Overview

An assessment or assignment is a task that a learner has to complete by a specified time in order to earn points. These points count towards a final grade based on the selected weighting scheme. If required, an assessment can be embedded into a module as an assessment section. 

CYPHER for business utilizes assessments, and CYPHER for academia utilizes assignments. The terms are interchangeable in this article.

To see a list of the assessments for a course, click its Assessments tab.

If an assessment has a completion requirement, a appears next to it. To see the details for a particular assessment, click on its name.

The Grade Release column indicates how the grades will be released to the students. If you designated the grading for the assessment to be released instantly, there is no action for you to take. If you selected Manual when creating the assessment, click Manual in the Grade Release column.

A pop appears, confirming to “Release all grades now?”. Click OK.

Note: You can change between Instant and Manual as many times as needed. Each time you change from Manual to Instant, students will be notified, even if they previously received a notification.

To configure various assessment settings, such as the grading periods and the weighting scheme, click Admin/Assessments. Click here for more information regarding course and class configuration.

Adding an assessment

To add an assessment, visit the Assessments tab in the left bar, then click Add.

A pop-up will open with different tabs categorizing the assessment types. Select the kind of assessment you want to add.

Then enter its initial fields. Most kinds of assessments allow you to specify the points, the start and end time during which learners can submit responses, and an optional category. Note that you can leave the due date of the assessment blank. If you do this, then the assessment will never show up in the "Due" column for learners, and the learner will never receive an "assessment due" reminder.

When adding an assessment, you can define its grading scale. Initially, the assessment's grading scale is "Default", which means it uses the course's grading scale. You can override this via the Grading scale dropdown.

In the Instructions area of the assessment, you can add variables by using the {{variable name}} format. They are the same variables that you can use in canned messages, except that you use {{...}} instead of @.

The following variables can be used: {{class_custom_field_1}}, {{class_custom_field_2}}, {{class_finish_date}}, {{class_id}}, {{class_location}}, {{class_name}}, {{class_name_with_link}}, {{class_start_date}}, {{completed_at_utc}}, {{course_code}}, {{credits,}} {{days_in_class}}, {{days_left}}, {{deactivate_students_after}}, {{organization_id}}, {{organization_name}}, {{section_code}}, {{site_name}}, {{site_name_with_url}}, {{teacher_name}}, {{teacher_name_with_link}}, {{user_email}}, {{user_first_name}}, {{user_full_name}}, {{user_full_name_with_link}}, {{user_id}}, {{user_last_name}}, {{user_prefered_contact_method}}, {{user_ssn}}, {{userid}}, {{why}}

In the Options tab, you can set the grade release time, allow learners to comment, and share the assessment in the Resource Catalog. If you want to share the assessment, choose the organization, business, or network library.

In the Release grades field, select Instant to release the grade as soon as you are finished grading the assignment, or select Manual to release the grade at a later time. 

Note: If an option is not specifically chosen for an assessment, the grade release will default to what was chosen for the overall course.

Click Save.

You can search for the assessment in the Resources Catalog.

Here are some notes on the assessment settings. Please note that these options are not available for all assessment types:

Overview tab

The overview page shows the most important information about the assessment, such as:

Questions

This section displays the questions of an assessment, if it's a quiz or survey, and the number of points that are allocated to each of them. To add a question, click Add questions. 

Select the type of question, enter the question and answers, then choose from one of the options: "Save and return to assessment", "Save and add another of the same type", or "Save and add another".

Grades

To see a list of all submissions, including the ones that have already been graded, visit the Grades tab. Here you can see the learners' grades for the assessment, the submissions for each learner, score, grade, and instructor comments.

The Release grades button in the table toolbar sends the grades to all of the students at one time. Once the grades are released manually, all other grades given will also be released manually.

After the grades are released, the “Release grades” button will be hidden.

To grade tab

To see a list of all the assessments that need grading, visit the To grade tab. 

You can also see the assessments that need grading in the assessments list and in the Overview tab of an assessment. The link will take you to the To grade tab.

To grade an assessment, click its icon. 

You will be redirected to the learner's submission. Click the "Grade" box to enter the score.

You can navigate to any learner using the dropdown.

You can go to the next or previous submission using the "< "and">" icons.

You can go to the next or previous ungraded submission using the "<< "and">>" buttons in the upper right corner. 

Another way of grading assessments is from the scores, which is particularly useful when you have offline assessments such as a traditional test paper or reading a book. Click on Scores to access the scores. The link will take you to the column of the assessment in the Scores tab. Click here for information on this topic.

