Instructors are encouraged to contact eclass@ualberta.ca with any questions when deciding on a delivery format and to take advantage of our exam checking service to review the details, setup, and configuration of their exam in advance. Registering an exams to allow the eClass team to review the configurations in advance, complete usage and system performance testing if applicable, and plan support resources.

Register Your Online Exam(s) HERE

exam checks, exam check, exam registration

Pedagogical Support for Remote Exams:

The remote delivery of exams has its own challenges with regards to academic integrity or from a student-user experience. Instructors can book a consultation with the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) regarding the restructuring of assessments while adhering to learning outcome objectives.

Since using online exam proctoring tools adds an unavoidable extra layer of complication and stress to test-taking, CTL has also created the following videos regarding alternatives:

1) Discussing alternatives to closed-book final exams 
2) Guide to creating Open Book Exams (OBEs)

CTL has also created resources for instructors considering how AI will impact their assessments: Teaching and Learning in the Context of AI.

Physical Locations for Online Exams:

With the mix of online and in-person delivery methods now available, one challenge facing students with mixed schedules is finding a location where they can write online midterms. In some cases, students face challenges with travel time between home and campus for online or in-person classes, meaning that they will require an appropriate place on campus to write their exams. Students are able to use a Windows machine in the Cameron or Rutherford Library computer labs to complete exams. These machines should not be used if an exam requires SEM or Respondus monitoring because external webcams may not function properly on Windows computers. Students are able to book a Cameron Library study room to complete SEM exams as long as they provide their own webcam.

Instructors can book a classroom for a specific day and time and day for an online exam. Doing so will ensure that their entire class has access to a space for exam taking. Rooms can be booked using the RO’s Classroom Booking page. If one is available, instructors can also book on-campus computer labs for exams. Machines in these spaces already have Respondus LockDown Browser enabled but cannot be used in conjunction with either Respondus Monitor or SEM since the machines do not have webcams.  

Guidelines for Constructing Quizzes

• Preview all quiz questions  

  There are many different questions types available to be used in new quizzes with a varying degree of complexity. Instructors should always preview questions after creating them. This is especially important if instructors are delivering quizzes that have been migrated from eClass using K16 and there are some known issues that should be reviewed.

• Quiz Layout

  Unlike eClass where it was recommended that quizzes all be delivered with 1 question per page, data entered into Canvas quizzes is saved as soon as it is entered. Instructors can choose to deliver either all questions on one page or one question at a time (available in quiz settings.) If several questions refer to the same material (for example a diagram, case study, or written problem), these can be set apart in a Canvas quiz using a text block quiz question (basically freeform text like in eClass) or a Stimulus question (a new Canvas question type that links material with a few questions.)

• Use built-in security features  

  There are a wide range of available security features in Canvas quizzes including question and answer order randomization, password protection, and more. Note that Canvas quizzes do not provide the option to require students to complete an honesty check statement so these should be added at the course level or included as a zero point TF question. 

Practical Considerations

• Flexible timings

  Ensure that the quiz time limit and open/close dates and times provide a buffer to account for technical challenges. Specifying a longer exam time window provides students flexibility for their specific start time, spreads outperformance and support load, and generally reduces anxiety. For example, if a quiz time limit is 120 minutes and scheduled for 2PM - 4PM, open the quiz at 1:30PM and close it at 4:30PM. Longer windows, for example providing students with 3 days to complete their exam are also recommended.

• Communicate early with students

  Instructors should communicate the exam details such as format and timing, how and when students will access the exam link, and any other special requirements students need to be aware of as soon as they can to head off any potential issues. For example, if the link to a quiz will appear in eClass only at the assigned start time, students may panic if they do not know that in advance. It is also imperative to set the expectations for student behaviour during exams and to outline the consequences for not meeting the requirements. Instructors are encouraged to emphasize to their students that the correct, complete monitoring record of an exam is considered a required component of successful exam submission and it is the student's onus to provide this. Instructors should also ensure that students review the guide Taking Canvas Quizzes (for Students).

  If instructors are delivering exams remotely or in-person on campus on student's own devices, it is also important to provide students the warning that they should always access online exams using the EduRoam wifi network (as opposed to using the Guest@UofA free wireless connection.) The Guest@UofA wireless network is known to drop connections during exams and can cause the loss of answers and submissions.

  It is also recommended to provide detailed test taking suggestions in the instructions fields of quizzes or SEM sessions. A possible example to copy and paste would be:

  Prior to writing this exam ensure the following:

  • Your operating system and apps are up to date.
  • You have recently rebooted your device.
  • You have minimized the number of open apps and browser tabs to prevent resource drain.
  • You have a full healthy battery or are connected to a power source. --- Note: Many devices have a "lower power mode" that will intermittently cut WiFi or stop scanning for WiFi connection to save power.
  • If using wifi on campus, ensure you are connected to EduRoam and not to Guest@UofA network.

  If your device dies during the exam you will NOT be permitted to switch to the paper copy. You will have to either accept your mark as is or have the weight transferred to the final.

  Instructors are also encouraged also post the link to the IST Support, student-facing usage guides for the specific tools they are using: Using Respondus Lockdown Browser (for Students), Using Smart Exam Monitor (for Students) into their Canvas courses.

• Run a practice quiz

  Running a practice quiz with students accessing from wherever they will complete their final exam is essential. Whether students are already familiar with taking quizzes on Canvas or not, attempting a quiz from the actual exam-taking locations where bandwidth or firewall issues may occur can prevent these from occurring during the actual exam. Whenever possible, running a practice with 'for marks' quizzes (eg. existing formative assessments in your course) will ensure a higher rate of student participation.

  Practice exams should be run prior to every high-stakes exam as updates to student's device, operating system, or browser version can often cause problems.

• Prepare for problems

  - Establish a communication process for the different kinds of issues that may arise during an exam - eg. for subject matter questions, contact the TAs; for internet outages phone your internet provider (or immediately switch to cellular internet service or personal data hotspot); for technical issues with your computer contact the IST helpdesk (780-492-8000); for eClass issues contact eClass support (780-492-9372). These tips are also suggested for students here. Please note, eClass support is open Monday to Friday, 8:00AM-9:00PM so if exams are scheduled outside this time range prepare an alternative mechanism for support.

  - Some available communication options include phone, email, Google Meet, a 'live' shared google doc, or the Canvas inbox. Instructors may also want to create an online meeting, for example a Zoom session with the waiting room enabled for 1-to-1 interactions that students can log into during an exam to pose questions.

  - Be familiar with using quiz/assignment overrides to give students having issues a time extension if warranted.

  - Plan a backup solution - for example offering an alternative variation of the exam to be emailed to a student, completed, and returned or shifting students to a deferred exam.

