The following are some suggestions to consider in identifying focus areas, choosing types of evidence, and developing your evaluation plan.
DoIT Academic Technology's Evaluation Design & Analysis service has developed some principles of evaluation that can be helpful as you plan to evaluate your course. Good evaluation plans:
In addition to the end-of-semester data that is collected by your department, you can use the following tools to collect qualitative and quantitative data to measure the success of your course.
The best way to predict how your exam will look for students in Canvas is to test it beforehand. This is an especially critical step for online exams. Every Canvas course comes with a pre-loaded “test student” which you can use to complete the exam in a Student View. Then, after exiting Student View, you can go to the Grades tool, locate the test student (at the bottom of the roster), and review the exam that you just completed as the test student. For more information, review this Canvas guide, How do I view a course as a test student using Student View?
Canvas has features designed to safeguard students’ quiz progress and answers to ensure they are not lost during an online exam. For instance, Canvas checks for an internet connection throughout the quiz and warns the student to reconnect if it recognizes a lost connection.
Remember, Canvas can autograde all multiple choice questions (and several other of the question types). If your exam consists entirely of multiple choice questions, you don’t need to do anything. Canvas will autograde the exam, and students can have their grade within seconds of completing the exam.
You should expect problems to occur during online exams. It’s necessary to have a plan in place for students who have problems with their exam and cannot, for whatever reason, complete the exam in Canvas. Consider making an electronic backup copy of the exam, outside of Canvas in case there is a failure that prevents all students from taking the exam in Canvas, or to provide to individual students who encounter problems. Some instructors ask their students to keep track of their answers as they complete the exam, whether in a local document or on paper, so that they can simply send you the answers directly by the deadline if need be.
When using Canvas to deliver online exams, there are many best practices and Canvas features instructors can leverage to make exams go smoothly. Even the most carefully thought out and laid out plans can go awry, so you should have a backup plan in place in case something doesn’t work the way you anticipated in Canvas.