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[kedves]

I've been giving online tests in my on-the-ground classes for three or four years, mostly uneventfully except for connectivity and other technical problems.  But for some reason, this spring I am getting a slew of complaints about inadequate time and taking tests online.

I'm giving 1.5 minutes per question for a test of 10 to 35 questions.  The complaints are from slow readers.  Each online question is worth 1 or 2 of 500 points in the semester, 0.002 or 0.004 of the course grade.

The other complaint is about taking tests online, period: "Can I please please take it on paper?"  I wouldn't want to offer this opportunity only to students who asked for it, and offering it to the entire class would change the function of the online test.

I am getting scores ranging from 30% to 95%, and medians of 70%, all of which is typical.

How often do you get these complaints, and how do you respond?

[kedves]

Another question:  How much do you penalize students who exceed the time limit by, say, more than one minute?

This is the first semester I have gotten a lot of those, too.

[larryc]

I have a sliding scale--the first 60 seconds over is on me, after that it they lose 10 percent for every additional minute over.

Students who want a quiz reset because of connection issues need to call the Help Desk, get to the bottom of the problem, then submit a form to show that they did so.

As to students who don't have enough time, they are actually complaining that they don't have enough time to look up the answers. I tell them that I am sorry to hear it, that I understand if they drop the course, and that I am teaching it in the classroom next semester.

[high_energy_photons]

If these are students with disabilities who normally get extra time on tests, then I would extend the test time.  If not, make sure you are clear on what is expected on these tests.

For example, "Yes, the online test is technically open book, but if try to look up every answer while you are taking it, you will run out of time.  It is your responsibility to prepare adequately for the time available."

Often, students don't prepare as much for online tests as for traditional tests, even though it is necessary for success.

[kedves]

Thanks, LarryC and Highenergyphotons.

It was puzzling to get a group of panicky emails and overtime test-takers in one day after giving over 100 online tests here, but it turns out that many students were taking their first online test ever on that day--chance.  They have the same amount of time that they would on an in-class test but weren't looking at it that way.  We did practice tests for extra credit, but not everyone took that test. 

Everyone seems to have settled down.  I'm going to work with the student who has online test anxiety because she's going to need to get through this.

The 10%-per-minute past one minutes sounds fair.

[melba_frilkins]

I don't penalize students for going over time, the system simply shuts the test down and submits whatever answers they've done already. Nice and clean and I don't have to go back and check anything.

I used to get those kind of complaints from online students. But they seem to have gone away on their own. That was a few years ago. What I would tell the online students is along the lines of: your test has 50 questions. Usually I give 50 questions in a 50 minute class, but we only have 45 minutes by the time I answer questions and get the exams handed out. So typically the 50 questions get 45 minutes in class. But here online, you get a full 60 minutes.

I always include a note along the lines of what HEP said in my syllabus, yes the online quizzes are open-book but you don't have time to look up very many answers.

On most of my online quizzes, students can attempt them multiple times for a higher score. Each quiz pulls from a larger block of possible questions.

[shamu]

For example, "Yes, the online test is technically open book, but if try to look up every answer while you are taking it, you will run out of time.  It is your responsibility to prepare adequately for the time available."

Chime. There are some students who may think that they do not have to study for on-line exams, because they can look up the answers on the spot.

On a different note, at my university (and pretty much most, if not all of them), students who need special accommodations are granted them, but they have to register with the proper center in a timely manner.

[spyzowin]

I've been giving online tests in my on-the-ground classes for three or four years, mostly uneventfully except for connectivity and other technical problems.  But for some reason, this spring I am getting a slew of complaints about inadequate time and taking tests online.

I'm giving 1.5 minutes per question for a test of 10 to 35 questions.  The complaints are from slow readers.  Each online question is worth 1 or 2 of 500 points in the semester, 0.002 or 0.004 of the course grade.

The other complaint is about taking tests online, period: "Can I please please take it on paper?"  I wouldn't want to offer this opportunity only to students who asked for it, and offering it to the entire class would change the function of the online test.

I am getting scores ranging from 30% to 95%, and medians of 70%, all of which is typical.

How often do you get these complaints, and how do you respond?

The secret to online tests is to be concrete and specific in the instructions and description. I always tell them exactly how long they have, how many questions there are, what sort of questions there are, how many points each question is worth, whether or not there will be partial credit given, whether or not the questions appear in random order, whether or not they will be able to backtrack and check their answers, whether or not they will be presented with questions one at a time, whether or not they will have to take the test once they open it and so on.

Every online test gets these instructions or descriptions in very very similar language. I make sure that I post the instructions and directions to the announcements page, and I email them to the class.

I believe in as much transparency as possible, but I still get students claiming to have had computer disasters. I will "believe" them once, but then again, my online tests are only 25% of the term's grade and there are a lot of them.

[johnr]

As to students who don't have enough time, they are actually complaining that they don't have enough time to look up the answers.

That is EXACTLY correct.  It's the same with an in-class open-book test.  Students take MUCH longer to take the exam because they didn't really study for it (assuming that they could look up the answers as they take the exam).

[spec2462]

If they need a re-set, I just give it to them. If the go over time/deadline I take a point off for every 30 seconds. They get way more time than they need anyway (if they actually read/studied before hand). I make everything clear and specific regarding the times and structure of the test. It's all spelled out in the syllabus. I use random question blocks from question pools, so each student/attempt in a unique test. I give them a low stakes "syllabus quiz" at the very beginning so they can work out the bugs and get their feet wet. I give them 3 days to take their tests. It's all up front, all more than reasonable. If they don't comply, I'm merciless.

[boston]

I've given up on time limits for online tests for several reasons:

(1) Every timed online test I have ever given has resulted in complaints.

(2) Every semester, I have at least one disability student that requires 50% more test time. If I want to impose strict time limits, I have to create two Blackboard tests - one for the disability students and one for everyone else. Both of these tests show up in the gradebook and confusion inevitably ensues among the undergrads. If I don't do the two test method with forced completion, I have to manually enter grades for every student who goes over the time limit.

(3) Timed online tests unfairly disadvantage students with slow connection speeds, especially if you use the one-question-at-a-time option. This semester I have two students in my online class that are stationed in Iraq and both complain of extremely slow connection speeds.

As an alternative, I've thrown out the time limit and made the questions more difficult. I'm still getting a nice bell curve but now I've stopped getting complaints from students. I should note that I teach a very large 101 class at a traditional 4-year uni. Many of my students are first-years who have never taken an online class before.

[kedves]

I'm posting to my old thread to add something interesting I'm noticing as my students are taking a 60-multiple-choice-questions/one-short-essay exam. 

The time limit is 2 hours, which I was required to give because that's the in-room exam time.  But very few students are taking close to 1 hour.   Some are taking it in less than 20 minutes.  On average, they are giving themselves only 30-40 seconds per question for an exam worth 25% of the course grade, with an average grade of C so far. 

[spyzowin]

If the average grade is C, then it's probably a pretty well-designed test. What about A/B's and D/F's? are they balanced?

[kedves]

If the average grade is C, then it's probably a pretty well-designed test. What about A/B's and D/F's? are they balanced?

Yes, everything is a nicely shaped distribution.  It just surprised me that they rushed through the test!  I don't have any way to confirm this with Blackboard statistics, but the better scores seem to be closer to 60 min. spent taking the test and the lowest scores closer to 15 min.

[flutter]

" Dear student, I'll look into it and if multiple students have similar problems, I'll consider additional credit." If there really is a problem across the board, I may give back a few points. If not, I don't. They love it if you give back even 3 points. . .