• Create a backup quiz

  - Duplicating a quiz in advance of the exam but leaving any exam security tools off can be a quick way to allow any students who have problems with their device and/or monitoring setup on the day of the exam. These can be configured in canvas with access assigned only to the 'Default' section of a course (so it would not be visible to any actual students sections) and then individual students who require access can be added as additional Assign to entries.

Employing Exam Security and Remote Monitoring

As mentioned above, remotely delivered exams pose a range of challenges to be overcome. Some of the technical/practical challenges can be addressed by communicating early with students, clearly outlining expectations, and running practice exams to identify issues before exams. From an academic honesty perspective there four main challenges:

• Ensuring the exam taker is the correctly enrolled student (identity validation).
• Monitoring the student and the physical space where they complete the exam to ensure no disallowed materials are used (physical integrity validation).
• Monitoring the students' online activities to ensure they are not accessing any disallowed electronic resources (online integrity validation).
• Making sure that exams and questions aren't copied by exam takers (question security)

The available options for exam delivery are listed below in order of increasing ability to meet these challenges but also in increasing order of potential for technical challenges. No academic honesty measures are going to be 100% effective. It is up to instructors to decide which challenges to address are most important to them and which of the options below they feel comfortable with having their students use. There is also the cost of the service to consider. 

Option 1: No remote monitoring - Alternative assessment or open-book Canvas exam staged over a flexible time block

- Method: CTL has provided suggestions for this type of assessment and they are available for consultations on how to convert existing assessments.

- Support: Assessments of this type create the fewest barriers to student access and have the fewest technological limitations and are - often carried out in eClass which is fully supported.

- Cost: Charges may apply depending on the delivery method chosen by the instructor, but use of eClass is free.

- Monitoring: This style of exam does not provide any of the four types of monitoring noted above. Instructors should be aware that exam questions may be copied.

Option 2: NEW for 2025! Canvas exam using Respondus LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor - Respondus LockDown Browser (RLDB) and Monitor have been selected as the new exam security and remote proctoring tools for Canvas.  

- Method: Instructors use Canvas to deliver secured and/or monitored exams.

- Support: LockDown Browser and Monitor are both vendor-supported. Basic setup help and documentation is provided by the eClass team.

- Cost: Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor are free to use.

- Monitoring: A full range of monitoring options are supported are supplied, and an audit report is produced by the vendor. All session videos are available for instructors to review.

Option 3: Canvas exam using Smart Exam Monitor (SEM) - A Chrome-only web application that records student webcam video, audio, and screen activity

- Method: Instructors use Canvas, or another exam delivery method and use SEM to monitor the exam session. SEM features an option to deliver Canvas quizzes in a forced-full screen mode. Any students navigating away from the exam-taking window are automatically flagged. 

- Support: Canvas exams and SEM are supported by the eClass team; instructors can engage the team and sign up to have their exam validated. Other exam delivery methods are up to the instructor to support; SEM may be able to be used in these scenarios.

- Cost: Canvas and SEM are free.

- Monitoring: Provides identity validation, monitoring/recording of the student’s physical environment, and lightweight monitoring/recording of the student's onscreen activity. Does not provide question security or full monitoring of the student’s computer activity.

Option 4: Canvas exam or another exam delivery platform delivered at the LAC - Physical location with live, proctored Canvas or alternative exams in a secure lab

- Method: There are two options, full-service and self-service. Instructors can either build their own Canvas quizzes and contract the LAC to deliver the exam (self-service). Or the LAC can assist with digitizing the exams in Canvas for the instructor (full-service). There is an additional fee for full-service..

- Support: LAC provides full service support. 

- Cost: LAC charges for usage. Contact edlac@ualberta.ca for more information.

- Monitoring: All four types of monitoring are supplied, and an audit report can be produced by the LAC. 

During the rapid shift online in March 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, eClass began assisting instructors moving assessments online by converting digital files into electronic exams. As this service was intended to provide instructors with a starting point for moving exams online, with the return to in-person learning in Fall 2021, exams will no longer be digitized on demand. Instead, eClass will be working with instructors to train them in building and administering examinations through eClass to improve online exam delivery and the student experience.

Instructors should begin by leveraging the guide for creating quizzes, and this short instructional videos for basic aspects of quiz building here in eClass 101. Information on the basic mechanisms for importing and uploading files into the course question bank is also available.

Instructors can also use 2 helper tools to assist them in this process: the Exam Digitizer, a custom tool that converts MS Word exams into eClass quiz questions; and Respondus Quiz Authoring tool. 

Please note that online exams may not be required so instructors should follow any department, faculty, or central academic directives on assessment and should also consult the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s guidelines for online assessment.

The Activity chooser is used to add activities such as quizzes, forums or assignments to your course.

To add Activities or Resources, you must first turn on Edit mode at the top right of your course page. Afterward, Add an activity or resource becomes visible at the foot of each topic section.

On your first time using eClass, you will default to the All tab, displaying all the Activities and Resources you may choose from. You can type into the search filter to narrow down the list to items. You can add Stars to items, click on the i to display information about the item, or click on the item to begin adding the Activity or Resource.

Clicking on the Star makes the Activity or Resource available in the Starred activities tab for your convenience, which becomes the tab first displayed when beginning to add an Activity or Resource.

If you are an instructor using eClass for the first time, or are interested in re-designing or improving upon your course content, the U of A has a number of different groups and resources that are available to assist you.

IST eClass Support Team

Website: https://support.eclass.ualberta.ca

For an overview of system features and technical assistance for eClass.

The eClass support team provides email, telephone, and face-to-face consultations to assist you with your technical needs for constructing courses within eClass. In addition to a large collection of searchable knowledge base articles (including this one!), instructors can also access our online, self-paced training materials available in eClass 101 (a resource course available in eClass). This team is also responsible for system administration and local development of features and integrations in eClass, so be sure to contact this group to suggest feature improvements to the system, report suspected bugs or accessibility concerns, or to troubleshoot any technical problems you encounter in eClass.

Centre for Teaching and Learning

Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/

For instructional design consultations, introductions to innovative technology, and pedagogical professional development.

The Centre for Teaching and Learning has a long tradition of providing well-researched, appropriate advice to U of A instructors for reflecting on and improving their teaching practice. The Centre delivers a variety of professional development workshops and also hosts a number of annual events that showcase great teaching and highlight exciting new strategies. The staff of educational developers offer instructors discrete feedback on teaching practice, consultations for course design and curriculum (re)design, and guidance in the appropriate use of innovative teaching technologies.

See more at: https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/about/index.html

U of A Copyright Office

Website: http://copyright.ualberta.ca

Contact this group for advice and guidelines on proper practice for posting copyright materials to eClass

The Copyright office is the best source for guidelines how to use copyrighted materials in your eClass courses. The basic standard that instructors should follow is that copyright materials used in an eClass course should be credited in the same way as if you were citing them in an academic paper. The same guidelines would apply for the amount of a particular source that you can include - the standard is up to 10% of the original work. For specific recommendations about posting formats, practices for citing, and queries about specific pieces of content, we recommend that you contact the Copyright Office directly.

Open Educational Resources

An alternative option to copyrighted materials that instructors might want to consider when constructing courses are Open Educational Resources (OER). These can include instructional resources, assessment items, multimedia, and textbooks that are freely available through Creative Commons licensing. Entire courses have even been made open through this license and may be valuable in providing inspiration or examples of content delivery. Most of these items allow instructors to pull down their own copies of these materials and to re-work and customize for use in their own courses. For more information on OER, please contact Krysta McNutt, Open Education Program Lead, Centre for Teaching and Learning.

More info: https://www.ualberta.ca/centre-for-teaching-and-learning/grants/oer/index.html

U of A Libraries

Website: https://www.library.ualberta.ca

Contact this group for the preparation of electronic resources listing any holdings from your course reading list

The library is an excellent resource for selecting readings for your course and offer a useful service that converts your final reading list into a list of clickable links to any resources in their holdings or that exist online in the public domain. This file can be added directly to your eClass course. It is also possible to add a Library Resources block into your course and to have subject area librarians customize it for your area of specialization.

Academic Success Centre

Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/current-students/academic-success-centre/index.html

Contact this group for validation of course content accessibility and instructions on meeting duty to accommodate

Accessibility Resources can advise and collaborate with you to ensure that your course materials interact with tools they provide for students with disabilities. They are among the experts on campus in universal design practices and should also be contacted for making exam accommodations. They can be reached at arrec@ualberta.ca. AR has also provided a basic article on accessibility within eClass: Accessibility Considerations in Constructing eClass Courses.

Advanced and interactive content authoring tools

A number of tools that are not centrally supported can be used to create importable learning objects that present multimedia content, interactive lecture captures, or assessments

• H5P (HTML5 Package) enables educators to create content such as interactive videos, quizzes and presentations. Existing H5P activities (created for example on h5p.org or h5p.com) may be embedded into eClass either by linking the URL or by uploading the file. 
• New for June 2021: H5P templates can be used to construct interactive activities directly in course Content banks. These activities and those exported from H5P.org ot H5P.com can now push their grades directly into the gradebook.  
• iSpring offers both paid and free tools for converting PowerPoint presentations to SCORM format and for creating SCORM surveys/quizzes. SCORM is an interoperability format supported by eClass which can integrate automatically with your course’s gradebook.
• Articulate Storyline creates interactive lessons that can include in-place assessment
• The eClass lesson activity also offers some of these types of features in-system

This Territorial Acknowledgement and Commitment to Conciliation, with the video of the Sweetgrass Teachings from Elder Fernie Marty, Papaschase First Nation, is a resource available for all instructors to add to their courses in eClass. 

This page was created in partnership with Indigenous Programming & Research, Online Learning and Continuing Education, and pipikwan pêhtâkwan and created in consultation with the Indigenous Advisory Council. In the interest of maintaining the intended message, kindly refrain from making edits to the wording or title of this page. For questions regarding the use of this page in eClass, please contact online@ualberta.ca.

This documentation is for teaching staff how to import this content into their course shells. 

Content can be previewed here.

To Copy the Territorial Acknowledgement and Commitment to Conciliation Into Your eClass Course:

1. Navigate to your Course
2. Click the More tab at the top of your course page and click Course Import/Export:
   
   
   
   
3. The page will automatically display courses that you have previously taught on eClass to import from. Navigate to the search field below and search for: Territorial Acknowledgement and Commitment to Conciliation. Press ‘Search’ and select the course in the table, then click the ‘Continue’ button.
   
   
   
   
4. The next step allows you to select content types from the course you are importing from. In this case, we want to just leave the defaults and click ‘Next’.
   
   
   
5. We now get another option to select specific content from the course we are importing from. We only have one item to copy, so we can leave everything selected and click the ‘Next’ button.
   
   
   
   
6. The final page is just a summary review of what we have selected to import. Press the ‘Perform import’ button and you are all done. 
   
   
   
   
7. You will receive a confirmation that the import is complete. You will also see a red error on the page, this is normal and you can ignore it. To finish, click on the ‘Continue’ button.
   
   
   
   
8. The Territorial Acknowledgement and Commitment to Conciliation resource should now be visible in the first topic of your course. You can activate edit mode in your course to move the resource to the desired location.

Forums are a useful way to facilitate classroom discussion in an online discussion room format. They can be set up in a number of ways for different situations such as small group discussion, 1-to-1 conversation between instructor and student, question and answer forum, and many more. Forums can be a graded by the instructor through the ratings system and can also be turned into a peer-graded activity using ratings. Generally, the recommended forum type is the Standard forum for general use. Though, there are further details on all 5 types of forums available at our Description of each forum type article.

Adding a Forum

1. Click Add an Activity or Resource in the topic area where you wish to add content (the week, unit, etc.).
2. Click on the Forum icon. A page showing forum settings will load.
3. Fill in the required settings and choose any other parameters if applicable.
4. Save using one of the buttons at the bottom when complete.

General

• "Forum name" (Required field)
• "Description": (Optional) Provides explanation and instructions for your students.
• "Display description on course page": The description of your forum will be displayed on the course page below the link to the forum.
• "Forum type":  Specify a forum type. See Notes for further details on the five types of forums.

Availability

• "Due date": If enabled, this is the date and time that posting to the forum will be due. Note that while this is the date and time that the course calendar will display the forum to be due, this will not prevent students from posting, and you will have to use "Cut-off date" to prevent students from posting.
• "Cut-off date": If enabled, then the forum will not accept posts after this date and time.

Attachments and word count

• "Maximum attachment size": Controls the size of how large attachments submitted to forums are allowed to be.
• "Maximum number of attachments": Controls how many attachments may be made to any individual post.
• "Display word count": Specifies whether the word count for each post should be displayed or not.

Subscription and tracking

• "Subscription mode": Toggles whether or not students will receive emails whenever a post is made to the forum, or gives them the option to decide for themselves.
• "Read tracking": Toggles whether or not students are able to see what they have and have not viewed in the forum.

RSS

• "RSS feed for this activity": To enable the RSS feed for this activity, select either discussions or posts to be included in the feed.
• "Number of RSS recent articles": Specifies the number of articles (either discussions or posts) to include in the RSS feed. Between 5 and 20 is generally acceptable.

Discussion locking

• "Lock discussions after period of inactivity": Automatically locks the discussion after the specified time has elapsed since the last reply. User with the capability to reply to locked discussions can unlock a discussion by replying to it. Individual topics within forums can also be locked.

