We are not ending the semester as we had hoped, and it is worthwhile to pause and acknowledge what, to many, is a sense of disappointment.  I know I always loved the time I spent with students during finals week—getting to see them one last time in person before sending them toward summer (and their futures).

It is also important to note that, given the shift to online class meetings during finals week, many faculty are engaged in rethinking how they will assess student learning at the close of the semester.  It is also true that many of your students may be experiencing illness related to being COVID-19 positive, and may be asking for extensions on that work.  This message provides some critical information, suggestions, and guidance.  It can be found on the website of the Center for Teaching Excellence along with additional resources on virtual teaching and learning.

 Final grades are due to be submitted on Wednesday, May 18, at 10 a.m. If a student or group of students in your class needs an extension for turning work in, it would be appropriate to use an Incomplete.  When you enter an Incomplete, you will be required to enter a deadline for the extension and a default grade if the work is not completed.  I recommend not choosing the “default” extension deadline, but rather choosing a deadline that is appropriate to the situation (yours and the students’) and the amount of work to be accomplished in service of a grade.  I acknowledge this—entering an Incomplete—requires an extra step for faculty as you are entering grades, and it requires follow-up on your part; this, though, the most accurate representation of the grade-in-progress, and a humane and compassionate way to deal with student needs.  Entering an Incomplete gives faculty the ability to update the grade via Self Service once the work is complete.   

Faculty may also want to rethink the way that we assess student achievement of learning outcomes in the course.  Faculty could consider offering open book/note/resources essay exams rather than a traditional in-class, resource blind format, for instance; faculty could consider presentations over Zoom in place of in class finals and presentations, or alternative assignments to group projects where groups are impacted by Covid.  Faculty may also want to engage in online assessment, and I’m happy to provide here some guidance from our Instructional Technologists, to accomplish that.

Recommendations for creation and use of online assessments  

• If you will be creating an assessment for your final, please author that assessment in your Blackboard course. This will save you the effort of having to cut and paste to create questions if you author in a separate document.
• If you already have a document prepared, cutting and pasting the questions into the course is the most expedient way to get questions built online.
• If you will have a written exam or part of your exam will be written, be clear on the format you expect students to submit for grading. (i.e. “upload a Word document to the assignment” OR “in the answer space provided, please answer this question…. uploaded documents will not be accepted or graded.”)
• Be aware that matching, multiple choice, and true false questions are automatically graded. Essay questions will need to be graded manually. Assessment scores will not show to students until all questions are graded and the scores are posted.
• If you have previous exams in your course, consider reusing questions from those assessments. This can be done selecting the Reuse questions option when creating a question.
• Consider randomizing test questions and answers if possible. This will effectively create a unique exam for each student.
• If you have not previously used LockDown browser during the semester, we strongly encourage you not to consider its use for the final. The successful deployment of an exam with LockDown browser requires a series of steps which must be done in the proper order. This includes students being able to download, install, and run the client on their own computers or devices and having a reliable network connection throughout the entire exam.

Creating Assessments

For directions on how to create assessments please see the Blackboard support page. 

Please use these resources which provide the best practices in online testing preparation for instructors.   

Please provide these resources to students, re: best practices in online testing. And, please share these resources for students prior to your testing period so that they may be prepared ahead of time as well.

Requesting Assistance

As always, please remember that the Academic and Emerging Technologies team provide support and Drake Online have instructional designers and technologists who can help with troubleshooting both technical and pedagogical issues that involve educational technology use.

To request help from Academic and Emerging Technologies, please use: https://drake.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/2025/Portal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=51078

To request help from Drake Online, please use: https://drake.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/2025/Portal/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=47962

To request help in designing or rethinking end-of-term assessments, conversation about meeting students’ needs in reasonable ways, or moral support and gratitude in general from the Deputy Provost, please email: renee.cramer@drake.edu.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost