1. Use proctored exams to deter cheating.
2. Familiarize yourself with the question types available in the ICON Quizzes tool and their limitations.
3. Write clear directions that are easy to follow in a high-stress environment.
4. Preview your work before you publish.
5. Use a practice quiz or test to acquaint your students with online exams.
6. Know and make ready the accommodations needed by students in your class.
7. Communicate to your students who they should contact in the event of problem and your criteria for make-up exams.
8. Ensure your students understand repercussions for academic misconduct. 
9. Hide exam results when using manually graded questions. 
10. Give general feedback to all students or set up individual meetings with students rather than releasing correct answers.

There is more to building an online exam in ICON than clicking the + Quiz button. Merging what is possible in the ICON Quizzes tool with the goal of your exam is the fundamental component of exam building.

Question Types 

There are many question types available in ICON Quizzes. You will need to manually grade some question types while others are automatically graded by ICON. For questions that are auto graded, be sure to provide ICON with the correct answer(s).  We encourage you to label your questions as you build them in ICON. These labels are not visible to students but will help you identify question content for future revisions.

Here are the question types that are auto graded:

• Matching
• True/False
• Multiple Choice 
• Fill in the Blank
• Formula Question 
• Multiple Answers
• Numerical Answer
• Multiple Dropdowns
• Fill in Multiple Blanks

Here are the question types that you must manually grade:

• Essay Question (manually graded)
• File Upload Question (manually graded)

See samples of how students would answer each question type 

Exam Set-Up 

The ICON Quizzes tool offers four quiz types, however, only the Graded Quiz type should be used for exams. When adding your questions to a quiz or exam, we strongly encourage storing questions in Question Banks. Links to individual question banks can be added to a quiz or exam. Those links allow you to choose the number of questions to pull from the bank and the point value of each question pulled. This creates a randomized order; meaning each student sees the questions in a different order.

Additionally, the ICON Quizzes tool has customizable options. These options allow you to control student access and to modify the online experience. When using proctored online exams, certain options will be required to keep those exams secure. Links are provided below for the options which have specific uses. Otherwise, all quiz options are explained here.  

Required Options for Proctored Exams: 

• Quiz title
• Quiz instructions
• Quiz Type
• Time limits
• Enable Honorlock (only if using full exam support)
• Require an access code (if using Honorlock, this is provided automatically)
• "Assign to"
• "Available from" and "Until" dates

Optional Settings for Quizzes or Exams:

• Assignment Group
• Shuffle answers for auto-graded questions
• Allow multiple attempts
• Let students see their quiz responses
• Let students see the correct answers
• Show one question at a time
• Filter IP Addresses
• Due date

Honorlock Settings

Finally, Honorlock has its own customizable settings. Exam Services has developed Honorlock templates to help you identify the settings required for your exam type. Exam Services does not recommend deviating from the templates. This is for two reasons: (1) the settings interact in unexpected ways and (2) setting labels do not provide a complete picture of functionality. Contact doe-exams@uiowa.edu for more information about the templates.

Tips and Tricks for Building Online Exams

The Canvas community is an excellent resource for learning about what is possible within Canvas. Below are some pro tips that we have developed when working with quizzes and exams in Canvas.

• Preview - Never preview a published exam. Not only is your preview considered an attempt at the quiz or exam, but it also prevents you from un-publishing the exam.
• Adding images to an exam question - We recommend no more than about 500 pixels of width if detail is important. Scale your image from large to small; expanding a small image will make it become blurry. Save images as a PNG rather than a JPG file type. JPG images are typically compressed and can create a pixelated look if expanded.
• Adding a formula sheet to an exam - If you have a formula sheet that should be used for the entirety of the exam, we recommend adding the formula sheet either to the exam instructions as a file (PDF) or as the first question in the exam.
• Access to another platform - Students taking exams in Honorlock can access other programs, like Excel, or other platforms, e-textbooks during the proctored exam. It is not possible to allow this when using Respondus Lockdown Browser at the Iowa City test centers.
• One minute per question - Students taking an exam made up of multiple choice, true-false, or matching questions should be given about a minute per question. For example, an exam with sixty questions should take students about sixty minutes to complete. 
• Don't let students see correct answers - Releasing correct answers to an ICON exam means that students can see all questions with correct answers indicated. Unless you plan to revise exam content regularly, we don't recommend using this setting. For courses that rotate instructors each semester, it is imperative to not use this setting.
• Revise - Revision of exam content is important to exam validity, especially as textbooks or new concepts come to light. Review your content often and update as needed.
• Scratch paper - Consider whether students need scratch paper to complete an exam. It is possible for students working at home to use scratch paper to write down exam content and pass it on to others.
• Chrome - Use Chrome as your primary browser when working in ICON. It is the recommended browser for best performance in ICON.
• Add rubrics - It is possible to add a rubric to your exam. You can grade an all-essay exam efficiently in Speedgrader when using a rubric.

You may have students who struggle to complete a proctored online exam. 

Common scenarios include: 

• Students with a lack of working equipment 
• Students with a faulty internet connection 
• Students on active military duty 
• Students living overseas 

Students with a lack of working equipment or a faulty internet connection should plan to complete their exams at one of the Iowa City test centers. If those students live far from the Iowa City test centers, encourage them to borrow a computer from a friend or family member. You can also encourage the student to try taking the exam in a different location like a local library or a friend's house. If none of the above is possible, please contact Exam Services. 

Students on active military duty may be in a secure location. Taking a computer proctored exam that records student activity and location information may not be allowed. In these cases, Exam Services will help you create and send a paper copy of your proctored online exam. The paper exam can be proctored by a military officer and returned to you via email.

Students living overseas may be in a country where access to certain platforms on the internet is often blocked. This happens frequently in China where access to the virtual proctor, Honorlock is blocked. Those students will need to be proctored individually with Zoom. Contact Exam Services for more information. 

Finals Week is the week after classes are complete in Fall and Spring semesters. For Winter and Summer sessions, there are one or two days dedicated to final exams instead of one week. Check the Office of the Registrar's Academic Calendar for more details.

Instructors should know the final exam policies for their department. For example, instructors in CLAS can't schedule exams or quizzes during the week prior to Finals Week. Please schedule any final exams following the policies of your department.

Instructors of Distance and Online Education (DOE) courses have a unique relationship with the Office of the Registrar. You are not required to request a final exam date or location from the Registrar's Office. You may choose your own date(s) during Finals Week. There is no need to wait for an assigned final exam date or time. Because proctored exams in DOE courses are completed either at one of the Iowa City test centers or with the virtual proctor, Honorlock, a classroom assignment is not needed.

For most of campus, final exams are a maximum of two hours long and have a fixed start time. While examination periods are scheduled for a two-hour duration, the Office of the Registrar does not require instructors to use the full two-hour period. Students should be notified well in advance of the exam if the exam period will be shortened. 

DOE instructors can offer more flexibility. You are encouraged to use a two-day window for final exams and no less than a 24 hour window. With an extended exam window, students can easily find a seat at a test center. Our test centers are typically open 9 AM - 9 PM. Students who work full-time or have small children may find the longer exam window suits their schedule. An extended exam window should also reduce the number of make-up exam requests during Finals Week. 

New Quizzes is the tool that will eventually replace the current Quizzes functionality in ICON. Visit the New Quizzes Hub to find out what schools across the country are saying about the new tool. 

Using New Quizzes at Iowa

NOTE: ITS does not recommend switching until more features, such as bulk migration, are available.