Post threshold for blocking

• "Time period for blocking": Students will be blocked from posted if the maximum number of posts in this given period is reached.
• "Post threshold for blocking": Specifies the maximum number of posts which a user can post in the given time period.
• "Post threshold for warning": Specifies the number of posts until the user is warned about the maximum number of posts allowed in a given period.

Users with the Forum Permission (Post Without Throttling) are exempt from post limits. (For details on setting up permissions in eClass, please contact the eClass team by phone or email.)

Whole forum grading

• See article.

Ratings

• See article.

Common module settings

• "Availability"
  • 'Show on course page' - The activity is available to students (subject to any access restrictions which may be set).
  • 'Hide from students' - The activity is only available to users with permission to view hidden activities (by default, users with the role of teacher or non-editing teacher).
  • 'Make available but now shown on course page' - A link to the activity must be provided from elsewhere, such as from a page resource. The activity would still be listed in the gradebook and other reports.
• "ID number": An ID number identifies the activity for grade calculation purposes.
• "Group mode": The group mode defined at course level is the default mode for all activities within the course. Each activity that supports groups can also define its own group mode, though if the group mode is forced at course level, the group mode setting for each activity is ignored. This setting has 3 options:
  • 'No groups' - Students are not segregated into groups.
  • 'Separate groups' - Only group members can see their own group while other groups remain invisible.
  • 'Visible groups' - Group members can see other groups but still work in their own group.
• "Grouping": A grouping is a collection of groups within a course. If a grouping is selected, students assigned to groups within the grouping will be able to work together.
• "Add group/grouping access restriction": Allows access only to students who belong to a specified group, or all groups.

Restrict access

• See article.

Tags

• See article.

Navigating within forums

1. If you ever need to return quickly to the main forum page listing all topics, click on the forum title.
2. You can navigate to the previous or next post in a forum by clicking the topic title and arrows at the top and bottom of the current post and replies.

Sorting posts

You may sort posts by clicking on the headers in the forum activity to sort by ascending or descending order by:

• Discussion (text)
• Started by (user)
• Last post (date)
• Replies (number)

Notes

There are five types of forums in eClass:

• 'Standard forum for general use': Allows students to start multiple threads and reply as often as they'd like to any thread.
• 'A single simple discussion': Allows the instructor to create a single thread and students can reply to it as often as they'd like.
• 'Each person posts one discussion': Allows each student to start one thread and reply as often as they'd like to any thread.
• 'Q and A forum': Allows the instructor to post a single question and each student must reply to it once before being allowed to see other students' responses and replying to them.
• 'Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format': Allows the class to blog on a single topic with posts displayed in chronological order.

See a more in-depth description of the five forum types at this link.

Instructors have a few different ways to embed videos into their eClass course for students to watch. Please review our lecture recording overview for information on how to record videos. 

Please note: sharing via URL linking or via embedding externally-hosted video from the three tools described below are the recommended processes for putting videos in eClass as opposed to uploading video files directly. Uploading videos directly into your course may result in longer load times and performance issues. 

Embedding videos using the editor

You can embed media anywhere in your eClass course as long as it has an HTML editing area (i.e. section headings, forum posts, online assignment submissions, essay questions, page resources, etc.)

The following example will demonstrate how to embed video from a University of Alberta google drive account. Generally, users will need to obtain an embed code for a video they want to be shown in their course.

A. Obtain embed code from video:

1. In the University Google Drive, open the context menu for the video you want, and click Share.

2. Here, you can choose to add users or groups to whom you want the video Shared. You may also adjust the scope of access, e.g., to all of the University, to anyone, or to restricted to those listed.

Note: You can also limit the ability for users to download a video in the google drive settings as well. You can do this through the advanced settings under the gear icon at the top right and unchecking 'Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print, and copy', so that users cannot directly download the video in the Google Drive interface:

 3. To obtain the embed code, open the video preview (double-click, or right-click preview) and click on the 3-dots to open the menu. Open in new window.

4. In the new window opened, click on the 3-dots and click Embed item...

5. Embed item settings will display an embed code for you to use.

B. Embed the video: 

For this example, we will embed the video into a Text and Media area resource.

1. With Edit mode on, click Add an activity or resource and choose Text and media area.

4. In the controls, dropdown the list of tools by click on the button, then click on the Edit HTML code button 

5. Here, you will paste your embed code into the box. Note: There may be existing or extraneous HTML code that you can delete before pasting.

6. Click Save and return to course.

7. The Text and Media area resource should display: 

Smart Exam Monitor (SEM) is a vendor-provided external tool that allows instructors to remotely proctor online exams. It can be added as a resource in eClass or Canvas courses.

SEM uses the student's webcam and microphone to confirm their identity and then record them during a remote exam attempt. Their onscreen activity is also recorded and the system intelligently monitors for suspicious activities. It is authorized in accordance with the UofA's Security and Privacy policies.

SEM can be used for remote proctoring a variety of assessment activities in eClass such as eClass quizzes and Assign2. It can be used in conjunction with ExamLock and also Access restrictions (see Common Practices). It can also be used as a monitoring tool for other web-based activities.

New in Spring 2026, support for SEM Version 1 has been discontinued by the vendor. SEM version provides  increased monitoring reliability and ease-of-use for students so is now the only SEM version available in Canvas. Instructors can review the vendor-supplied documentation for more information on using the tool and provide their students the article Using SEM Version 2.

 

System requirements for using SEM:

• Google Chrome browser
• Desktop or laptop computer (i.e., Windows, macOS)
• Chromebooks are supported, but iPads and tablets are not, i.e., no Apple iOS or Android devices, etc.
• Please note: SEM does NOT function reliably with the LabConnect software provisioned in most on-campus computer labs. Instructors should arrange for a different proctoring mechanism in those environments.

Determining whether to use SEM:

Guidelines for delivering remote exams

SEM known Issues, system limitations, and recommendations

Adding SEM to your course:

(Video: Setting Up SEM for base eClass Exams)

1. Activate Edit mode in the top right of your course page:activated,

2. Click on the 'Add an activity or resource' link:

3. For SEM version 1 (for SEM version 2 see bullet 5), select Smart Exam Monitor:

4. At the next screen, enter a name and click "Save and return to course":

5. To use SEM Version 2, users must be select that option from the dropdown list of preconfigured site-wide tools when selecting a 'basic' External tool:

Configuring SEM:

Now that you have added the SEM activity to your course, you can add SEM sessions within it to connect to an eClass quiz activity that you have created. (To do this in SEM Version 2, please see Creating an Exam Session in SEM V2.)

