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[reener06]

So, I have a student in one of my online courses who first emailed me two weeks ago. There are weekly quizzes assigned, 10 multiple choice questions, in which they have up to an hour to complete and are open-book. She has been getting 60s and 70s on these. When she emailed me, I believe she had taken 4 so far. She emailed to tell me that Bb was changing her answers, and that is why she is getting lower grades than she normally gets (her words). I emailed back and asked if she contacted Bb to report the problem. She attempted to call twice, but was on hold "so long" (her words--and she defined this as 10-15 minutes) she hung up. She wants to be able to retake the quizzes because Bb messed it up. I called Bb to see if they had any record of this, but they do not, neither of the quizzes changing nor of her phone calls (of course, b/c she hung up without speaking to anyone). The Bb help person stated he had never heard of this problem, but suggested that on the next quiz she take a picture of the screen with a camera before submitting the quiz.

I emailed her back, relayed this information to her, and said I could not allow her to retake the quizzes because she did not, as per the syllabus, contact Bb or me immediately when the problem first occurred, and there was no way I could check on this problem. In the future, I suggested she both take a picture of the screen and contact Bb--actually contact them--to set up a record of the problem. I suspected that she was lying, and didn't like her grades, so is trying to retake the quizzes; however, once quizzes are graded after submittal, students can see the answers (as a study guide for the exams) so I can't allow her to retake them.I explained this to her, and the response was "ok, thanks."

Over the weekend she contacted me again, and said she contacted Bb and they wanted to know what browser and Javascript she was using. She replied that she did not use a Javascript. There was, according to her, no response to her email, other than a notice that her ticket would be terminated if she did not provide the information to them within 5 days. She is also still getting 60s and 70s on her quizzes and is quite sure that is not what she earned. I replied she should contact Bb immediately and find out what they want, as well as send me the ticket number so I can contact them. I have yet to get that information from her.

So, fora, has anyone had experience with Bb changing the answers on a quiz in this way? Is she trying to retake the quizzes for better grades?

[larryc]

I hate BB like the pope hates sin, but I think this student is full of it. Is she taking pictures before submission now, and what do they show? And of course she is using Java, it is part of her browser (sorta).

You might also check her wrong answers against the average class performance on each question. Is BB mysteriously changing her answers only on the hardest questions? If so she is certainly full of it. That is not to say however that she has not convinced herself that it is happening.

[georgiaprof]

Would she be willing to come in and take the next one in your office to allow you to verify the changed answers?

[reener06]

Would she be willing to come in and take the next one in your office to allow you to verify the changed answers?

Well, I doubt it--she lives about 3 hours away, and I don't actually have an office. I might be able to set up a proctor at her local campus.

I did check each of her quizzes, thinking that if Bb was doing this, there may be a pattern to which ones it is changing, but none is apparent. I'll try LarryC's idea about checking it against class performance.

I do think she may have convinced herself this is happening, and/or does not like getting lower grades than she is used to. She did not, as far as I can tell, photograph the quiz after my suggestion.

I'm trying to CYA as this progresses, in case there is a complaint down the line (read: end of semester).

[caesura]

Require her to take a picture or screenshot of the quiz before submitting it; let her know you want to solve the problem but need this information in order to figure out what is happening. 

Do the students get the correct answers immediately after they submit the quiz?  If not, and she finds some reason a picture or screenshot is not possible, ask her to email you her answers immediately after submitting the quiz. 

If they do get immediate feedback*, ask her to send you an email with the answers she gave *before* she submits them.  If necessary (and your cms allows it), give her an extra five minutes on the quiz to copy and send her answers.

Of course, all of this should be conveyed as your sympathetic effort to help her get to the bottom of this vexing problem and be sure that it is solved.


*I have feedback available 1 minute after the quiz deadline to prevent "sacrificial lamb" cheating rings in which one person takes the quiz early and shares the correct answers with others in the ring.

[zuzu_]

Weird. Five minutes ago, I had a student tell me virtually the same thing.

Normally, I think BS, but this young lady right away says it's her fault because she waited until the last minute and used her friend's P.O.S. netbook, and she doesn't want me to do anything about it--she just wanted me to know why her quiz was such an epic fail.

I doubt your student is telling the whole truth, but the Bb quizzes are glitchy, and there may be some truth in there. Lately, we've been getting emails from IT about how students need to clear their caches and whatnot to avoid problems with Bb quizzes.