After the assessment is graded, learners can see their grade and grade wheel on the assessment's overview page.

Submission status tab

In this tab, you can see a list of all the learners and their submission status. By default, entries are ordered by learner name, but you can also sort them based on the status.

You can also filter by name and/or status.

If you want to send learners a message, select them from the list, then click Message.

Analytics tab

In the Analytics tab, you can see the grade distribution amongst learners.

In addition, the Analytics section of a course includes a chart that shows the grade breakdown for each assessment, as well as an indication of assessments that have been submitted but not graded yet. To view the assessment progress, click Assessments from the left bar and visit the Analytics tab.

Grading scales tab

You can set the grading scale on a per-assessment basis. When you create an assessment, its grading scale is "Default", which means it uses the course's grading scale. You can change an assessment's grading scale via its Grading scale tab. Here you have the option to edit the existing grading scale, select a different grading scale from the Resources catalog, or you can create a new one.

Competencies tab

If the course has competencies, you can tag an assessment with the competencies that it assesses. To do this, select the competencies, then click Save.

To edit the competencies, click Edit. To clear the competencies, click Clear.

Assessments that are associated with competencies are indicated with a "graph" mastery icon in the assessments list. 

If you use a Rubric to grade the assessment, you can add competencies as rubric criteria. To learn how to add competencies to rubrics, click here.

Completion tab

In the completion tab, you can define rules that should be performed upon completion. For example, you can define rules for when points and badges should be awarded in the course game. You can also define rules to schedule learner access to modules using the Lock/unlock modules rules.

You can mark assessments as being optional for module completion. Go to the assessment's Completion tab and uncheck the "Require this section to be completed for module completion" option. If you disable the requirement for a specific assessment, then learners no longer have to complete it for the module to be completed.

Please note that if you mark an assessment as not required for module completion, it will not block access to other sections even if the "Require sections to be completed in order" option is enabled via Admin/Configure/Completion.

In the completion tab, you can set up a completion requirement, which is the minimum score that has to be achieved in order to consider the assessment completed.

To add a minimum score requirement, click on the button.

Select the percentage, then click Save.

To eliminate the threshold, click on Remove.

You can add optional completion time estimates for assessments. This is useful if you want to show learners how long assessments should usually take. To add a completion time estimate for an assessment, go to the assessment, visit its Completion tab, and click Add under "Completion time estimate".

A pop-up editor will open where you can enter the estimated time. Define the time, then click Save.

The estimated time will be displayed in the Completion tab, and you can edit/delete it using the appropriate buttons.

Completion time estimates are shown for instructors in the module's sections tab.

The time estimates are also shown in the instructor's modules row view.

They are also shown in the Modules area of the course's catalog overview page. 

To add a completion action, click on Add under completion actions.

The type of rules that you can add are:

Add to group

Add the learner as a member of a specific group

Remove from group

Remove the user as a member of a specific group

Award certificate

Award a certificate to the user

Award badge

Award a badge to the user

Award coupon

Award a coupon to the user

Award points

Award points to the user

Enroll in a course

Enroll the learner into a specific course

Enroll in a path

Enroll the specific user into a path

Lock  module

Lock a module. Click here for more details regarding drip content 

Remove from group

Remove the user as a member of a specific group

Send custom notification

Send a custom notification to the user

Unlock module

Unlock a module

Webhook

Invoke an API

xAPI

Invoke an xAPI

Score rules tab

You can define actions that are taken when a learner earns a particular score for an assessment. Note that in the case of multiple submissions, we automatically remove any points and badges that were previously awarded by a rule action when a submission is graded, and we consider the rules for each submission. For example, if a learner submits once and scores 60%, so gets an award of 10 points, then submits it again and scores 80%, the previous 10 points are removed, and then the learner receives 20 points.

Each rule can define a lower and an optional upper range for the score.

You can add multiple rules to an assessment. After the rules are added, you can edit or delete them.

After the rule is added, you can set the actions which should be taken when a rule is triggered. Click Add action under the rule.

A pop-up will open with multiple tabs and a list of the options in each tab.

Rubric tab

To grade an assessment using a rubric, click Add, then click New to use a new rubric, or click Existing to use a copy of a rubric from your favorites list. If you choose to add a new rubric, click Edit to fill in the criteria and ratings desired.

The rubric will then appear in the Rubrics section. To edit the rubric, click Edit, and to remove the rubric, click "Don't use rubric". If you grade some submissions using a rubric and then edit the rubric, the scores are automatically recalculated. If you remove the rubric, the total score for the submissions is retained even though the details of how the rubric was used to calculate the score are lost.