1. Click on your newly created SEM activity.

2. Click the '+ New Exam Session' button.

3. Complete the fields:

• Exam Title (required): Visible to students when session is toggled available.
• Description (required): Visible to students when session is toggled available. Create a brief or generic description for students.
• Exam Instructions (required): (Visible to students when session is toggled available. Write any special instructions or leave a generic statement.
• Exam password: Visible to students only after the SEM session start time is reached. Enter the password set in the activity SEM will launch. The password will be hidden until SEM reaches its start time where students are given a button to copy the password or copy/paste it from the screen. Enter the password EXACTLY as it is set in the activity and be sure there are no leading or trailing spaces.
• Date/Time Details: The date and start must be filled out completely, but the Time Zone setting should be ignored (all exam start times assume Mountain Daily or Standard time offset).
  • Any SEM session that is toggled 'Open to students' (see below) will allow them to complete the SEM setup on their device. Once complete, they will see a timer counting down until the Start time is reached at which time a Launch button (if an Exam URL is entered) will appear for them.
  • The start date and time MUST match EXACTLY with the quiz activity (as in this example) or occur AFTER the quiz is open and available to students in eClass.
    
    A SEM session that 'launches' a closed or hidden quiz will cause confusion for students as they will not be able to open their exam and may not realize they need to refresh the quiz launch page after the actual start time in the quiz settings is reached.
    
    
• Rec Duration (hrs): This specifies the maximum number of hours that SEM can record up to (i.e., this is NOT the same as the quiz length setting).
  
  This number should be your longest anticipated time for any test taker, including any accommodations plus 30 to 60 minutes for potential issues. For example, if you have a 60-minute exam with a 2x time accommodation, you should set the recording duration to 3 hrs. Students can add time if they require longer monitoring by clicking the Add Time button in the SEM tab. They can also disable the monitoring once their exam is complete by closing the SEM browser tab.

Exam Types (monitoring presets):

• Open Book: For any eClass quiz where students are permitted access to course materials, online textbooks, or other resources.
  • Default toggles for this option:
    • AI Monitor (On)
    • Monitor Audio (Off)
    • Monitor Desktop (Off)
• Closed Book (Full Screen) - recommended: For any eClass quiz or activity. These settings offer the highest security as they will force students into a full-screen browser view. Any attempts to leave the exam browser tab will be flagged.
  • Can be used to launch Crowdmark, Exam.med, Assign2, and static exam files hosted somewhere
  • Default toggles for this option:
    • AI Monitor (On)
    • Monitor Audio (Off)
    • Monitor Desktop (On)
• ExamLock: For use with ExamLock
  • The popular use case for using this combination: Prevents desktop screenshots during exams and provide exam continuity in case of internet disruptions.
  • Default toggles for this option:
    • AI Monitor (On)
    • Monitor Audio (Off)
    • Monitor Desktop (Off) - ExamLock will handle this operation.

Monitoring options:

The monitoring options determine (pre-set by the exam types above but still editable) what automatic flagging models are enabled:

• AI Monitor: model uses the student webcam feed to identify and flag:
  • Use/presence of cell phones, laptops or other electronic devices
  • Other people in the room
  • Students who leave the testing area
• Monitor Audio: model alerts for ANY audio activity (i.e., students communicating with one another). The system attempts to transcribe audio where possible.  Monitor Audio should be disabled if the exam will display audio or requires a student to speak aloud.
• Monitor Desktop: model will monitor and flag any navigation away from the exam or any Allowed sites. (Do not override the toggle to On for Open Book exams).
  
  

• Exam URL: Entering a URL will give students a Launch button in SEM when the start date/time is reached. This URL can be anything you want students to immediately start with. The URL must begin with http:// , https:// , etc.
• Start Exam Template: not required for eClass
• End Exam Template: not required for eClass
• Allowed sites: Add any URL that a student is allowed to visit during an exam. e.g., Library, PDF files in your eClass course, and certain external URLs. Leave these fields blank if only the quiz is permitted.

4. Save when complete.

Once the exam session is saved, you may click Open to students. Students can begin the SEM setup process and can start the SEM monitoring (along with Launch and Copy Password buttons) during the time specified in the SEM session settings.

The session will have Edit and Proctor buttons available.

Recommended practices:

• Multiple SEM tool links can be added to a course so it may make sense to have a monitoring session link for each different exam that needs to be proctored. 
• As an alternative to manually toggling sessions 'Open to students' shortly (or an hour) before the exam start time, it is possible to use access restriction settings to automate the visibility of the SEM tool link, i.e., set the SEM session 'Open to students' on when created and limit access to the tool link to a certain time:

• Access restrictions can be used to group students into specific SEM tool links (eg. separate tools for sub-sections of a consolidated course or a number of different AR tools).

• Please note these additional warnings about using Access Restrictions in relation to time limits.
• It is recommended that you only have SEM sessions with at most about 600 students using them. If there are more than that, then when you are proctoring exams, then you should make multiple SEM sessions for students to take the exam, perhaps separated by last name (e.g. a last name starts with A-M session and a last name starts with N-Z section, for example).
• A quiz's availability setting can be set to 'Make available but not shown' so that students do not accidentally bypass the SEM process (screenshot below). If doing this, please note that any other course links to the quiz will also allow students to access it, i.e., calendar, upcoming events, gradebook, so it is imperative that quizzes have passwords to ensure students don't accidentally access without initiating a monitoring session.

6. With all these items configured, once an exam start time is reached students will be ready to launch their monitoring session:

Please consult Proctoring and Reviewing SEM Exam Attempts for details on what to do during and after exam sessions.

When you combine multiple course sections in a single eClass course, students are automatically assigned to groups based on the course sections they registered in when registering for your course (LEC, LAB, SEM, etc.).

You can also create additional groups to divide students for other purposes such as participation in group projects or, in large courses, to filter and divide grading tasks among TAs.

If students are in multiple groups but need different groups for different group projects, you will also need to create groups of groups called Groupings which we treat in a separate article and, briefly, below.

Activities that have groups enabled allow instructors and TAs to filter contributions with three different group modes:

• No groups: All students can view and participate in the activity.
• Separate groups: Only students within the same group can see and participate together in this group activity.
• Visible groups: Students can see all other groups' activities, but they can only participate in their own group's activities.

There are two main steps to setting up groups:

1. creating the groups you want to use, and
2. setting the group mode in the activity or content where you want group participation.

Creating Groups

To create Groups, 

1. Click on the Participants tab at the top of your course page.

2. Click on the Enrolled users dropdown menu and select Groups:

3. On the Groups page, you will see two panels: the Groups panel on the left will list the different groups in your course, and the Members of panel on the right shows the members in the highlighted group.

4. Click the Create group button below the Groups panel.

5. Complete the setup with your group information.

• 'Group name': Name your group; for example, 'Study Group 1'.
• 'Group description': Give your group a description so you can better remember what this group was defined for.
  
