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Assessments provide feedback to both instructors and students about performance and progress towards learning outcomes. Typically, assessment efforts are focused on two types, either formative or summative assessments. Formative assessment provides the student with feedback to facilitate their learning without necessarily being attached to a grade or other "high stakes." This type of assessment is more immediate. Summative assessment attempts to quantify student performance at some point in time, such as with a final exam. This type of assessment measures learning over time. In general, assessments serve multiple functions: to assess and encourage progress and give instructor feedback, to use as a pre-test or post-test, to give corrective feedback, to identify where additional work is needed, and to measure student learning.

Online teaching and learning represent an unparalleled opportunity for rethinking assessment in higher education. An online environment allows for an emphasis on formative assessment, where a regular assessment-feedback loop can help the instructor monitor performance and development of understanding, and provide formative feedback. This type of assessment may include:

For summative assessment in online courses, e-portfolio assessment is gaining popularity. E-portfolios may include objective and problem-based/essay exams, collaborative group work, peer-reviewed work, class discussion activity, writing samples, case studies, and web resources. Other forms of summative assessment may include online discussions, group projects, and electronic submission of assignments. Evaluated together, these assessment techniques provide a strong basis for summative grading in an online course.

Students in an online course may be geographically dispersed, therefore assessments are best given online. However, some instructors are uneasy when they can’t oversee the test taker, as they might in the classroom. Yet, requiring students to be proctored at an educational institution or a commercial testing center is not only labor intensive, but, for students, runs counter to their goals of accessibility and convenience which led them to distance education in the first place.

On the positive side, online test taking tools are becoming very flexible. Course development tools like Blackboard, allow timed, remediated quizzes with automatic grading, and online posting of scores. Of course, the quiz types available in Blackboard - true/false, multiple choice, and essay - have their own strengths and shortcomings, as shown below:

Format	Variation	Advantages	Disadvantages
True/false	Yes/No	Relatively easy to Construct Correct Administer	Guessing Not reliable indicator of depth of knowledge
Multiple choice	Multiple answer Ordering Matching Fill in the blank	Relatively easy to Construct Correct	Not reliable indicator of depth of knowledge Choices may be too close in meaning
Essay	Short answer Long answer	Relatively easy to Construct Administer Good indicator of depth of knowledge	Correction is subjective Penalizes weak writers/typists Requires content expert to correct

Reduction in the amount of time marking and grading assignments and exams
Allows for testing at any time and anywhere
Administration is simplified
Banks of questions can be randomized so that students can test a wide section of the course (which can also reduce cheating)
Certain types of questions can be scored instantly, so students have detailed and immediate feedback, rather than having to wait for lecturers to mark manually
Lecturers are able to use diagnostic tests to detect problems with individuals or the whole class
Assess progress of students more frequently
Students are able to monitor their progress
Allows inclusion of multimedia elements in the test questions
Automatically generated statistics (makes student result data easier to collate, analyze and diagnose)

Cheating
Technical problems
Must have technology skills and a computer
Time consuming to develop tests
Need large test bank
Most suitable for objective questions (multiple choice, true and false, short answer and matching-type questions)
Need a back-up plan

The success of any online or web-assisted course is affected by the quality of the technology and the support staff, which can be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on the institution. Fortunately, Pace University is well equipped to handle both the technological and instructional support for faculty and students.

Blackboard's assessment tools can be used to facilitate teaching and learning by:

Providing you and your students with feedback on their progress
Helping you identify student misconceptions or difficulties with the material
Helping students keep up-to-date with the pace of the course
Providing students the opportunity to practice and review their skills and knowledge
Freeing up class time for instruction rather than delivery of assessments
Saving you time on grading and providing feedback to students

Blackboard's assessment tools allow you to create both quizzes and surveys using a simple, step-by-step process. Results are automatically recorded in the Online Gradebook (except for short answer/essay questions) and can only be viewed by the instructor. Students can view their individual grades securely as well. The Pool Manager in Blackboard allows you to build pools of questions that you could use in other Blackboard courses and/or in order to randomize questions.

Set time limit (Set the amount of time students have to finish the test)
Time the release of the assessment (allows you to set up the start and end date/time of the test)
Set password (Require students to enter a password to access the test)
Provide student feedback

Score only (Only the final score is presented)
Detailed Results: (The student's answers and final score are presented)
Show Correct Answers (The student's answers and final score are presented, as well as the correct answers)
Detailed Results, Correct Answers and Feedback (Student is shown everything above)

Organize test presentation

All at Once: The student is presented the entire assessment on one screen
Question: The student is presented only one question at a time

Prohibit Backtracking: Prevent students from returning to questions they've already answered.

Randomize Questions Randomize the assessment questions for each assessment attempt (each student will see a different order)

The survey option in Blackboard allows you to create opinion polls, course evaluations, and baseline knowledge tests. The survey option records responses anonymously (although it does record which students have submitted a survey but does NOT tie the responses to individual students).

The difference between quizzes and surveys are that tests (quizzes) are automatically graded and recorded into the Online Gradebook. Feedback can also be built into the test. Surveys, however, are not graded- student submissions of surveys are indicated by a check mark in the Online Gradebook. Surveys do not give the student feedback and will not associate responses with the student- responses are anonymous.

Finally, blackboard's assessment feature includes pools that allow you to build questions that are stored for reuse. Pools may be exported for archival purpose or future use. They may also be imported from other Blackboard courses. Pools can also be used for sharing test questions with your colleagues who are using Blackboard. Finally, they can be used to create multiple versions of an assessment by drawing random subsets of questions.

I have shared with you some best practices, tips and suggestions for administering assessments in Blackboard for both traditional and online courses. For more information, or for help in implementing assessments in your course, please feel free to contact me at kleonardo@pace.edu.