Designing Online Assessments

When you assess student learning in an online environment, the dynamics change:

• You are not co-located with your students in a physical classroom.
• There is often a time lag between students posing questions and instructors responding.
• It may be harder to gauge which students are engaging with the learning.
• Virtual, as opposed to in-person, class discussions create an environment where introverted students tend to be more comfortable. As well, because students are not pressured to respond immediately, online responses tend to be more carefully formulated. 
• Group work may be more (or less) challenging for students depending on their schedules or time zones.
• An online environment can present opportunities for multimodal and/or alternate assessments which are in line with Universal Design for Learning Guidelines.

Aligning assessments with your learning outcomes is an important first step in designing effective assessments for online learning.  This is because it:

• Allows you to assess how well students have learned what you expected and intended them to learn.
• Unveils the types of knowledge and skills students will need to learn and practice before they begin the assessment.
• Helps you to design and sequence your instructional activities to scaffold student learning.
• Ensures that the assessment will provide a clear measurement and reliable evidence of the intended outcome.
• Makes expectations clear which generates motivation and fulfilment for both you and your students.

Next, consider the type of assessment to use. Assessments commonly fall into two types: formative and summative. Formative assessments are especially helpful in online contexts as they provide additional opportunities to interact with and provide feedback to learners. This helps reinforce and clarify learning goals, enhance student motivation and establish instructor presence.

The following table summarizes and compares the two types of assessments.

• Be explicit in communicating your expectations to students. Consider creating rubrics for major assessment items.
• Multiple weekly assignments with relatively low stakes will be better for your students than a heavily weighted final paper or exam towards the end of term.
• Consider building in formative assessments which can provide feedback as students' progress through the course materials.
  
• For courses requiring group work, provide information to students early on in the term so they understand exactly what work entails and provide opportunities for them to plan ahead or ask questions.
• Consider using a communication channel—such as the Discussion tool in Canvas—to support assessment so that you are available to students when they are working on a high-stakes assessment item. Announcements are another way to provide the class with overall feedback on learning.
  
• Calibrate the weighting of assignments with students’ natural progression of understanding through the course. For example, schedule shorter assessments (worth five to ten percent of the grade) when students are still learning about a topic before larger assessments (worth 20–30 %) when students should have mastered a topic.
• Shorter but more frequent assessments can be more conducive to learning online (e.g., four quizzes to replace one exam). With cumulative assignments due at the end of the term, having regular checkpoints throughout the term will help students stay on track in the self-paced online learning environment.
• Provide students with options in the assessment task. For example, let students select a reading, or apply learning to an example from their experience. Offering students a choice in the assignment format (such as a video presentation, an infographic or an essay) can increase engagement.

Canvas has built-in tools for assessing and grading students:

• The Quiz tool can be used for quizzes, tests and exams. For students who are registered with the Centre for Accessible Learning, ensure you make adjustments to the quiz duration.
• The Assignment tool can be used to submit a variety of file types, images, URLs, etc.
• Discussion boards allow for public written responses to generate engagement with specific topics.
• The SpeedGrader allows you to quickly view, grade and comment on student assignments.

SFU also has licenses for other tools that can help with assessments:

• Crowdmark streamlines grading between multiple graders.
• TurnItIn checks for originality of written work submitted by students.
• Webwork is an online, crowd-sourced homework system that draws from a large database of questions for math, science and engineering.
• H5P enables the creation of interactive content, including several quiz types. It is a good option for including no stakes or low stakes retrieval practice which can provide students with immediate feedback.