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Teaching with Technology:
Online Assessments and Surveys Using Blackboard

The assessment tools in Blackboard can be used for both formative and summative assessment of student progress in a course. Assessments can be used to measure a student’s knowledge, skills, aptitudes or beliefs. A variety of formats are available, as shown below, with many providing automatic grade calculation for the faculty:

A standard process is used whether building pools of questions, survey questions, or test questions.  The large variety of question types can be applied in surveys, pre- and post-tests, weekly quizzes, practice tests, midterms, or final examinations.  Blackboard gives faculty the ability to administer quizzes 24/7 with safeguards such as random questions for each student, timed tests, password protection and adaptive release of quizzes.

Some potentially valuable instructional uses of Blackboard assessment in higher education include:

• Formative assessment of learning to supplement summative testing
• Assessment of student knowledge without the clerical aspects of hand-grading
• Repurposing of exam material into study aids for students

The CTE offers a workshop to assist faculty members with exploring the instructional uses of these tools:  Blackboard Assessment, Respondus and StudyMate.  Faculty members interested in learning more about how these assessment tools might be used in their teaching are welcome to contact Britt Watwood at the CTE (bwatwood@vcu.edu).

Links:

• Educause Library
• Respondus and StudyMate