  

6. Click the Save changes at the bottom of the page when you are finished.

Manually Adding Users

To manually add users to your group,

1. Click on the name of the group you just created in the Groups column to select it, then click the Add/remove users button beneath the Members of column.

2. On the Add/remove users page, you will again see two columns: the left (Group members) shows the current members of your group, and the right (Potential members) shows the people enrolled in your course.

3. Click on a user's name to select them (highlighted in blue), then click the Add button between the two columns to move them into your group.

4. You may also use the Shift key to select a block of users (click user, hold Shift, click another user). Or, you can use the Control key (Ctrl) (or Command key (Cmd) on a Mac) to select multiple users that are not in a row (hold Ctrl while selecting multiple users).

5. If there are too many users to show all at once, you may use the Search box below to narrow the list of potential group participants.

6. When you finsihed, click Back to groups at the bottom of the page.

Auto-Creating Groups

As an alternative to manually creating groups, you can create groups automatically while adding participants randomly.

1. Click the Auto-create groups button under the Groups panel.

2. In Auto-create groups setup you can specify either the number of groups you would like to create, or the number of members you would like to have in each group:

• 'Naming scheme': Use @ to differentiate by letters, or # to differentiate by numbers. For example, Group @ = Group A, Group B, Group C. Alternatively, Team # = Team 1, Team 2, Team 3.
• 'Auto create based on': Choose either 'Number of groups' or 'Members per group'.
• 'Group/member count': Specify the number of groups or number of members per group.
• 'Select members with role': Select a particular role if you want to pull only users enrolled in your course in that role. Example: you could use this to create a group out of all the TAs. in your course.
• 'Select members from grouping': Select students already belonging to a group in the given grouping. Example: you could use this if you wanted to take a specific grouping and create a larger group out of all the smaller groups currently assigned to the grouping.
  
• 'Select members from group: Select students already belonging to the given group. Example: you could use this if you wanted to take existing larger groups and further break them down into random smaller groups.
  
• 'Allocate members': Randomly, alphabetical (by first or last name), by ID number.
• 'Prevent last small group': Check this box to distribute members to existing groups as evenly as possible. This could especially be needed if you have specified the number of groups (as opposed to members per group)
• 'Ignore users in groups': Check this box to have users already belonging to a group not be assigned to additional new auto-created groups.
• 'Grouping of auto-created groups': If you would like to add these groups to a grouping, you can do so here.
• 'Grouping name': If you are adding this group to a new grouping, specify the name of the grouping.
  
  

3. Once you are done, you can Preview the groups or Submit them:

4. After creating your groups, the Groups page will display a number after each name indicating the number of participants assigned to each group.

Setting group visibility in course content (Group mode)

To restrict viewing and participation in activities using the groups you have created, you have to set the Group mode in the 'Common module settings' for that activity:

1. Go to your course page, and click on Edit mode at the top right of your page.

2. Enter the settings for an activity or resource and choose Group mode under Common module settings:

3. Save when you are done.

Group Mode Examples for Forums

• 'No groups': Choosing ‘No groups’ for a Forum activity will allow all members of the course to view the forum, as well as post new discussions and replies, regardless of what group they belong to. This is always chosen for every activity by default.
  • Example: Help forum (no groups) - Anyone in the class can post a question, respond and see all discussions.
• 'Separate groups': Choosing ‘Separate groups’ for a Forum activity will essentially create separate discussion rooms for each individual group. Course participants can only see and post to their own group's discussion; all other group's discussions are completely invisible.
  • Example: Graded group discussion (separate groups) - These forums will be graded by group so you cannot see any other group's discussion points.
• 'Visible groups': Choosing ‘Visible groups’ for Forum activities will create separate discussion rooms for each individual group that can be viewed by all participants in the course. However, participants will only be able to post and reply to forums set aside for their own group.
  • Example: Group project discussion (visible groups) - These forums are set up for students to discuss their group projects, but all have different topics so they can read about what other groups are doing but can only contribute to their own.

Running multiple course sections in a single eClass course: You can run multiple course sections in a single eClass course and vary the activities while keeping the static content the same by using groups.

• • Example: A group is automatically generated for each of the sections in a combined course. You can create a Wiki on Topic One restricted to Group A1 and a Wiki on Topic Two restricted to Group A2. Each student will only see the Wiki Topic of the group they belong to (either A1 or A2). Meanwhile, the syllabus (which is group independent) can be seen by all students.

Notes

Assigning students to multiple groups will create a conflict in any individual activity when the system attempts to assign the activity to all the groups in your course. If you want participants to work with different groups on different activities, then you will need to combine the groups for a particular activity in a Grouping. Please see the article Setting up Groupings.

To limit a specific activity or resource to only the members of a particular group, you will need to set Access restrictions instead of using the group mode.

For eClass courses containing combined sections, a group will be automatically created for each individual section in the course (eg. a group each for LEC A1, and LEC A2).

Any activity in eClass can be set so that it uses visible groups (groups can see each other), separate groups (groups cannot see each other's work) or no groups. In these scenarios, the SAME activity is delivered to students along one of these methods (for giving each group access to their own separate activity or content, you must use Access restrictions).

Ensure that you establish your group settings before your students begin participating in any activities where groups are being used. Changing group modes can cause problems in activities if you change group modes (visible, invisible, no groups) after students have begun to work in the activity. For example, if you set up a discussion forum and posts are made after group settings are added, posts made before the change are replicated in all groups’ forums.

You may wish to have groups set by default for your entire course - you can do this in your course settings. This does not automatically apply the group settings to already existing activities and resources but does apply them to any new ones created. The other benefit of setting a group mode at the course level is that the gradebook can be sorted based on sub-section groups. See Filtering Your Gradebook by Groups for more information.

Unless you have Visible groups enabled, switching a student from one group to another will remove their ability to see posts made to the first group forum while a member of that group. If Student Five was originally a member of Group A, he will not be able to view any posts or replies he made in Group A’s discussion forum after he is moved to Group B.

If a user is not in a group, they will be unable to view or participate in any group activities if group mode is set to Separate groups. If Group mode is set to Visible groups, students not placed in a group will be able to view discussions across all groups, but will be unable to contribute.

Instead of auto-creating or constructing groups by hand, it is also possible to have students self-select their group using an additional block in your course - see Using the Group Sign-up Block.

WARNING in regards to Group Assignments: Once submissions have been made, DO NOT alter the groups or groupings in any way. If groups or groupings need to be updated or changed, we recommend that you create new groups/groupings and re-deploy the assignment with the updated group settings. Failure to do so will result in lost student submission data and glitches with the assignment review.

Instructors may choose to host videos in Yuja while embedding or sharing them elsewhere on Canvas, or they can create a course channel for students to browse all available course videos in one place. 

