Anthony Paulraj, Department of Management
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Dr. Paulraj wanted to maximize his instructional time by taking advantage of the testing features available in Blackboard for his face-to-face courses, without sacrificing a rigorous testing environment. In order to minimize the possibility of cheating on online quizzes and exams, he invested time up front and utilized several of Blackboard testing features including random blocks of questions, random ordering of assessment answer choices, calculated numeric questions, Advanced Group Management and Adaptive Release.

Dr. Paulraj's assessments include a combination of Multiple Choice questions with answer choices displayed in a random order and random blocks of questions pulled from a question pool. He also uses calculated numeric questions, which give each student a unique problem to solve. In addition, Dr. Paulraj created several versions of each assessment and assigned students to the different versions through the creation of testing groups in Advanced Group Management and the use of Adaptive Release in order to display an assessment to students based on membership in a particular group.

Comments from Dr. Paulraj:

"Apart from maximizing instructional time, online exams enabled me to test a student’s ability to (1) create appropriate models, (2) solve these models using the data provided, and (3) interpret the results. In summary, I believe that Blackboard helped me to test the understanding of the entire process rather than just a few aspects of problem solving.

I was initially skeptical about conducting exams online due to the belief that I might be compromising on the rigor. But, with the ambition of maximizing instructional time and enhancing testing ability, I spent some time at CIRT discussing the various options. With their invaluable input, I was finally convinced that I could set the exam online without compromising on rigor. By (1) creating multiple versions of the same problem and data sets, (2) incorporating multiple choices that cut-across these multiple versions, and (3) using the neat features in Blackboard, I was able to curtail cheating while simultaneously achieving my testing goals. Though I had to put a considerable amount of time up front to setup multiple versions of the exam, I was delighted to be able to successfully test the entire process of problem solving without sacrificing the rigor."

The Blackboard Assessment feature may be used in fully online, hybrid or face-to-face courses to facilitate teaching and learning. If you are interested in creating Blackboard assessments for your courses, please contact CIRT for assistance.