Creating an open response assessment is a multi-step process:
Each of these steps is covered in detail below.
For more information about the components of an open response assessment, see Open Response Assessments.
To create the component for your open response assessment:
To add the prompt, or question:
Currently, you cannot add text formatting or images inside the Peer Assessment component. If you want to include formatting or images in the text of your prompt, you can add an HTML component that contains your text above the Peer Assessment component and leave the text field in the Prompt tab blank. The instructions for the peer assessment still appear above the Your Response field.
To allow students to submit an image with a response:
Note
In this step, you’ll add your rubric and provide your students with feedback options.
For each step below, replace any default text with your own text.
Note
All open response assessments include a feedback field below the rubric so that students can provide written feedback on a peer’s overall response. You can also allow or require students to provide feedback for individual criteria. See step 2.4 below for instructions. For more information, see Feedback Options.
To add the rubric:
In the open response assessment component editor, click the Rubric tab.
In the first Criterion section, enter the name and prompt text of your first criterion.
In the first Option section, enter the name, explanation, and point value for the first option.
In the next Option section, enter the name, explanation, and point value for the next option.
Repeat step 4 for each option. If you need to add more options, click Add Option.
Next to Feedback for This Criterion, select a value in the drop-down list.
- If you don’t want students to provide feedback for this individual criterion, select None.
- If you want to require students to provide feedback, select Required.
- If you want to allow students to provide feedback, but not require it, select Optional.
When you add a comment field to a criterion, the comment field appears below the options for the criterion. You can also provide a comment field, but no options.
In the following image, the first criterion has a comment field but no options. The second includes options, but does not have a comment field.
To provide a comment field without options:
To specify a name for the assignment as well as start and due dates for all student responses:
Note
We recommend that you set the response due date and time at least two days before the peer assessment due date and time. If the response due time and peer assessment due time are close together, and a student submits a response just before responses are due, other students may not have time to perform peer assessments before peer assessments are due.
Open response assessment assignments can include student training, peer assessment, and self assessment steps. You can include a peer assessment step before a self assessment step and vice versa.
If you include a student training step, you must include a peer assessment step. You can also include a self assessment step. The student training step must come before both the peer assessment and the self assessment step.
To add steps to the assignment:
In the component editor, click the Settings tab.
Scroll down past the Allow Image Responses field.
Locate the following headings:
Select the check boxes for the steps that you want the assignment to include.
(optional) If you want to change the order of the steps, drag the steps into the order that you want. If you include a student training step, make sure it is the first step in the assignment.
After you select the steps that you want, you’ll specify settings for those steps.
Note
If you make changes to a step, but then you clear the check box for that step, the step will no longer be part of the assignment and your changes will not be saved.
For the student training step, you’ll enter one or more responses that you have created, then select an option for each criterion in your rubric.
Note
You must enter your complete rubric on the Rubric tab before you can select options for the student training responses. If you later change one of your criteria or any of its options, you’ll also have to update the student training step.
To add and score student training responses:
For more information, see Student Training Step.
For the peer assessment step, you’ll specify the number of responses that each student must grade, the number of students that must grade each response, and start and due dates. All fields are required.
To specify peer assessment settings:
For the self assessment step, you’ll specify when the step starts and ends.
To allow students to see the top-scoring responses for the assignment, you’ll specify a number on the Settings tab.
Note
Because each response can be up to 300 pixels in height, we recommend that you set this number to 20 or lower to prevent the page from becoming too long.
For more information, see Top Responses.
To test your assignment, set up the assignment in your course, set the section or subsection date in the future, and ask a group of beta users to submit responses and grade each other. The beta testers can then let you know if they found the question and the rubric easy to understand or if they had any problems with the assignment.
For more information about beta testing, see Beta Testing a Course.