Edit Assessments

From the Edit Assessments link, you can create and edit your Labs and Examinations (and Case Studies, available with the Financial Accounting courses). You can also view a summary of your assignments, and import assignments from one of your other courses. With the Introduction to Financial Accounting, Macroeconomics, and Microeconomics courses, a tool is also available which allows you to create a printable multiple-choice exam.

Your instructor privileges allow you to override the settings that you set for the students: for example, you can run a Lab or Examination before its Start Date and you can exceed the maximum number of attempts; and for an Examination, you will receive the feedback even if you set it to "hide the feedback until the due date has passed".

The Edit Assessments link appears on the course home page.

The following numbered list explains the instructor tools available on the Edit Assessments page:

1) Course Section

In the Section field, select a course section from the drop-down menu in order to view the assignments in that section.

When you select a Section, its Labs are displayed at the top of the page, followed by Examinations, and then--in Financial Accounting courses only--Case Studies.

2) Assignments

Labs are designed to provide formative assessment, to guide the student's learning. The Lyryx problems are designed by experienced instructors, and the Lyryx marking algorithms capture their expertise to analyze and assess students’ work, looking for common errors, consistent mistakes through multi-part questions, and arithmetic errors, providing instant and formative personalized feedback. Students are encouraged to learn from the feedback and repeatedly try new randomly generated instances of the same problems until mastery. Only their best grade of all attempts will be recorded. The name "lab" is intended to better reflect an experiment rather than a homework traditionally submitted only once for marking .

Examinations are designed to provide summative assessment: allowing students to demonstrate what they have learned. They are intended to be conducted with a single attempt and maximum duration.

Case Studies are available in the various Financial Accounting products. They are extended assignments involving a relatively complex scenario. Successful completion is based on a comprehensive understanding of the corresponding material and obtained by successfully completing several parts. They can be used for course projects or even as part of examinations.

i) Create New Assignment

To create a new Lab or Examination, click the "New Assignment" link at the top of the page, select "Lab" or "Examination", enter a name for that assignment, and click "Add":

ii) Edit Labs

To edit a Lab, click on either the "+" sign or the name of the assignment to open the editing tools for that assignment. Labs can be started anytime after the availability date and time, and a better mark is recorded if submitted before the end availability date and time.

Because clocks are not perfectly synchronized, a five minutes grace period is automatically added to the End Date/Time.

The following settings can be edited:

• Available On (Start Date and Time): Select the date and time when the labs becomes available to students. These entries can be selected from the calendar menu, or entered manually.
  
• End Date / Time: This represents the last date/time that the student's best grade will be recorded. To be more specific, the student's best grade, of the maximum attempts allowed, within the duration allowed, and submitted before the time set in the end date/time, will be recorded. After this time, Labs can still be run for practice and review, but the grades for these attempts will not be recorded
• In addition, and for Labs only, you can choose to allow students to run each question individually (the questions will be graded one at a time), or to run all questions at once (the entire assignment must be completed before it can be submitted for grading. Note that if this option is selected, students cannot redo individual questions in subsequent attempts--they will need to complete the entire assignment in each attempt.)
• Duration: This setting allows you to limit the duration that the students can run the attempt. For Labs, this setting is enabled only if the selection above is set as "Run all questions at once." Note that for Labs, if a duration is set, then students will not have the option to save partial work as this would nullify the intent of a duration.
• Attempts: This setting allows you to limit the number of attempts allowed.
  
• Chapter/Section: For comprehensive products, you can set the Lab to appear at the Section or Chapter level, because these products contain an HTML version of the textbook. This will determine where the Lab will show up for students: For example, a Lab set for "Chapter/Section: 1" will appear at the end of Chapter 1 in the menu on the left side of the Course Home page (that is, in the corresponding chapter and section in that menu), as illustrated in the following image. If the Lab is set as "Not Assigned", it will appear only in the display of all assignments that appears on the Course Home page. This Chapter/Section tool appears below the "Duration" tool.
  

iii) Edit Examinations

The functionality of Examinations is slightly different than Labs due to their different intended purpose.The main difference is an exam availability window: a start date and time when the examination becomes available, and an end date and time when the examination availability ends. A duration must be set. This provides students with a time “window” to start the examination, so they will be granted the full duration from the time they start. Because clocks are not perfectly synchronized, a one minute grace period is automatically added to the End Exam Availability time.

The following settings can be edited:

• Start Exam Availability: This date and time indicates the start of the availability window. Students can now start the exam.
• End Exam Availability: This date & time indicates the end of the availability window. Students must start the exam prior to that point.
• Duration: This value (in minutes) indicates the maximum allowed time available to complete the examination. All students will be granted that duration from the time they start, and the examination will automatically submit when the duration expires.
  
• Delay Feedback: Instructors can choose to to withhold the marking feedback at their discretion until all students have completed the examination.
• Feedback Availability: If the feedback has been selected to be delayed, then you need to set a date and time for the feedback to be available.
• Attempts: While examinations are normally conducted under a single attempt, this setting is retained allowing the instructor to set a different number of attempts allowed.
  
• Password: The password feature is well-suited for an in-class examination, as the instructor can release the password when it is time for students to begin the exam. It can serve as an additional security measure.
  

iv) Common tools for Labs and Examinations

The following editing tools are available for both Labs and Examinations:

• The Save button enters the assignment into the course.
• The Revert button resets the boxes/parameters since the last "Save".
• The Edit Questions button opens the question bank. After clicking on that button, open the folders of the cascading menu (in the "Question Bank" column on the left) to access the list of questions for a particular chapter and section of the textbook. When you click on a question, its name, description, and total points possible will be displayed in the center column. Click the "Add" button to add the question to the assignment. The column on the right will display the set of questions and the total possible points for that assignment.
• The icons on the right side of the page provide additional editing tools:

Caution: When renaming Labs or Examinations, choose the new names carefully, as it can become confusing and difficult to organize the list.

Remember to click the Save icon before leaving this page.

v) Edit Case Studies

To edit the settings for the Case Studies (available in the Financial Accounting courses), scroll down below the Labs and Examinations to reach the list of Case Studies. Click the "+" icon in front of the Case Study to view the editable fields, as the following image shows:

The setting above that shows as "Available for students after start date" also includes the option "Hidden from students", allowing you to hide the case study from students if you are not using it.

Remember to click Save, to save your changes.

vi) Additional Tools

Additional assignments tools are available under the "Edits Assessments" tool bar.

• View Summary: Generates a detailed summary of all of your assignments. This summary includes the assignment name, start and due dates, names of the questions along with the corresponding section of the textbook, and a brief description of the question.
• Import: Allows you to import a set of assignments from one of your other courses.
• M/C Exam Builder: Allows you to create a printable multiple-choice exam. Note: This feature is available only with the Introduction to Financial Accounting, Macroeconomics, and Microeconomics courses.

Please see the article 'Assignments' page - additional features for more details: