• Translate your existing assessments rather directly, i.e., maintaining their existing format, to Canvas (e.g., multiple choice, short answer, etc.). Canvas allows for a wide variety of test question formats. 
  • Consider whether or not you will make these exams “open book” (i.e., students can use whatever sources they have available to them) since you cannot proctor them in-class. In electing to do this, you may assign points for completion rather than accuracy.
  • Canvas allows you to maintain time limits for exams as you would for an in-class exam (e.g., 80 mins). For any students who have accommodations for longer testing time, Canvas allows you to assign different time limits to those students. 
  • Alternatively, you may decide to omit any time limits and just assign the exam as a “take home” exam (or homework assignment). Students can take however long they need to complete the exam, and you could decide how long of a time window (e.g., 48 hours) to make the exam available. Again, you might consider assigning points for completion rather than accuracy.
• Redesign your existing assessments to adapt to the online environment. The degree to which you redesign your assessment can vary quite widely. Be sure to communicate all information about your re-designed assessments (e.g., content, structure, deadline, percentage of final grade, etc.) to your students up front. If things are changing, tell students what is changing. If they aren’t, remind them of what is staying the same. 
  • Consider turning some or all of your multiple-choice questions into short answer questions that measure the same level of knowledge (e.g., apply, define, etc.). A more drastic change might be to convert your final paper into a final exam or vice versa. 
  • If your students have a final presentation, consider your learning objectives and whether or not your goal is to measure their presentation skills. If so, then have them record their presentations on their own devices and post them to Canvas (rather than doing all presentations synchronously). If not, then consider having students submit a transcript of their presentation with any accompanying materials (e.g., slides). 
  • Consider if your larger exam can be broken down into smaller quizzes/assignments. For example, you might break up your final exam into smaller (i.e., lower stakes), bi-weekly quizzes that target specific component skills. 
• Regardless of which option you choose (translate or redesign), ensure that students are receiving feedback on their assessments. Canvas allows for a variety of options, including allowing students to see their responses and making the answers available for a limited amount of time. Other options for efficiently and effectively providing students with feedback include creating a rubric or scoring key, which can be integrated into Canvas’s SpeedGrader or Gradescope. Finally, if students’ performance shows relatively consistent patterns, you can provide students with group-level feedback either during a Zoom session or in a Canvas “announcement”. 

• If your exam is open for a limited window of time (during class time or, for example, 9:00am-12:00pm EST), this will prove challenging for students in very different time zones. Consider that this narrow time slot may be the middle of the night for some of your students. To address these concerns you can: 
  • Consider widening the exam window. Allow students a 24-hour period to access the exam, but keep the students’ exam-completion time limit the same. This creates a more equitable testing environment where the exam is available to students during a sufficient amount of their daytime hours. 
    IMPORTANT NOTE: Please do NOT reschedule the exam: (1) to a different time of day with the same exam-completion time, or (2) by adding extra time to your regularly scheduled class meeting time. Both of these options are likely to create schedule conflicts with other course meeting times. Avoid putting students in the position of having to choose among their learning opportunities.
  • With the above important note in mind, Canvas allows you to assign different availability windows to individual students, so you could allow the exams to be available for different students at different times (e.g., during their “daytime hours”). Again, this strategy may create schedule conflicts for students (i.e., overlap with regularly scheduled meetings of other courses).
  • Maintain the same narrow window and have individual student cases evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
  • See also: Strategies for Teaching Students in Different Time Zones

• Consider using short- (or long-) answer questions as well as/instead of multiple choice questions. These formats make it harder for students to share answers. 
• If you use multiple choice questions, randomize the order of the answer choices. This can be done when setting up a quiz in Canvas. 
• Consider using two versions of the exam that are equivalent in difficulty, but use slightly different questions. Canvas allows you to create a “test bank” from which you can draw. This may be especially relevant for students taking exams in different time zones.

Respondus LockDown Browser

Respondus LockDown Browser can be added to a Canvas quiz. Upon opening the quiz, students will be prompted to download the application and take the quiz. This tool prevents students from navigating to other browser pages or applications on their machine until they have submitted their quiz. Additionally, they will be prevented from taking computer screenshots or printing the screen. 

Important Considerations: 

• Respondus tools may not work with accessibility devices/software such as screen readers. If you plan to use Respondus tools in your exams, ensure that all your students will be able to use them. You may need to work with the Office of Disability Resources to ensure that all your students will be able to take the exam.
• Respondus tools are not compatible with all platforms (only Mac, Windows, and iPad). If you plan to use Respondus tools in your exams, ensure that all your students have an appropriate device. 
• Respondus tools are primarily deterrents against cheating and cannot prove or completely prevent cheating.

Respondus Monitor

Respondus Monitor is an extension of LockDown Browser. In addition to the functionality of LockDown Browser, students are recorded through their webcams and microphones. Monitor’s algorithms analyze each video and assign it a high/medium/low risk of cheating based on several factors including whether the person in front of the computer changes and whether multiple people appear. Instructors can then review a subset of the videos, e.g., “high risk” videos, if they need/wish to do so.

Respondus tools are primarily deterrents against cheating and cannot prevent cheating or prove that a student has cheated. As such, these tools alone cannot determine cheating has occurred. Instead, instructors are strongly encouraged to view any reports or indicators from these tools as something potentially worthy of further investigation and to combine multiple information sources to make an informed judgment.

Important Considerations:

• Instructors must also be mindful of student equity when requiring the use of any technologies for remote exams. Any and all recording of examinations should be applied consistently to all students in the course.
• Respondus Monitor requires students have access to a webcam, which some students may not have. If students do not have access to a webcam, they will see an error when they attempt to take the exam and will not be able to complete it. 
• Respondus tools may not work with accessibility devices/software such as screenreaders. If you plan to use Respondus tools in your exams, ensure that all your students will be able to use them. You may need to work with the Office of Disability Resources to ensure that all your students will be able to take the exam.
• Respondus tools are not compatible with all platforms (only Mac, Windows, and iPad). If you plan to use Respondus tools in your exams, ensure that all your students have an appropriate device.
• Note, this service cannot be used with students under 16 years of age.

Turnitin

Turnitin is a tool that you can enable with prose-based assignment submissions in Canvas. This tool compares each student’s submission against a broad range of sources (e.g,. Wikipedia, their classmates’ papers, papers submitted by students at other institutions, etc.) evaluates the between your student’s submission and these other sources. Turnitin provides the instructor with a report for each student that identifies the areas of overlap within a student’s paper as well as the source from which it potentially came. Note: Turnitin can also provide this report to students, so some instructors use it as a learning tool to help students understand plagiarism and appropriate vs. inappropriate uses of text

Important Considerations:

• The percentage of overlap reported by Turnitin on a student assignment is merely an indicator of behavior to investigate further. It is not a diagnosis of cheating or plagiarism. For example, if students are required to use some of the same sources, instructors should anticipate a reasonable percentage of overlap. Instructors can use the report generated for each assignment to see whether the overlap comes from citing the same (assigned) source or from plagiarizing another student’s paper. 
• The Turnitin report that is generated for each student is not “proof” that the student plagiarized. You should use the information provided in the report to further investigate any overlap and then analyze the student’s work to make an informed judgment.

In addition to the information provided above, the following points are especially relevant to final exams and in-class exams that have additional complications.

• The final exam schedule is currently under review, and more info/guidance is forthcoming.
• If you have considered the above options and still are facing significant challenges due to having students in different times zones, please email eberly-assist@andrew.cmu.edu