Instructors will need to add the tool to their courses to begin using these features. For a comprehensive overview of using YuJa, instructors can also watch this recorded training session that YuJa delivered for the U of A (The video contains references to eClass/Moodle, but the YuJa interface itself should be the same.)

Accessing Yuja

When using the tool in conjunction with credit courses, the recommended process is to create a YuJa linkage, as this will automatically create a course channel on the platform and manage student access.

It is possible for users outside of Canvas to access the system directly at https://ualberta.yuja.com by selecting the 'University of Alberta CCID login' option to sign in:

New in May 2026: students who have opted in to Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) for students may also see their Duo mobile authentication screen when trying to access password-protected Yuja videos and will need to complete that process prior to gaining access to those:

Yuja Basics

Instructors looking to start quickly can view Uploading a Video to Yuja and Sharing it with Students - a short tutorial describing how to upload a video file and publish it to their course channel. 

Yuja Best Practices and Recommendations

Please see the following articles for more information about using Yuja within Canvas (or eClass):

Using YuJa (for Students)

Adding captions to Yuja uploads (Students)

Recording Videos Using YuJa

Sharing and Re-using YuJa videos (article contains references to eClass)

Setting Video Permissions in Yuja

Adding YuJa Videos into Course Content Areas

Creating Video Quizzes Using YuJa (article contains references to eClass)

Setting Up Automatic Import of Zoom Meeting Recordings

The YuJa platform can be configured to automatically move all of a user's Zoom cloud recordings into their personal media library and then remove them automatically to preserve cloud storage space. Please see Moving Zoom Recordings into YuJa.

Detailed Vendor Documentation:

YuJa has a very thorough support portal that can help answer additional questions. We have collected several useful articles in the sections below.

Using Channels

Course 'Channels' are automatically created through the Canvas (or eClass) integration. Videos uploaded directly to channels or published from an instructor's My media area into a channel remain private and can be embedded in the Canvas course for students to view. Videos can equally be organized in the course channel, with students being given access to the full portal. The following videos outline the various features of media channels:

Uploading Videos

Publishing Videos

Managing Media 

Using Channels

Managing Channels

Editing in YuJa

Overview of Video Editor

Overview of Editing Features

Advanced Options for Video Editor

YuJa Status Page

https://yujasystemstatus-1564678088336.site24x7signals.com/

Setting a Password

To protect quiz activities with a password, go to your quiz settings under Extra Restrictions on attempts, and specify Require password.

Toggling the eyeball with hide or show the password to you so you can check if the supplied password is correct.

Instructors must communicate this password to students so that they can enter it before doing their quiz.

Honesty Checking

This option requires quiz takers to acknowledge the statement confirming the University of Alberta's academic integrity standards. This setting is located in the quiz settings under Extra Restrictions on attempts, after clicking on 'Show more...' to expand the number of options.

Quiz takers will see the following before beginning their attempt:

Shuffling Questions and Answer Order

Randomizing the order of questions and answers is common way make it difficult for students to share their answers with each other. It is possible to randomize the questions as they appear, but it is also possible to randomize response order of answers per question (if applicable for the question type, i.e. multiple choice, matching...). To do this:

• If the quiz settings, under 'Question behaviour', toggle Shuffle within questions to Yes:
  
  
  
  
• When you edit the question from the Question Bank, ensure that the box is checked for Shuffle the choices:
  
  
  
  
• Note: Multiple-choice questions are set to Shuffle the choices by default. This should be unchecked for questions that require answers to be in a specific order. i.e. if the last response option is "All of the above", etc.

Shuffling the overall question order can be accomplished by checking Shuffle box at the top of the 'Edit quiz' page. This option is also available for any sub-sections of a quiz:

Randomizing Questions

Questions in a quiz can be drawn from a collection (by category or tags). This functionality requires that questions have already been constructed and grouped into categories (or have been tagged) in the course questions bank (see Using the Question Bank.)

To add random questions, go to the 'Edit quiz' page and click Add > a random question:

In the modal that opens, choose the question bank category and then choose the number of questions that students should receive using the dropdown:

After saving, the 'edit quiz' view will show a dice icon indicating a random question, along with the name of the category where the question comes from, as well as a link for you to see all possible questions from that category:

Note: This does not guarantee that every student will receive the same questions.

Limiting Access to Quizzes

For high stakes exams, and in large classes where students attempt quizzes at different times, it is possible to limit access to a quiz using other options under 'Extra restrictions on attempts':

• Password: (mentioned above) Instructors can show the password (on whiteboard, etc) in an exam room for students present in the room.
• IP Address Restriction: If available, the IP address or a range of IP addresses for a computer or a lab room full of computers can be entered to restrict the quiz. Students accessing from any different IP will not be allowed to attempt the quiz. Please note: The changes to campus lab computer infrastructure have changed the existing IP addresses and have changed this functionality. For more information, please contact IST eClass support.

Quiz Delivery

eClass is able to strip away normal functions of a browser and alter the interface so that it restricts students from accessing anything else other than the quiz. This can be configured by expanding the options by clicking Show more... under 'Extra restrictions on attempts' and then setting Browser security to 'Full screen pop-up with some javascript security:

The quiz activity will resemble the screenshot below for quiz takers:

The window can still be re-sized and will function normally and so proctors should advise quiz takers to start full screen and expanded. That way, it will be obvious if a student tries to do anything other than the quiz. The absence of browser navigation will restrict access to other websites.

External Tools

Quizzes can also be delivered using several exam security and monitoring tools available on campus:

- Smart Exam Monitor (SEM) is a 3rd party tool that can be used for remote proctoring of online exams including recording webcams and screens. This tool can be paired with ExamLock. For more information see Using Smart Exam Monitor.

- Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor. These tools are only available for use in Canvas.

This article explains how to add quiz questions to an existing quiz on eClass. If you have not yet added a quiz, please see Adding Quizzes.

Add 'a random question':

1. To add random questions, first, select the category containing your set of questions to be used.

2. Choose the number of questions from this category that you would like each student to answer. You may even filter questions by specific tags.

3. Click Add random question when done.

4. When 2 random questions are selected as above, 2 new questions are added to the quiz editing overview:

5. For random questions, each student could be asked to answer any questions added from the selected category.

Note: Random questions are better drawn from a category with more, rather than fewer, questions.

Adding Pages and Headings:

1. We strongly recommend that only one question is put on each page

2. Changes are saved whenever a student navigates between pages.  Saving pages when moving to a new page limits data loss in the event of an internet connection interruption, power failure, etc.

