Quiz Improvements

Brightspace is updating the quiz creation and quiz-taking experiences to simplify existing workflows and add useful new quiz timing options. These quiz timing improvements will be released in our June release within MyLO. An overview of the updates is below:

1. Quiz Timing Improvements & Auto-submission
   The changes include auto-submission of a student's quiz, a more straightforward quiz setup, and the removal of obsolete quiz timing options (such as the grace period).
2. Quiz Taking Improvements
   Added improvements to the Quiz taking experience including show/hide quiz timer and improvements to the Quiz results view.
3. Synchronous Quizzes
   Quizzes will expand from asynchronous quizzes to supporting both asynchronous and synchronous quizzes. The new addition of synchronous quizzes enables lecturers to set up a quiz where the quiz timer starts on the start date for all students rather than when the student launches the quiz (asynchronous). The quiz timer then ends for all students at the same time.

What will the time options for existing quizzes look like after the Quiz Timing Improvements release is deployed?

What happens with Special Access?

Special Access has updates with new timing options and removed obsolete fields.

Automatic Quiz Submission

Lecturers can now choose to have quizzes automatically submit student work when the quiz time limit is up. When the time limit expires the student sees a page letting them know their quiz is being submitted, followed by the Quiz Results Display page.

This new automatic submission functionality aims to improve the student experience by a student’s attempt automatically submitting at the end of the enforced time. This will reduce student confusion and anxiety, along with providing earlier access to feedback and ability to try another attempt sooner (when applicable). This feature improves quiz integrity and provides a more authentic quiz experience where quizzes are handed in at the end of the quiz time limit. In addition, it reduces the quiz administrator's burden by removing the need to manually submit student attempts for automatic grading.

Quizzes that were previously set to Prevent students from making future changes or Automatically set score to zero when the time limit is reached are automatically set to Automatically submit the quiz attempt.

Note: Attempts for quizzes created before the changes are deployed are not affected. Existing quiz attempts are not automatically submitted.

How to set up a quiz to automatically submit

1. On the navbar, click Assessments then Quizzes.
2. On the Manage Quizzes tab, click New Quiz or edit an existing quiz.
3. On the quiz creation screen, click Timing & Display.
4. Check Set time limit and then enter a Time Limit in minutes.
5. Click Edit Timer Settings.
6. Select Automatically submit the quiz attempt.

The quiz timing settings have been updated to make quiz setup quicker and easier. Previously lecturers had to decide between time limit options: No Time Limit, Recommended Time Limit and Enforced Time Limit. Now lecturers can choose whether they want to set a time limit and enter the length of time for the quiz.

Click Set time limit and enter the quiz length in minutes. Then do one of the following:

• If you want to automatically submit the quiz when the time limit is exceeded, click Automatically Submit quiz attempt.
• If you want students to be able to continue working after the time limit, click Flag as time limit exceeded and allow the user to continue working.
• If you do not want to enforce the time limit, click Do nothing, the time limit is not enforced.

Select Timer Settings within your Quiz:

Choose the option that you require and press OK.

Timing Summary information:

There is now important summary information in the Timing & Display panel in the collapsed and expanded view.  This helps lecturers find errors and helps to understand which setting they could potentially change. Previously, only the time limit was displayed and lecturers had to expand and open Timer settings to see the whole setup.

Collapsed View of an asynchronous quiz with an enforced time limit:

Collapsed view of a synchronous quiz with auto-submit quiz attempt enabled.

Removal of obsolete Quiz Timing options

To further streamline the process of quiz creation, the Grace Period will be removed and the option to score a student's attempt as 0 if they continue after the time limit is up.

Previously, grace period was intended to provide additional time for students who were required to manually save all questions in addition to manually submitting their own quiz attempt. Now that quiz questions are saved automatically and quizzes can be configured to be submitted automatically, students no longer need grace time to ensure their quiz is saved and submitted. Additionally, in quizzes that had a grace period, only a small percentage of students actually used the grace period; the majority of students submit before the time limit ends as there was no visible indicator to the student that a grace period was avaialble after the timer ran out. With the grace period no longer being a necessary setting, we can remove the added complexity from quiz creation and quiz-taking experiences to provide a simpler workflow.

