Customized Testing:

The Administrative Control Application gives instructors the ability to develop and administer supervised tests, such as Unit Tests, Mid-Terms, Finals, etc., which are delivered and graded electronically. Thus if an instructor has access to a computerized classroom or lab, a "group" test may be administered covering lectures, other assigned materials, and/or multiple-chapter coverage of assigned electronic readings. The "editor" tool for developing such tests allows you to import pre-typed questions from a text file, to type in your own questions (as you might wish to do for coverage of lectures), to select questions from topics included in the textbook's testbank, or to combine any or all of these sources into one test with your own customized test label/name. These tests may then be scheduled for a specific delivery date and given on only "unlocked" computers assuring only supervised test administration. Such supervised testing allows a student only one opportunity to take the test and thus becomes "locked" to further testing once the first testing results have been submitted and posted.

To begin the process of working with customized tests, you first must have selected a course section with which to work, then use the "Connection" menu at the top left of your screen to select "Extra Tests (Exams)":

 

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Naming a New Test/Exam:

The first thing you are likely to want to do when you go to the exam creation/editing tool is to create a new exam for supervised administration. To begin this process, you first need to decide upon a name for this particular exam. Your test's name is registered by using the "Test Data" menu to select the "Create New Test" option, as illustrated:

 

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This will bring up a dialog box asking you for an appropriate name to distinguish this test from your other custom tests:

 

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You may want to call your new test simply "Test 1" or "Mid-Term Exam" or any other descriptive lable by which students will know this test and use it to find their respective grades earned on this test within their electronic textbooks. (Yes, student performances are immediately graded electronically upon completion. Individual grades are posted as a part of a student's "Scores History" which is accessible at any time on the student's "Certification" screen and/or through the "Scores" retrieval process in the Instructor's Administrative Control stack!)

Composing your new Test/Exam:

Once you have primed the editor/creation tool for working with a new test (in our illustration below the exam has been named "Mid-Term Test"), you have several options for populating this test with questions. You may, for example, choose to select some questions used within the electronic textbook's tutorial and certification test bank. To do this, use the "Data Source" button at the far left of the services bar at the top of your application and select the option "Get Topic's Questions" as illustrated:

 


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This brings up an outline of the entire textbook, chapter by chapter and topic by topic (the first topic in each chapter is the Chapter Review topic), as illustrated below:

 


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Select any desired topic and the questions (or Text if you use that option and want to read the respective topic to create your own questions) will appear within the "source" field at the top of the screen. Clicking on any line of text in this field will place that line as a formatted question in the lower-left field, which has "Use As:" followed by the native format of the question (whether Multiple Choice, Fill-Blank, etc.) as illustrated:

 


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Should you decide you wish to use this question in your new test, you may alter its format as it is to be used in your test. If you desire to do this, use the "Use As:" pull-down menu to select the desired format as illustrated:

 


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After you have the question and desired format selected, merely click on the arrow at the far-left-bottom of the aqua-colored Test Field to include the question into your new test contruction. This process is illustrated by the highlighted area showing cursor placement and help pop-up in the picture below:

 


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Clicking on this arrow moves your question in its currently selected format (as verified by the first two letters leading the question line in the test field) into the test field. You can see the first portion of the question following that format code, and the status fields beneath the test field report how many of each kind and how many total questions you currently have in the test field:

 


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Editing/Deleting Items in your Test/Exam:

You may select a question in your current exam at any time merely by clicking on that line in the Test field. This causes the question selected to appear in the question format field where it may be edited any way you like. If you wish merely to remove the selected question from your test, click on the "Delete" button that is located just to the right of the question insertion arrow described earlier. To edit this question you should use the "Lock/Unlock" toggle button at the top-left of the Question Field to unlock the field so you may select text and retype, just as you would in any word processor. When you have completed your editing, you may wish to replace the old with the new. Use the arrow button as if you were adding the question and the following dialog appears asking whether you wish to replace the selected line or add the edited question without deleting or replacing the original:

 


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Creating Your Own Items for a Test/Exam:

Unlocking the question field as just described also allows you at any time to use the question layout field to type in your own question and answers, to decide on an appropriate presentation format, and then to move it into your test. Thus, if you wish, you may begin with a totally new test, give it a name, begin constructing your own items (for example, items testing your lectures), moving them to the test field one-by-one, then saving them as a test entirely of your own items.

