TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tests in itslearning
- Test Options (Old Test Tool)
- Test Question Types (Old Test Tool)
- Test Categories (Old test tool)
- Test Reports (Old Test Tool)
- Making changes to your test
Tests in itslearning
Adding a test
Begin by adding a title and an introduction. Here are some examples as to what you might include in the introductory section as information for your students:
- Watch the following video and then answer the following questions to show what you have learned. (Embed an instructional video.)
- Read the following selection and then complete this 5-question quiz to show your understanding. (Paste an informational paragraph into the rich text editor.)
- This test will cover all of the material from Unit 4. Good luck!
Once you have titled your test and included an introduction, attach learning objectives. Remember, when you add activities from plans, learning objectives from the lesson will already be attached. If you are assessing an entire unit, you may include many learning objectives.
Next, decide if you want to set a deadline and if you want students to be able to submit their response after the deadline.
You can also decide to set the task as homework so that it will have the purple Homework label.
You will also need to indicate what type of assessment you will be utilizing. Keep in mind that scores can be added to the grade book and included in a student’s overall average. If you are adding the score to the grade book, select the term and category.
Next, indicate if this is a mandatory assignment or not. By default, since there are no questions, the test will be set to inactive. Choose “Save.”
At this point, you may begin to build your test. There are four tabs: test, test categories, questions, and reports. Begin by adding questions.
Test Options (Old Test Tool)
When you edit a test, you will have the opportunity to change the test options. To edit a test, click the ellipsis in the upper right-hand corner, and select Edit test settings. Then, select the options tab.
Within these options, there are five main categories:
- Scoring method
- With penalty penalizes participants with a negative score if an answer is incorrect on a question. This option may prevent the participants from guessing for correct answers.
- Without penalty does not penalize for incorrect answers. Only correct answers are rewarded.
- Criteria for completion
- You can set a percentage that a student must attain to receive a 'Completed' status on a test.
- Display questions in random order allows for random assignment of questions. If you create a test with 100 questions and only assign 20 questions for students to complete, they may all receive a completely different test!
- Question navigation: There are three navigation options: forward only, free navigation, and show all questions on one page.
- Attempts: You can set the number of attempts in which a student may take a test, which score will count, and how long the student has to complete the test.
- Results and feedback:
- On questions: Provides feedback after every question. Here you can define your own feedback messages that appear if: the answer is correct, the answer is partially correct, or the answer is incorrect
- On alternatives: Provides feedback after every alternative. You must add a feedback message manually to each alternative when you add a question.
- No feedback: No feedback is shown.
The Test Mode Browser is an add-on that 'locks down' a student's computer while the student is taking a test. Using this option, students cannot open any other browser windows or applications. The students must remain in test mode until they finish the test. Read more about the Test Mode Browser in this dedicated article.
Test Question Types (Old Test Tool)
- Either/Or
- Multiple Choice
- Multiple Response
- Short Answer
- Open Answer
- Select from a List
- Fill in the Blank
- Match
- Order
- Hotspot - click the picture*
*Note: This question type no longer works.
(The screenshots below are from the old Test tool and will be replaced once the old Test tool is retired.)
Either/Or
This type of question can be utilized for true/false or yes/no questions. The teacher may also create options such as:
- Foreign Language: In the following audio recording, Mary is describing her summer vacation. (The audio recording is in Spanish.) Where did Mary go during her summer vacation? Beach/Camping
- Literature: In the following paragraph, Tom is the… Protagonist/Antagonist
- Art: Which of the following images illustrates the Post-Modernist Period of Art? (Two images of artwork would be added to the rich text editor.)
Multiple Choice and Multiple Response
These traditional question types are self-explanatory, and can be enhanced by multimedia elements in the question and answer choices.
The set up in a multiple response question is identical to that of a multiple-choice question, however, there can be more than one response. For example, a multiple response question with 4 alternatives can be answered in 16 different ways.
Short Answer
Short answer questions are easy to create, but they demand that you think through the possible outcomes of the question. You must phrase it in such a way that the answer is short and concise… the student answer cannot exceed 90 characters. Answers may be automatically assessed utilizing key words. For example:
Literature: “What is a poem?” Keywords may include the following: rhyme, rhythm, beat, figurative language, etc.
