By Mike McNett

In discussions among both new and veteran online instructors, some of the most persistently expressed concerns center upon issues of academic honesty. How does one conduct assessments in an online course? How can you be sure that the person taking the test is actually your student? And that they are acting alone, without the book? With the proliferation of online term-paper mills, how can you be sure that the essay or term paper you receive is actually your student’s work?

When giving an exam online, how can you be sure a student is actually doing their own work? What is the most secure way to handle online examinations? While there are no magic answers to these questions, there are many strategies an instructor can use to accurately assess student performance online and minimize a student’s temptation to cheat. Consider these options:

by Dale Maeder, Professor of Educational Psychology, UCLA

My online students often wonder how their participation in class discussions is going to be evaluated. Although I know that your grade here is probably not your greatest concern, you may be interested in knowing how I will be determining the participation portion of your course grade.

Suffice it to say that there are two fundamental principles I consider when calculating this portion of your grade:

Once you’ve created your rubric, the next step is to use it. As stated before, during the creation process, you should have taken into account both who would be using the rubric and who would see the rubric. Here are some guidelines for putting the rubric to use. They may seem like a lot, but as you begin to use more rubrics, these guidelines will become second nature.

Purpose

Before creating a rubric, one must first understand the purpose of the given assessment because the rubric must be designed to meet that purpose. The six most common purposes of rubrics are listed below. They need not be mutually exclusive in all cases.

While many educators have heard of rubrics, many people have never even heard the word. We all use some form of rubric in our daily lives, even if they are not written down on paper. We might use a rubric in our mind to decide which food we like best on our plate. Is it too salty, just right, or not enough salt? In this article, we will take a look at rubrics; exploring what they are, what they do, why we need them, how we make them, how we use them, etc.

Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a useful structure in which to categorize test questions when assessing student learning. The table below describes skills demonstrated for each level of thinking according to Bloom as well as question cues that can be used to elicit student responses within that level. The same content information can be assessed at different levels of cognition. Here are some examples of test questions reflecting the six levels of learning according to Bloom.

Why Use Quizzing and Testing?

• A primary reason is to assess students’ progress. Note that this reason is different from the need to assign a grade at the end of the term.
• Quizzing and testing also encourage progress.

Quizzing and Testing

Considerations for Online Quizzes and Tests

Many innovative instructors at institutions worldwide are discovering the potential of the online environment to deliver instruction of the highest quality to people who would otherwise have limited access to higher education. This is an exciting and challenging time in education. Simply defined, online education refers to courses offered via the Internet. The minimum requirement for students to participate in an online course is access to a computer, the Internet, and motivation to succeed in a non-traditional classroom.