You can add competencies as rubric criteria. To learn how to add competencies to rubrics, click here.

Visibility tab 

Manual personalization

In the Visibility tab, you can choose to set the assessment to be shown or hidden by default. 

If you choose Shown, then all the learners enrolled in the course will see the assessment, and if you choose Hidden, the assessment will be hidden from all the learners.

You can personalize assessment visibility by defining filters. This feature allows you to specify that specific assessments are only shown to certain kinds of users. For example, you could have an assessment that should only be seen by users in a certain location, members of a specified group, of a certain account type, or based on their language. To create a filter, click on Add under Filter.

Define the filter, then click Save.

The filter is then shown for the assessment. You can edit or remove it by clicking the appropriate buttons.

You can personalize the assessment by showing/hiding it only to certain learners. For example, if the assessment is shown by default, you can hide it from specific learners by clicking  Add under Hidden. 

You can use the people picker to select the learners, then click Add.

Dynamic personalization

Dynamic personalization of assessments allows you to use automation to personalize which assessments are shown/hidden from specific learners. Once Adaptive learning is installed, the "Hide assessment" and "Show assessment" automation actions will show within courses. You can add Enrollment/Unenrollment, Inactivity, Completion, Mastery, and Score rules that show/hide assessments to learners. To add an action that shows or hides an assessment, click on the appropriate link.

Select the assessment from the dropdown.

To see the learners who can see the assessment, go to the assessment, and visit the Visibility tab. In the Added column, you can see if the learner was added manually or via automation.

Note that if you delete a Show/Hide action, it automatically removes the Show/Hide entry from its associated assessment. If you delete an assessment, then when it's cleared out of the trash, its associated Show/Hide actions are also deleted.

Proctor tab

The proctored assessments feature allows you to restrict learners' access to assessments. There are three kinds of restrictions that you can enable so learners can only access the assessment when:

Please note that this feature is available for Silver plans and above.

To enable proctoring, go to assessment and visit its Proctor tab. Here you have the option to enable one or more restrictions for the assessment. Please note that Offline and Attendance assessments don't support proctoring. 

Access code

To enable the access code-based restriction, click Enable under "Access code".

An access code will be automatically generated that you can give to your learners.

To generate a new access code, click on Reset. Please note that after generating a new access code, the previous code will no longer work.

If you want to disable the access code-based restriction, click the Disable button.

When the access code-based restriction is enabled, learners have to enter the access code provided by the instructor in order to access the assessment.

Access Date

If the assessment has a start date, then you can enable date-based restriction by clicking Enable under "Access Date".

If enabled, this restriction will prevent learners from accessing the assessment before its start date.

To disable the restriction, click the Disable button under "Access Date".

IP Restrictions

You can enable IP Address-based restrictions by clicking "Add restrictions" under "IP Restrictions".

A pop-up will open where you can add multiple IP addresses and IP ranges. When you finished entering the addresses, click Save.

You can change the entered IP addresses by clicking the Edit button, and you can disable the restriction by clicking Clear.

If this restriction is enabled, learners can only access and submit the assessment from the specified IP addresses.

Safe Exam Browser

If the site administrator enabled the Safe Exam Browser integration, then in the Proctor tab, you can enable the feature for quiz-type assessments. SEB turns any computer temporarily into a secure workstation. It controls access to resources like system functions, other websites, and applications and prevents unauthorized resources from being used during an exam. To learn more about how the configure SEB for a quiz, please visit the Safe Exam Browser topic.

Tags tab

You can add completion requirements related to optional assessments via the module's Completion tab. For example, you can require that 2 optional assessments tagged with #video must be completed, in addition to the required assessments, in order for the module to be completed. Before you start adding additional completion requirements, first, you have to add tags to assessments. To tag optional assessments, visit their Tags tab and click "add" under Tags. To learn more about additional completion requirements for modules, please visit the Completion section in the Modules topic.

You can add as many tags as you like by typing a comma to separate them. To remove tags, click on their "X", and when you are finished adding the tags, click on "save". Please note that when copying assessments, tags are also copied.

Samples tab

You can provide learners with a sample answer. To add a sample answer, click Add. Enter the answer, then click save. You can also add a correct answer, which is hidden from learners and shown to instructors during grading.

Giving an assessment

To give an assessment, click Give from its overview page. The assessment is then added to the learners' assessments list.

You can give several assessments at the same time by selecting them from the assessments list, and clicking Give.

By default, the assessment is announced in the course news feed. To configure this option, go to Admin/Configure.

