There are several challenges to moving high-stakes tests to a remote teaching environment. Not all students have access to reliable broadband internet, and some may experience connectivity issues during longer online assessments. As a result, this can make high-stakes testing stressful for students and may also create additional work for you when deciding whether a student's request to complete an interrupted exam can be accommodated. There are also ongoing challenges in maintaining academic integrity in a remote testing environment.
Alternatives to High-stakes Testing
Rather than recreating an in-class exam during remote instruction, consider whether one of these options could work instead.
Authentic assessments engage students’ intrinsic motivation by connecting to personal interests, real-world applications, and current events. Research shows that when students are personally interested in their learning, they are much less likely to cheat. These assessments are often grounded in specific contexts (time, place, person, or event), which makes them less likely to be reused from previous semester or found through online sources.
- Use an open-book exam.
Open-book exams can be designed to encourage deeper thinking, problem-solving, application, and integration of knowledge. Rather than focusing on recall, consider question types such as:
- modified T/F questions (explain your answer)
- questions based on data sets (show your work)
- describe approaches or solutions and why that approach was selected
- short essays incorporating examples from several different course readings
Make Academic Integrity Visible
Prior to a quiz, test, or exam, share the importance of academic integrity with your students, explicitly mentioning if the use of AI is allowed. You may also wish to refer students to UVM’s Office of Academic Integrity.
- Share UVM’s Code of Academic Integrity policy statement. Consider adding this as a question on an exam, asking students if they have read it and understand its implications.
- Teach students about academic integrity. The Center for Student Conduct provides Brightspace modules that can be imported into your own courses and cover topics such as plagiarism, collusion, and cheating.
- To access them, log into Brightspace and click Discover.
- Search for "academic integrity" and then click "enroll in course." (If the search yields no results, you may already be enrolled.)
- Alternatively, you can request receive zip files of these modules for direct import by contacting Deanna Garrett-Ostermiller, Assistant Director, Center for Student Conduct (dgarrett@uvm.edu, 802-656-4360). (See the article, Brightspace – Copy, Import, or Export Courses or Components, on the UVM Knowledge Base.)
- If you don’t already have a statement on AI use, write and share one with your students. UVM's Writing in the Disciplines website has many resources, including specific syllabus statements about AI use.
Use Brightspace Quiz Settings That Make Cheating More Difficult
- Brightspace has settings that will help to minimize cheating such as:
- Time limits (you can modify limits for individual students with accommodations)
- Shuffling question order
- Shuffling order of answers in multiple choice
This UVM Knowledge Base article provides step-by-step instructions for setting up a quiz and all available settings. It also includes information about how to grade.
Other Supported Technology: Respondus Lockdown Browser (LDB)
LDB prevents students from printing, accessing other websites, using browser-based AI assistants, taking a screenshot, or opening applications during a quiz. If the instructor selects to make the LDB required, students will need to download and install it to take Brightspace quizzes/exams.
We highly recommend that you administer a practice quiz using LDB before students take a higher stakes test/exam.
Instructor how-to guides are available in the Knowledge Base Article with step-by-step instructions for LBD setup and use.
Students will also need directions on how to install and use this platform. This Knowledge Base Article provides instructions for them to install LBD.
UVM also offers a limited seat license for Respondus Monitor, a video “proctoring” add-on to LDB. Monitor records a video of a student while they are taking the exam, similar to how a proctor might watch over students in a physical exam space. There are some valid privacy concerns from the students’ perspective, so the decision to use Monitor is significant. Additionally, if you did not disclose to students in your syllabus that you are planning to use video-based proctoring, you cannot require them to use it.
Additional Resources
- UVM Center for Student Conduct
- Creating Quizzes/Test in Brightspace (CTL Workshop Recording)
- This recorded session walked through the workflow for creating quizzes and tests, including creating questions and question types, creating a question library, building a quiz, grading a quiz, and quiz statistics and logs.
- You may find the following chapters in the recording most helpful: Create Quizzes • Evaluation/Feedback • Add a Quiz to a Module/Student POV • Instructor Grading • Student View of Results • Question Statistics