[this_is_my_username]

 I just had a student tell me the same thing also. I suspect he was either lying, or being careless with the touchpad mouse he uses.
 My quizzes pull randomly from a pool of questions. So I reset the quiz for him and asked him to take screenshots of his answers before submitting. I've gotten no response.

[torshi]

Yes, it's possible.  Some versions of Blackboard register an answer choice when a student intentionally or accidentally presses on the mouse on any part of an answer.  The answer button does not need to be clicked for the answer to be recorded.  Touching the mouse button on any part of the answer records that answer.  On an all-questions-on-one-page test, if a student chooses an answer for Q1, then moves the mouse over to the left of the Q1 area to read Q2, a revised answer for Q1 may be recorded while the student thinks that only a Q2 choice is being made.

When I asked the Bb staff here about it, they said it was a known issue. I haven't gotten any student complaints about it for a couple of years, so maybe it has been corrected in some versions.  Based on the information the Bb staff gave me, this bug creates an ADA issue. 

The only remedies I found were to tell students to double-check answers before submitting, and to click "save" for each answer rather than merely "submit" for the entire test.

But the longer a Bb test is open, the greater the likelihood of problems--partly because of Bb but often because of human error (student does not follow test-taking best practices, minimizes screen or looks at email, etc.).

[cathwen]

One problem I've had with Blackboard 9 is that on quizzes set to show one question at a time, students sometimes find themselves frozen out of the quiz during transitions from question to question.  I had several complaints about this at the beginning of the semester, and if the first had not come from a serious and diligent student, I might have doubted it.  But then, while taking one of my own quizzes, the same thing happened to me.  Now I set quizzes to show all questions at once.  It's not the format I prefer, but it saves headaches. 

Reener, I know this isn't the problem your students are reporting, but I'm mentioning it as another example if Blackboard glitchiness. 

[egilson]

I've never experienced this, but I don't doubt that it's happening. Maybe it would work to have the questions be fill in the blanks rather than multiple choice or true/false so that students enter the appropriate letter rather than checking a checkbox.

[motormouth]

This can happen. Here is how I can replicate it every time.

*Multiple choice test.
*Student clicks on "A" (or whatever they really want)
*Student rolls mouse wheel without clicking on vertical scroll bar at right edge of page.
*The more clicks of the wheel of the mouse they roll, the more times that one answer changes.
*Repeat for multiple questions.
*Submit test.
*Cry and whine that you really know the content.


I always tell my students about this, write it in the instructions for every test, and remind them during the test (I am using it face to face) to be sure they have NOT accidentally changed any answers.

[reener06]

Interesting. What is also interesting is that she is the only student out of 60 that has had this problem repeatedly. I'm not sure what to do about it. I'm calling Bb tomorrow, as she gave me a ticket number, but I don't see how I can change her grade.

And it's too late to change the quizzes to fill in the blank. Again, this is 1 student out of 60, really out of 120 if you count the amount of online students I"ve had in the past year. Also, she waited until she had taken 4 quizzes to alert me. I guess I'm still suspecting that she is trying to get a higher grade she didn't earn.  I will make some of the suggestions to her I find here, but she does not seem to follow suggestions very well.

[queenofstarwars]

I had a student with a similar complaint.  The problem was that he changed answers in his Bb quiz, but never saved the answsers.

[polly_mer]

I had a student with a similar complaint.  The problem was that he changed answers in his Bb quiz, but never saved the answsers.

I've seen that.  Students submit a mostly blank quiz because they took too long to answer the questions.  That's why my quizzes now have the instructions to regularly save each answer.

I've seen the mouse scroll thing on non-Blackboard internet things.  I can believe that it happens on Blackboard.  However, Reener06's student is still playing silly buggers by not taking a picture and waiting until after the fourth quiz to whine.  A good student would have reported the problem upon getting the scores and feedback from the first quiz with a picture of the second quiz.

[amlithist]

This can happen. Here is how I can replicate it every time.

*Multiple choice test.
*Student clicks on "A" (or whatever they really want)
*Student rolls mouse wheel without clicking on vertical scroll bar at right edge of page.
*The more clicks of the wheel of the mouse they roll, the more times that one answer changes.
*Repeat for multiple questions.
*Submit test.
*Cry and whine that you really know the content.


I always tell my students about this, write it in the instructions for every test, and remind them during the test (I am using it face to face) to be sure they have NOT accidentally changed any answers.

Yeah, this also happens in Banner when posting grades.  I can't count how many grade change forms I've had to do over the years because faculty members don't click out of the grade box before scrolling (and how many "A" students used to call me b*tching because their legitimate A or B had been posted as a D or F).