Avoiding "locked out" students in proctored Blackboard tests.
In a situation where faculty are administering a proctored Blackboard test, such as in a computer lab environment, there have been instances where students get disconnected from the test. Once the student is disconnected the test normally needs to have the attempt cleared and the student needs to restart the test, which is not ideal for the faculty or the student. The student loses all progress and time previously applied to the test.
A solution to avoid this situation, is to not choose “Force Completion” and set the presentation mode to “One at a Time” in the test settings. While “Force Completion” is used quite often to prevent student from reentering a test after reviewing it, in a proctored test environment this setting is unnecessary, due to the nature proctoring. By not enabling “Force Completion” students are allowed to reenter the test after the last question that was completed. For example, if they had completed up to question 7 and advanced to question 8, they would be returned to question 8 upon reentering that test.
Using this method should alleviate the stress of a student being “locked out” of a test after a network or computer error. If you try this method please provide any feedback that you can, positive/negative as the the effectiveness to IDS. While we have tested this method, we cannot account for all variables that students and faculty may encounter, so we appreciate your input.
