Assessing student work>>Creating TestGen tests
Once you have added a TestGen test to a content area, you can make it available to students.
To make a TestGen test available to students:
Click the course name on the My CourseCompass page.
Click Control Panel.
Under Content Areas, click the link for the content area where the test was added, for example, Assignments.
Click Modify next to the test you want to make available.
Click Modify test availability.
Under Test Availability, select Yes next to Do you want to make the link visible?.
Use the Display After and Display Until options to set assessment availability based on dates and times. For example, you can select Yes for the availability option, but then specify a date and time after which the test is actually visible to students. In this way, you can make tests available according to a schedule. You can also set a Display Until date so the test is only available up to a specified date and time.
Click Submit, then click OK.
You can set dates for when an assessment is visible to students. You can set a Display After date and time, a Display Until date and time, or both.
If you set only the Display After option, the assessment becomes visible after the date and time specified, and it remains visible and accessible indefinitely. For example, you may want to make practice or diagnostic tests visible on a timed basis, according to when you plan to begin new chapters in the textbook.
If you set only the Display Until option, the assessment is visible immediately, but it stays visible only until the date and time you specify. You might give your students a two-day, take-home test that begins as soon as you make the test available, but ends 48 hours later.
If you set both the Display After and Display Until options, the test is visible for the period between the two dates and times. To give a one-hour test on October 3, 2007, you would specify a Display After date and time of October 3, 2007, at 1:00 p.m. and a Display Until date and time of October 3, 2007, at 2:00 p.m.
Here are some key points to understand about assessment visibility and availability:
Be sure to set the Do you want to make the link visible? option to Yes before specifying display dates.
To set the Display Until option, be sure to select the box to the left of the option as well as select a date and time. Otherwise, the date and time you select will be ignored.
Students have the full time allotted to take the assessment as long as they enter it before the Display Until date and time is reached. So, if you set a one-hour assessment to be available until October 3, 2007, at 2 p.m., a student who enters the assessment at 1:58 p.m. on that day will have a full hour to complete it.
Before an assessment's visibility date has arrived, a message appears below the assessment link in the content area page in the Control Panel. For example, the message might read, Item is not available until after Friday Sep 12 13:00.
When an assessment's visibility has expired, a message appears below the assessment link in the content area page in the Control Panel. For example, the message might read, Item is no longer available. It was last available Tue Sep 16 20:55.
CourseCompass uses the Eastern time zone (US and Canada), which is equivalent to GMT -5:00. To set visibility time ranges, you need to calculate any difference in time zones based on your location.