Saving your New Test/Exam:

All test construction work must be saved, either as a local file or to the server's databases. It is a good idea to save your work (preferably to the server) occasionally as you are working. You will definitely want to do this when you have complete your new test! To do this, use the "Test Data" menu and select "Save Test Data" as illustrated below:

 


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Editing or Adding to a Saved Test/Exam:

If you wish to save your work at some stage and then return later to continue composing or editing your exam, or if you wish to "recycle" an old exam for a new one, you may. To continue work on an existing exam you will use the "Data Source" menu and select the desired test from the pop-up list connected to the "Load Test for Editing..." option, as illustrated below:

 


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If you wish to use a previous test as a source for questions to be used in constructing a new test, use the "Load Test as Source..." option instead of the "Load Test for Editing..." option. These two options work in much the same manner, except for the field in which the data are loaded (i.e., the question source field or the current test construction field).

Should you select to load a new test for editing while currently working on an existing test, you may encounter an reminder dialog telling you that the current test hasn't been saved, and thus allowing you to save it so it isn't lost. NOTE that it defaults to saving your test to File, not the server. To save your test to the server, use the Cancel button and then save your test to the database on the server as described previously:

 

 

Saving a Test/Exam as a Printable File for Hard Copy:

There is an option for saving an existing test to formatted text files that may be opened in any word processor and printed to hard-copy, should you find a need to create and store exams electronically but administer them as paper-pencil exams.

However, we would caution that printing questions that were obtained from the electronic textbook's tutorial and certification test bank may ultimately compromise on-line certification if tests are allowed to circulate!

First load any existing exam as if you were planning to Edit that exam (i.e., using the "Load Test for Editing... option). Then the option for making files of the loaded test is in the "Test Data" menu under "Make Print Out Files" as illustrated below. Printable files of both unkeyed and keyed versions of the test are made simultaneously and are placed in the root folder where your Instructor's Control Administration application resides.

 


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Upon selecting this option, you will see a dialog telling you that you have the option of printing your test in the exact order in which the items appear in your test field, or you may randomize them within types of questions. That is, you will have a numbered, but randomized, listing of all Multiple Choice questions followed by a succeeding randomized listing of Fill-Blank, etc.

 


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When the files have been created, another dialog appears reminding you that two files (one with unmarked correct answers--always randomly presented, and one with correct answers marked with a double asterik as a Test Key).

Scheduling a Test for Administration:

There are two steps involved in scheduling your custom test for administrtion. The first step involves setting the administrative format parameters for that administration. This includes selecting whether the test should be administered in a "Browse Questions" within a restricted "Total Time for Testing" mode or in a "Timed Questions" with no "return-to-questions" access mode.

 


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This panel also shows you the current number and type of each question in your test, and gives you alternative ways of scoring the test. Scoring may be on a graded scale and merely show letter grades earned or may be set to show the percentage earned out of your choice of total points assigned to each test. Once all parameters have been set, you will need to save your composition to the server, as illustrated below:

 


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Now you are ready to assigned a date for your test. This is accomplished using the familiar test scheduling section. You should navigate to this page for the scheduling process by selecting the "Go to LogIn" option of the "Data Source" menu as illustrated:

 


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You should now see all of your customized tests at the bottom of the Certification Chapters' listing. Select the desired test for scheduling, then click on the calendar date desired for administration. Be sure to save these new deadlines to the server. Note that for Custom tests, unlike chapter tests, only this specific date will be honored for test administration, and only from "unlocked" computers.

 


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Unlocking Computers for Supervised Test Administration:

There are two required "states" that must be met for a student to be allowed to take a supervised test. First, each specific computer must be "unlocked" for testing. This process requires secured key combinations which are used to access a panel asking for your supervisor password. Both the password and the key combinations are sent to registered instructors via e-mail correspondence with administration at (AI)². Using this process repeatedly during the day, instructors may actually "toggle" a computer on/off at any time, such as when there are multiple sections of administration during a day interrupted by non-testing periods.

The second condition to be met is the scheduled date, which is checked against the date on our servers, not the administering computer. This assures instructors that a student may not take the test except under required conditions.

Self-Explanatory Menu Options:

Other options afforded by the menus are relatively self-explanatory, with many serving functions also afforded by buttons, such as the "move question to test" arrow, the "delete question from test" button, etc.

Next Topic.....(Posting Special Assignment Categories and Scores Earned)




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