores.
No Marking Required
This is a question level option for free text questions only. If the option is selected and the learner answers the question, they will mark automatically as the full weighting assigned to the question. (This could be a value of 0 or above). No Administrator marking is required when this option is selected. This can also be used with optional questions.
Show Answer Hint?
Select if you would like to show the learner the correct number of answers with the question.
The answer must be correct to progress to the next question
When checked it will force the learner to select the correct answer before they progress.
Show feedback information if answered incorrectly
When checked a box will appear below this setting (shown below) to give the learner feedback if the answer was incorrect.
Marking Guide and Marking Guide File
Marking guide text and files can be used with free text questions that require marking. When creating a free text question, if the free text question is mandatory then the marking guide text and file options will be available.
A marking guide file can be uploaded and/or marking guide text added when creating a question. These will be displayed to the marker when reviewing the responses submitted by a learner.
Upload a file (optional)
Add an image to show up on the question.
As mentioned above, images or video can be added to a question to provide further reference or support to a question. The file formats supported are: .png, .gif, .jpg, .avi, .wmv, .mpg, .mov, .flv, .m4v, .mp4 with a Maximum file size of 1Gb
Changing image size: Instead of uploading an image to the question, host an image on the web and paste the following HTML code into the question field above or below the question:<img src=”Paste the image URL here between the quotes”></img>
Changes to editing once learners have started
Once any learners have commenced an assessment the question weight, optional flag and no marking required option cannot be altered for the free text questions within the assessment. These questions will need to be removed and recreated if required to make reporting consistent with the changes.
Question Pools
When you use a Question Pool in an assessment, only a certain number of all the questions in the assessment are presented to the learner. This is useful when you want to mix up the assessments to make it harder for learners to collaborate or research answers.
To enable Question Pools:
- Create all of your questions & answers in the assessment
- Click the ‘Add a Question Group’
3. Enter a group name
4. Click Submit
5. Click ‘Reorder Questions’ and drag and drop the questions you want to use for the question pool into the question pool below.
6. Select the title of the group
7. In the Question/ Pools drop-down menu, choose ‘Use Question Pool’, select the number of questions you would like included and click “Submit”.
Note: When using question pools the randomization setting is enabled by default.
Assessment Alerts
Assessment Alerts can be added in the Alerts tab.
To select an Administrator you would like to alert when the assessment is completed by a learner and requires marking, click ‘Add to Alerts List’.
- Search for the user
- Select the user
3. Click Assign
The Administrator or Account Owner are now set to receive alerts when the assessment is completed.
Reviewing a Learner’s Assessment Answers or Previously Marked Results
A learner’s assessment answers, and previously Marked results can be viewed at the following:
- Run a quick report for the assessment module, then drill down to the module where you will see the list of learners assigned to the module, then drill down further on the learner to see their responses. Use the dropdown arrow to reveal results for past attempts.
- Use the Reporting Engine, selecting Assessment Results and including the relevant fields, i.e., Questions: User Answer.
Manual Marking
Manual marking is performed from within any of the following views:
- Dashboard>’Go to Marking’ button
- Assessment or Module Quick Report. See the Marking Required button after clicking on the module title.
- From within the Course, navigate to the course to see the ‘Marking Required’ button near the module title
This view shows the Assessment Marking screen. Here the marking guide text is displayed, and the marking document can be accessed. The Marker can also add feedback and mark the question as correct/incorrect.
Unlocking Assessment Attempts
To unlock a locked assessment so that a learner may try again:
- Navigate to the Content tab>Courses
- Search for the course then click on the title
- Click on the Unlock link to the right of the assessment module title
4. Select the learner you want to unlock
5. Choose if you want them to ‘do the whole assessment again’ or ‘just do the questions they got wrong’ and click save
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We built out a course all around creating Assessments in Litmos, check it out here: How To: Create an Assessment |