With this update, the older settings are automatically updated to the following new behaviour:

• A quiz that previously had a grace period now uses the time limit set on the quiz.
• A quiz that previously scored a quiz at 0 when the time limit was exceeded now sets the quiz to automatically submit the student's quiz attempt.

For some students, the visual of a quiz countdown timer contributes the anxiety that assessments can produce. The new visual countdown timer enables students to show or hide the timer according to their own preferences. With the first use of this, the Hide Timer button is visible, then slides out of view to minimize visual distraction. Students can reveal the Hide Timer button by hovering over or clicking the timer. Future quizzes remember the last user selection.
Previously, unless a lecturer specifically disabled the feature during quiz creation, the countdown timer was always shown.

Figure: The Hide Timer button beside the quiz timer.

Timer Warnings

Students would like to be warned before they run out of time so that they can prepare their work to be auto-submitted or manually submit their work before it gets flagged as exceeding the time limit. This is particularly important if students have chosen to hide the timer, removing that indication of how much time is left. These timer warnings will provide students with a message on enforced time quizzes to warn of time remaining. There are 3 timer warnings:

• 1 minute remaining on the quiz
• 5 minutes remaining (only available on quizzes with a 10-minute or longer quiz time limit)
• Half of the elapsed time (only available on quizzes with a 20-minute or longer quiz time limit)

Figure: The Timer Warning dialogue indicating 1 minute.

Improvements to the Quiz Results View

The Quiz Results page has had an update. This displays when a student completes a quiz attempt or returns later to view their quiz results (previously known as the Submission View).

Changes include:

• Updates to the Quiz Results display page to verify to students that their work was successfully saved and submitted. In addition to the default message of Your work has been saved and submitted, lecturers can add a custom message to also appear on the page.
• Simplifying students' ability to review feedback by automatically expanding lecturer comments.
• Adding a basic submission in case there is none set.

To add a custom message Edit your quiz and click on Evaluation & Feedback then select Customize Quiz Results Displays.

Press on Edit View. Update your Custom message and select any other options and press OK.

Student View of Quiz Submission:

Lecturers need a way to set up quizzes that start and end at the same time for all students, rather than when the student launches the quiz. This facilitates quizzes where the lecturer requires all students to take the quiz at the same time similar to in-classroom learning and supporting medium-high stakes quizzing.

Up till now, Brightspace could provide the flexibility for students to take a quiz in their own time (asynchronous), providing a more relaxed experience that accommodates the student’s schedule. With synchronous quizzes, a lecturer can set up quizzes with real-time windows where the quiz timer begins on the start date and stops at the end of the quiz time limit for all learners.

Setting up a synchronous quiz in the New Quiz Experience

1. On the navbar, click  Assessments then Quizzes.
2. On the Manage Quizzes tab, click New Quiz or edit an existing quiz.
3. On the Quiz Creation screen, click to expand Timing & Display.
4. Check Set time limit, then enter a Time Limit in minutes.
5. Click Edit Timer Settings.
6. In the Timing dialogue, under Quiz Start, select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
   Note: If there is no Start time and date set for the synchronous quiz, a No start date set alert appears under the radio button option and you are not able to save the quiz. The due date is disabled for synchronous quizzes.
7. Under When The Time Limit Expires, select one of the following:
   • Automatically submit the quiz attempt
   • Flag as "exceeded tme limit" and allow the user to continue working
   • Do nothing: the time limit is not enforced
8. Click OK.

Countdown timer until Synchronous Quiz starts

For a student taking a synchronous quiz, the Start Quiz button is disabled until the start date and time arrives. A countdown timer appears on the Quiz Start page to indicate the time remaining before the quiz becomes available.