To ungive an assessment, click Ungive. If the assessment was previously announced to the course news feed, the announcement is automatically removed.

To see a list of the given assessments, visit the Given tab. Here you can ungive several assessments at the same time by selecting them from the list and clicking Ungive.

To see a list of the assessments that are not given yet, visit the Not given tab. Here you can give several assessments at the same time by selecting them from the list and clicking Give.

You can automatically give assessments when their start time is reached. Please note that this option is enabled by default for instructor-led and blended courses, and it doesn't apply to self-paced courses. To disable this option, go to the course's Admin/Assessments area and deselect the "Automatically give assessments when their start time is reached" checkbox under Options.

You can also give/ungive assessments directly from their module by checking/unchecking their "Give" checkbox.

Submission times

By default, a learner can make one submission between the beginning time and the end time. Once the end time has passed, a learner cannot make any more submissions.

You can override this default for a particular assessment by going to its Options area and changing the "Maximum attempts" and "Allow late submissions"' settings.

You can also override these settings for an individual learner by changing their "Maximum attempts" and "Allow late submissions" settings in its Grading section. If the learner has made more than one submission, you can see their submission history when grading an assessment.

Categories

An assessment can have an optional category. You can add, edit, and remove categories by clicking Admin/Assessments and visiting the Assessments categories area. 

The assessment category can affect the calculation of a learner's grade, depending on which weighting scheme you select. In addition, a breakdown of points per category is displayed by default in a learner transcript.

Weighting schemes

A learner's total grade can be calculated in several different ways from their individual assessment scores. To select a particular weighting scheme, click Admin/Configure and visit the Weighting schemes section. 

Here are the options, with examples:

Weight equally

Each assessment contributes an equal amount to the final grade.

A, B, C, and D contribute 25%, 25%, 25%, 25% to the final grade regardless of how many points they are worth.

Weight by points

Each assessment contributes to the final grade relative to its points.

If A, B, C, and D are worth 20, 40, 40, 100 points, they contribute 10%, 20%, 20%, 50% to the final grade.

Weight by item

Each weighted assessment contributes the specified percent to the final grade. The remaining assessments contribute an equal amount to the remaining percentage.

If A, B, C and D have weights 10%, 20%, -, -, they contribute 10%, 20%, 35%, 35% to the final grade.

Weight by category

Each assessment with a weighted category contributes an equal amount to the specified percentage. The remaining assessments contribute an equal amount to the remaining percentage.

If A, B, C, D and E have categories X, X, Y, -, - and categories X and Y have weights 10%, 20%, they contribute 5%, 5%, 20%, 35%, 35% to the final grade.

Weight by points within a category

Each assessment within a weighted category contributes to the specified percentage relative to its points within the category. The remaining assessments contribute to the remaining percentage relative to their points.

If A, B, C, D, E are worth 20, 80, 40, 20, 40 points and have categories X, X, Y, -, - and categories X, Y have weights 50%, 20%, they contribute 10%, 40%, 20%, 10%, 20% to the final grade.

Click here for more information on grade calculation.

Grading periods

By default, all of the assessments are in a single grading period that starts on the first day of the course. To add, edit, and delete grading periods, visit the Grading periods area under Admin/Configure/Assessments. There must always be at least one grading period, and the percentages for the grading periods should add up to 100%.

Weighting schemes operate on a per-grading period basis. For example, if you select "Weight equally", then the assessments within each grading period are weighted equally when calculating the total points for that grading period.

Threaded comments

Threaded comments allow instructors and learners to maintain a threaded dialog for every submission.

Threaded comments support bold/italics/underscore, images, files/videos, links, recording of audio from the browser, and recording of video from the browser.

To add a comment, go to the editor, add your comment, then click Post.

After adding a comment, you can edit or delete it by clicking the appropriate icon.

Using the content templates feature, you can create a "comment bank" of comments that you use when grading submissions. To save the content of a comment as a template, select it in the HTML editor, click right, then select "Save as template".

To insert a copy of the content template from the HTML editor, click the "Insert template" icon.

Then select the template you want from the dropdown, then click insert. To learn more about content templates, please visit the Editor topic.

Learners will receive a notification when an instructor comments on their submission. They can see the comment in the pop-up notification, and by clicking the link in the notification, they will be redirected to the assessment.

Learners will see the last comment that was associated with the latest submission. Learners can reply to comments they receive on their submissions. Instructors also receive a notification when a learner replies to a comment.

Instructors can see the comment thread also in the Scores grid if they double-click the submission's cell.