Setting up a Timed assessment in Moodle in progress
This guide will help you understand how to set up and restrict access to a timed assessment in Moodle
Limitations with Take-Home Exams
There are several limitations you will need to be aware of to inform your decisions when designing your timed assessment.
We do not have the technology to lock down users’ machines or monitor their use during the exam process, therefore, you may want to consider designing questions so they do not focus on the recall of facts but rather applying knowledge to scenarios, solving problems, analysing, critiquing, and evaluating.
Please also refer to Registry guidance on Covid-19 alternative assessments
A few general considerations:
Keep things simple and if possible use technology that students are already familiar with and have access to.
Make sure you communicate any changes to assessment to students clearly
If they will need support using technology, contact the Digital Training team to arrange this for your students
Consider the accessibility of assessments you are planning - will students have access to software/laptop/internet connection etc.
Give students more time where possible
Set up draft assignments/formative assessment wherever possible so students can practise using the technology
How do I create an online timed assessment?
There are a few steps involved in creating a timed assessment.
Setting up the submission
Setting up restrict access so students can only access the exam at a given time.
Setting up your timed assessment
In your Moodle course, Turn editing on and in the section you want to add your Exam submission link, click on add a resource or activity and choose Assignment.
Add a name i:e: Take-Home Exam and in the Description box, explain clearly what the students have to do, give any additional information including time limits and any pre-exam requirements and so on, including instructions on how and where they need to submit the paper. Ensure you tick the box to ‘Display description on course page’ and these instructions will show on your Moodle page in advance of the exam.
This is an example of what you could add in the description:Example Instructions
The exam question(s) will become available here from 12pm on [DATE]
The deadline for submission is 12pm on [DATE]
Ensure you are adequately prepared; have everything you need to hand and a comfortable location to work in
Your answers should be word processed/handwritten [delete as appropriate]
Any handwritten material should be scanned and submitted alongside your answers.
For any scanned material, we recommend using Microsoft Office Lens, which can be downloaded in advance
If you have any questions in advance, please contact [email address]
In Additional files add your Take-Home Questions document. Do not add this into the description box as this would then be accessible to students. Only add the questions to the additional files box if you are setting up restrictions as well. (step 6 goes through how to restrict the view of your exam paper and submission box)
Under Availability ensure you add the ‘Allow submissions from’ and ‘due date’ You can untick the ‘Remind me to grade by’ date. Our example below shows that students can start submitting work from the day and time the exam opens to the student i.e: 9th July at 12pm and the student will be able to submit work until 10th July at 12pm
Under submission types, consider how many files your students might need to submit (If students are handwriting and scanning documents, there could be quite a number of documents they need to upload) Here you may want to make changes to the Maximum number of uploaded files section.
Restricting the view of your exam paper
Next, you will need to restrict this assignment activity so students are not able to access take-home exam before a certain time. To set a restriction scroll down until you find the Restrict Access and select Add restriction
Select date
Amend your date and time restriction as required. In this example, students will be able to access the assignment from 9th July at 12pm. If you want this information to show on your Moodle page, ensure that the eye above the date box does not have a line through it (see example in picture below). If it does have a line through it, students will not be able to see the exam paper link or the instructions in the description.
Once you are happy with all other settings, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Save and return to course and confirm the restrictions on your Moodle page. This is how it will look to students. If restrictions have been set up, students will not be able to gain access to the link and the additional files, until the available from date and time