Open Answer
Open answer questions cannot be assessed automatically, and this question type is often used for essays. Students will also have access to the rich text editor, so they may include images, video, sound recordings, equations, etc. in their response. In the following example, students may write their own math problem based on the facts provided.
Foreign Language: Use the recording tool in the rich text editor to record yourself reading the following sentence. You will be assessed on fluency and pronunciation.
Matching
This question type provides students with two lists to match based on the directions. Students drag and drop the correct answer into the space provided (as seen here.) Students may even match a picture to a word or an audio recording.
To create this question, first place the directions within the rich text editor. Then add the matching information in the correct order.
Select from a List
For this question type, students select an answer based on a drop-down list of alternatives. Here is a math example:
Complete the following statement with the correct terms:
The top number of a fraction is called ______ and represents ______. The bottom number on a fraction is ____________ and represents .
The dropdown list would include four alternatives: the numerator, the denominator, a part, the whole.
Notice the directions are listed in the introductory text and the actual question is listed in the second text box. Highlight a word and use the “create blank” option to create a blank. The list of alternatives will appear in a drop-down list.
Fill in the Blank
This question type is similar to the ‘select form a list,’ however it requires students to type in a response. If the answer is spelled incorrectly it will be marked wrong. If this is the case, it may be better to utilize the ‘select from a list’ question type.
To create a fill in the blank question, first provide an introduction text (directions). In the second text box, enter the text that you want the participants to fill in the blank. Then, select a word to ‘blank out’ and choose ‘create blank.’ This will create a green box around the word. You may choose multiple words and even provide key words as alternatives.
The use of keywords is beneficial if there are multiple answers for a single blank.
For example:
Mixing the colors ________ and ______ make the color green.
The blanked words would be: Blue (alternative – yellow) and Yellow (alternative – blue)
Order
This question type asks participants to arrange a series of items in the correct order. You could, for example, ask participants to rank a list of alternatives from largest to smallest or place words in alphabetical order. The items appear in a drag and drop format.
Hotspot - click the picture
This question type no longer works as it was based on Flash technology which is now deprecated.
If you export tests containing this question type, they will be imported in the new test tool as "Select point" questions. This works even if the questions are disabled in the test.
Import and export
"Hotspot" questions type exported from the old itslearning Test Tool can be imported and will be displayed as "Select point". Note: If you have an old test where a question of this type is disabled, it will still be included in the export.
You might experience some issues with imports of older questions due to changes that have been made in input validation or file formats over the years. In this instance, we recommend you create new questions instead.
Test Categories (Old test tool)
Test Reports (Old Test Tool)
Note: If the questions were aligned to learning objectives, mastery is tracked within the learning objectives progress report.
Making changes to your test
Changes after a student has started taking a test
Question score: If you have already scored a question manually, you cannot set the new question max score to a value lower than the highest score you have given any student.
Category assigned to the question: You can only change the category score if the category does not contain manually scored questions.
Category score: If you change the category of a question, this means you could potentially change the distribution of questions for some students compared to your setup for when drawing from categories, if their selection contained the question that is changed.
When you save changes that affect the calculation of score, attempts that are already submitted will be recalculated. You will see a notification that this will happen, and need to confirm your action. This can only be undone by manually changing the score back to what it was before.
Test settings
Deadline: Can only be changed to a future date
Number of attempts: Can only be increased, not decreased
Results
As the students submit their attempts, the 'Result' tab in the Test page will start being populated.
In the example below, the test requires manual assessment. The teacher will see that she has assessed two of the student submissions, and two remain. 
Clicking any row for a detailed view of the attempt.
Click 'Add feedback' to enter a short comment for this attempt. This field is limited to 255 characters.
Click "Edit scores" to enter manual results. The options will change, a box to enter points is available for each question requiring manual assessment, and those questions are also expanded on the list:
For responses longer than 150 words, there will be a link to open the full answer in a modal, where there is also an option to enter the score.