Grading and Assessing Students in Virtual Environments

Move a traditional seated exam to a remote exam or an electronic exam in a variety of ways:

• Use UB Learns to create and deploy exams.  UB Learns exams are called Assessments and provide functionality for enhancing academic integrity through features like randomized questions and exam time limits.  Use of Respondus Lock-Down Browser and/or Respondus Monitor helps ensure exam integrity and security. Scores will automatically populate the UB Learns Grade Center.
• Use UB Learns to distribute and collect exams via the Assignments tool.  Optionally, use date limits and time limits.  Again, consider whether the exam should be open book, open notes, or both, and use this for low stakes quizzes or formative assessments.
• Use UB email to distribute and collect exams. Consider whether the exam should be open book, open notes, or both.  This should be used for low stakes quizzes or formative assessments.
  
• Use Top Hat Test to create and administer an exam. Scores can be pushed to the UB Learns Grade Center with the push of a button. In response to the move to online classes, Top Hat is also offering free remote proctoring. 

• Collect papers, projects, theses or dissertations via the UB Learns Assignments tool, UBBox, as a UBPortfolio assignment/ePortfolio or by email attachment.
• Courses in the UB Curriculum with existing course sites in UBPortfolio can be designed to allow students to upload assignments directly or to place assignments in a course ePortfolio.
• Move in-person presentations and oral defenses to digital formats.  Students can record presentations using Panopto and submit as they would any other assignment or "live" presentations can be done virtually with Webex meetings or Zoom.   
  

Not all teleconferencing software is accessible to individuals with disabilities. To make sure students can fully engage in the remote instruction methods:

• Identify the accessibility barriers for the product of your choosing and limit interactions of inaccessible features;
  
  
• Provide accessibility features and resources to enable using the product independently;
  
  
• Establish responsibility for quickly addressing equal access needs, such as closed or live captioning. Consider using Microsoft Office PowerPoint with the Presentation Translator Plug-in from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55024, or Google Slides with live captions from https://support.google.com/docs/answer/9109474?hl=en; and
  
  
• As screen sharing occurs, audio description from https://dcmp.org/learn/227 is needed to provide the important visual content to people who are blind or visually impaired.

Additional third party or open-source digital learning technologies used to facilitate instruction, such as polling software, must also be evaluated for accessibility. If the required technology is inaccessible to users with disabilities, work closely with the Accessibility Services Office to create equally effective access for the known barriers.

As various types of content are uploaded to Blackboard, establish a plan to prioritize making course materials and related technologies accessible to all learners. It is recommended to use the following hierarchy:

• Content for registered students with disabilities;
  
  
• Large enrollment courses; and
  
  
• Required courses.

There are numerous free or campus-sponsored tools to enhance the inclusiveness of the course. Here are some basic universal design tips:

• If you post a PDF, make sure it is searchable text and not just an image;
  
  
• If you post a PowerPoint https://support.office.com/en-us/article/make-your-powerpoint-presentations-accessible-to-people-with-disabilities-6f7772b2-2f33-4bd2-8ca7-dae3b2b3ef25  presentation, use larger size fonts and high-contrast color schemes.  Avoid the use of color or animation to convey information;
  
  
• If you post a video, check and see if it has intelligible captions. At minimum, use automatic caption features (e.g., YouTube  https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734796?hl=en ) and improve accuracy as needed; If you post audio, also share a written transcript. The Google Docs Voice Typing feature https://support.google.com/docs/answer/4492226?hl=en ) creates a transcript for you;
  
  
• If you post photographs, graphs or other media, add alternative text https://moz.com/learn/seo/alt-text) to describe the image and its context; and
  
  
• If you use a new technology for engagement/discussion, check with your Accessibility Services Office to be sure all your students can use it.

• For courses moved to remote instruction, the process for scheduling and delivering exams and quizzes may change. As campuses plan to deliver exams remotely, ensure that assistive technologies (e.g., screen reader, text-to-speech) are not blocked from taking exams off-site. While proctoring/testing systems allow for exam security, they may pose barriers to students with disabilities.
  
  
• To extend time on exams and quizzes, most, if not all, LMS have built-in features to accomplish this. However, you may need to extend the time manually for the individual student for each exam and quiz.

• Ally software https://ally.ac/courses.html is an accessibility tool for courses that provides faculty with user-friendly feedback on the accessibility of their content.
  
  
• SUNY’s Electronic & Information Technology (EIT) Accessibility guidance and free, unlimited user access to self-paced online accessibility training through Deque University may accessed by logging into SUNY Blue. Visit blue.suny.edu https://blue.suny.edu and enter your campus credentials. Navigate to Enterprise Projects > SUNY EIT Accessibility.
  
  
• Check out 20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Remote Course https://www.washington.edu/doit/sites/default/files/atoms/files/20_Tips_Designing_Courses_7_3_19.pdf.
  
  
• For individuals who have a chronic illness, please feel free to share this resource to speak with others who understand this time of heightened stress: Beyond My Battle Support Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/beyondmybattle/.