Sakai can appropriately deliver online tests, quizzes, and surveys for many situations at Notre Dame. The information provided here will help you avoid problems.

Encouraging academic honesty

• Use multiple versions - Create a few versions of the assessment and assign them to separate groups. Create groups in your course site, then release one version of the test to each group. (Note that while using Sakai, you can essentially accomplish this in one test by drawing questions from question pools, which creates a unique version of the test for each student taking it.)
  
  
• Show answers in random order - When creating multiple choice questions, you can specify that answers be shown in random order. Don’t use this with answers like “all of the above” or “B and C”.
  
  
• Draw questions at random - If you create question pools, Sakai can use them to randomly draw and display a different set of items to each student and display them in random order.

• Shuffle question order - When not randomly drawing from a pool, items in a Part can be shuffled using the “Question ordering” setting for the part.
  
  
• Add Honor Code Pledge affirmation reminding students of the University's expectations for original work. (Find this in the test's Settings > About this Assessment.)
  
  
• Deliver feedback afterwards - Do not provide answers immediately to individual students. The “specific date” feedback setting lets you display feedback after the “Late submission” date. In some cases, you will also want to delay releasing the grade in the gradebook. (Settings > Grading and Feedback.) Visit this article for more on Feedback settings.

Please contact the Sakai team at oithelp@nd.edu if you have any questions while designing your test.

Ensuring best experience for students during test

• Share with students the Essential Tips for Taking an Online Test so they have their technology prepared before they start
  
  
• Understand the best test set-up options before publishing the test:
  
  
  • Availability and Submissions: set to only 1 submission
    
    
  • If you are not using a timer on your test, make sure Autosubmit is enabled, which will turn in what the student was able to save if they are not able to fully submit for themselves.
    
    
  • Use Exceptions to Time Limit and Delivery Date section to allow extra time for individual students, or create unique testing windows for individuals or groups
    
    
  • Understand your best options for Layout and Appearance of the exam
    • allow students to check over the test before submitting by enabling "random access from a Table of Contents"
    • we strongly recommend choosing "Each question is on a separate web page" which will save answers after each question and protect students from losing answers due to wifi or other technical issues
    • Students like the ability to mark questions to review. 

Live testing

Notre Dame does not have a dedicated testing facility with computers and proctors. As a result, some instructors ask students to bring laptops into the classroom to take a test or quiz with Sakai. It’s important to understand the limitations of that strategy. 

• Power - there will not be enough outlets for everyone to plug in. Tell students to charge their batteries ahead of time AND have a backup plan in case they do not.

• Wireless Internet - there may not be enough Internet bandwidth to handle a hundred students trying to take a test at the same time in one room.

• Software - currently Sakai's Tests & Quizzes application becomes too slow for live testing when more than 100 students are taking a 100 question multiple choice test with every question randomized. A plug-in to Sakai called Mobius (formerly MapleTA) has proven to be able to handle 350 students simultaneously. (Contact the Sakai Team through oithelp@nd.edu if you're unsure.)

High Security - this assessment setting allows you to require a secondary username and password which you give students face-to-face. There is also an IP address option, which is not likely to be useful with wireless laptops.

Preparation - A week or more before giving a test in a classroom, have students bring in laptops and take a brief practice test. This ensures that they (1) have the proper software, (2) understand battery issues and (3) can use the Sakai tools.