Assessment is one of the ways we have to make students’ learning visible. Therefore, assessment should always be linked to a specific learning outcome (or outcomes) as articulated in the study guide. The use of different assessment approaches and strategies to assess the various learning outcomes during a particular course of study is always important – not only during challenging times or pending emergencies. A balance of formative and summative assessments over time, collected from multiple sources, provides a more authentic, reliable and valid picture of the student’s learning. Download the following document for more information: Alternative and Online Assessment The UP Way 2021 & Technical support documentation. Please also see:
Please note that POPIA prohibited lecturers from publishing marks in a PDF file and uploading it to clickUP. Add the My Grades Tool to your course menu for students to view only their grades and the class average. Work through the online Grade Center course. Lecturers may also protect students' identities in Collaborate recordings. Select the option to Anonymise chat messages from recordings when you create a session in Blackboard Collaborate from the Session Settings.
Calculation of Final Mark: When calculating the final marks in clickUP using a calculated column, ensure that "Calculate as Running Total" is set to "No". This is necessary for the final mark to be calculated correctly, i.e. for those assessments where students did not get a mark, it should reflect as "--" in the Grade Center and they will get an automatic "0" when clickUP does the calculation.
Chancellor examinations: Students who need to write the Chancellor's exam in January are registered in a separate module, that has as its term s9, e.g ABC123_S9_2021. Students who need to take this exam, are automatically registered for this module. You can request your Instructional Designer for access to this module and prepare the assessment within this module.
Online examinations:
Developments in clickUP
Online assessment tools available in clickUP
Various tools and approaches can be used for assessment. Technology-enhanced and/or online assessment is but ONE of the many possibilities. Table 1 provides a summary of some of the online assessment strategies currently employed by the University of Pretoria as an alternative to the in-person (on-campus) traditional written tests, written examinations, CBT tests in IT Laboratories, and practical examinations. All clickUP and Turnitin examinations, tests and assignments are marked online, and their marks are automatically directed to the grade centre. If any of these tools are used for summative assessment (examination) purposes, it is a requirement to hide the grade centre column from the students’ view.
Existing UP off-campus assessment options:
clickUP tool |
Description |
Help files |
---|---|---|
clickUP tests |
Create tests consisting of objective and/or essay questions. Objective questions are automatically graded to test students’ knowledge. Feedback can be added to each objective assessment question for formative assessment. Pay careful attention to objective assessment principles when setting questions. |
UP & Blackboard help on tests; Respondus help; Specific settings to mitigate risks with clickUP tests |
clickUP assignments |
Use this type of assignment if you do NOT have to check for originality. The tool allows online submission of individual or group assignments. Lecturers manage the grades and feedback for each student/group from the grade centre. Announcements, calendar administration and monitoring of students are integrated with the assignment tool. |
|
Turnitin assignments |
Use Turnitin assignment to check for originality in submissions. High similarity in reports does not automatically indicate plagiarism. It is essential that the correct settings are used for the type of assignment given to students. Using Turnitin correctly protects the academic integrity of the University. Turnitin Draft Coach will perform text similarity checking while the student is writing their assignment in Word or Google Docs. For more information on how this works, access the Turnitin Help Site. |
|
Gradescope |
Gradescope helps lecturers to administer and use AI to grade all assessments, whether online or in class. Gradescope’s AI-assisted grading allows instructors to automatically group similar answers and grade all the answers in each group at once. Gradescope supports Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, and Economy. |
https://www.gradescope.com/ |
Proctorio (pending iGaPP permission) |
Proctorio integrates with clickUP tests and uses advanced machine learning and facial detection technology to deliver accurate, reliable exam proctoring. |
|
In-video assessment | H5P is the software you can use to add interactive elements (including questions) to an existing video. The interface is accessible through clickUP. When you add quizzes to videos, the attempts will be recorded in the grade centre. | In-video assessment help |
Graded blogs |
A blog is a personal online journal that is intended to be shared with others. Blogs also have a commenting feature so that people can respond to one another’s thoughts. This can be set up for the whole class or groups of students. |
|
Graded discussions |
Asynchronous discussions occur over a period of time. This can be set up for the whole class or groups of students. |
|
Graded journals |
This is a private reflection tool between the individual student/group and lecturer. |
|
Graded wiki |
Course/group members collaboratively create and edit pages at different times and from separate locations. Changes and their authors are tracked and visible to the assessor. |
|
Blackboard Collaborate |
This webinar-like tool allows synchronous communication, which means that everyone who wants to participate must be in the same online space at the same time. This tool can be deployed for the whole class or for a specific group. You can use voice, video and text-in-a-chat function, as well as share a whiteboard, files or applications. The sessions can also be recorded and the link made available to students in the clickUP module after the session. |
Students who have access to an Internet connection can easily do the following on the Blackboard app, using any device (for any other clickUP assessments, students must use a computer/laptop):
Due to the small screens, they may experience difficulty in completing the assessments mentioned above. It is therefore recommended that they instead complete these on a computer/laptop.
There are many ways of enhancing the integrity of the assessments but some medium-term and long-term measures require the rethinking of assessment, and some technological solutions need funding. A balance of formative and summative assessments over time, collected from multiple sources, provides a more authentic, reliable and valid picture of the student’s learning. Various tools and approaches can be used for assessment. Technology-enhanced and/or online assessment is but ONE of the many possibilities to address academic integrity issues. Lecturers are rather encouraged to create assignments that make cheating harder using more authentic assessments and application questions which make it more difficult for students to find answers on the internet.
General measures to enhance the integrity of the assessment include:
Measures to enhance the integrity of clickUP tests include:
Measures to enhance the integrity of clickUP assignments include:
Alternative measures to enhance the integrity of assessments:
Proctorio ensures online assessment integrity through advanced technologies and data security processes.
Gradescope is a feedback and assessment tool that dramatically reduces the pain and time associated with grading exams, homework, and other assignments. Gradescope is widely used to deliver assessments remotely. It enables instructors and graders to give better and more timely feedback, resulting in improved learning outcomes. Dynamic rubrics help streamline the tedious parts of Grading while increasing grading consistency. AI-assisted Grading allows instructors to automatically group similar answers and grade all the answers in each group at once. Gradescope also helps with grading programming assignments at scale and can automatically grade printed bubble sheets. You can learn more and create an account at www.gradescope.com. The Gradescope team is happy to help, so please let them know if you have any questions: [email protected].
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