3. Nevertheless, some questions may have to be grouped together. For example, you may ask several questions about a single description-type question:

4. Page breaks can be added and removed manually clicking the icons to the left of the questions.

6. Quiz pages can have headings added to them to provide contextual information about the questions on the page.

7. Headings can be added by clicking the pencil icon near the top left, above the page number.

8. Headings for inserted pages must be added from the 'Add' dropdown which only appears between pages where no heading exists:

9. Press 'Enter' to save headings.

10. Section names are visible both to a student taking a quiz and to an instructor previewing a quiz:

11. The quiz navigation panel is on the right side of the quiz page attempt or preview:

Repaginating:

The Repaginate button near the top left of the questions page can be used to re-organize the quiz with a set number of questions per page. This can be helpful after adding or reordering questions to restore your intended layout. Note: it is not possible to repaginate quizzes after any student attempts have been made.

Before any attempts are made, it is also possible to repaginate and/or specify that quizzes to display quizzes with one question per page on the quiz settings page. In the ‘Layout’ section of the quiz settings, set New page to 'Every question'. Selecting 'Repaginate now' will force the quiz to repaginate.

Managing Existing Questions:

1. There are multiple tools for arranging the format of your quiz:

2. Existing questions can be edited and updated using the displayed icons. A brief description of the function of each of these icons is included below:

• Move: Questions can be reordered either by clicking the Move icon and selecting a new question from the popup or by dragging and dropping it.
• Edit: Question text, answers, and feedback can be modified.
• Preview: Try a question from the student's perspective.
• Delete: Remove the question from the quiz.
• Edit Maximum Mark: The maximum mark for each question can be modified to weight questions differently. Start by selecting the pencil icon indicated in the screenshot above. After entering your desired value, save the new Maximum Mark by hitting ‘Enter’ on the keyboard. To cancel editing of the value, press the ‘Escape’ key.

Change Maximum Grade:

1. If the 'Maximum grade' is different from the 'Total of marks', the quiz will display a grade out of the maximum in the grade book:

2. The 'Total of marks' indicates the maximum amount of marks a student can get on the quiz.

3. The 'Maximum grade' indicates what the quiz will be scored out of in the gradebook and can be adjusted to match the grade breakdown in your syllabus.

4. Student grades are automatically scaled for display in the gradebook (e.g., in the screenshot above, 3/6 on the quiz would translate to 50/100 in the gradebook).

5. If you do not want a quiz to appear in the gradebook at all, you can set the Maximum grade to 0.

Shuffling Question Order:

1. Shuffling of questions from the 'Questions page affects the order in which the questions are presented to the student.

2. Shuffling can be set independently for each section of a quiz and does affect the order of questions set in other sections of the quiz.

3. If you wish to shuffle the order of choices in multiple-choice or matching questions, first see the question behaviour section in our article Adding Quizzes.

This article outlines how instructors can set up exam accommodations for students who are taking fully remote exams. Instructors should also ensure they are familiar with the accommodation guidelines provided by the Academic Success Centre. In addition, instructors working with student accommodations, should also remember to create their class test definitions in ClockWork's Instructor Services Portal 5 days before your scheduled exam and no later than the middle of March for end-of-term exams.

This guide covers the different setups for accommodations across a range of different delivery methods available for delivering remote exams. Instructors may also need to consult Creating Custom Versions of Exams for Audio Accommodations if that is required. 

Sharing Activities or Resources with Specific Students or Groups

When a student requires access to a different format of an exam, for example, an audio file version, these can be shared with students through eClass. The general guidelines for uploading media files apply but instructors should note that audio files will not embed and playback if the option to prevent users from downloading is applied. If this is a requirement, it is possible to request the Alternate Formats (AF) team to produce .mp4 exports with only audio that do function when that setting is checked.

To Add restriction, go to the activity of your choice and click on the Settings tab at the top of that page. Then scroll down to Restrict Access.



Files, resources, or activities on eClass can have access restrictions applied to limit their use to specific time ranges and to specific users. It is important to note when restricting access to toggle the eyeball closed on any restriction that could reveal private information to the course at large:

When more than a few students require access to a resource or activity, it can save time to add all the students into a group through the course participants list and use that group as a criterion for restricting access.

Adding Time or Attempt Overrides for Quizzes or Assignments

eClass quizzes (and assignments) have a built-in mechanism to change the delivery mechanism for particular users. The article Modifying Quiz Settings for Select Users has more details but it is a straightforward process to provide a different exam duration or open/close time for specific users (or groups.)

Setting Up SEM Monitoring for Different Periods

When using Smart Exam Monitor to have students provide a record of their academic honesty during remote exams, instructors can set up alternate exam durations in a couple of ways.

The easiest is to use the same SEM session for everyone and simply extend the monitoring duration to a time that encompasses the longest required time multiplier. The control of an individual's quiz duration is then handled by their quiz attempts directly in eClass or in ExamLock (see below).

If required (for example if all the students need to FINISH their exam attempts at the same time), it is possible to set up multiple SEM tools in a course and restrict access to them (see above for restricting access).

A last point about monitoring is that in case a student encounters technical challenges or need additional time during a session, they are always afforded an alert that their monitoring session is going to close when the duration is going to expire and have an option to extend their monitoring session to provide a complete record of their exam.

Setting Up Individual Student Time Overrides when Using ExamLock 

When delivering exams through ExamLock, it is possible to add additional time to each student requiring it by pre-populating the list of students and entering different exam durations. This is equally possible after the exam has already started as ExamLock checks for time extensions every 3 minutes and alerts the student if any have been added. This would be the method to use if a student encounters technical issues requiring additional exam time. 

1. Click on the ExamLock activity in eClass and then find the required exam based on its session code and click on the "Monitor" button (far right side of screen). 
2. Click on 'Import Users' icon near the top-right of the screen to 'Import Users from eClass'. 
   
   
   
   
3. You will now see a list of students and can search for a particular student's name (tip: make sure that "Rows per page" at the bottom-right of the webpage is set to "All" and then search quickly with ctrl/cmd+f and start entering the students name in the box that appears in the top right of the screen). 
   
   
   
   
4. Once you find the student, click on the clock image to the right to add additional time. In the pop-up window, enter the amount of additional time in minutes that this student will get for this attempt. For example: a student with a 1.5x time accommodation on a 60-minute exam would get an additional 30 minutes. In the box you would put 30 and click "Save".
   
   
   
   
5. If the clock icon now displays +## the time has successfully been added. 
   
   
   
   

Setting Up Multiple ExamLock Sessions

If numerous accommodations are required for the same quiz, it is also possible to create multiple ExamLock sessions: one exam for the intended duration, another for 1.5x the intended duration, and another for 2.0x the intended duration (assuming all 3 are required). 
In ExamLock you can create as many sessions from a compatible eClass quiz as you need and each would have their own 5-letter session code that could be shared with the different students. 

In some cases, you may wish to set conditions which limit whether a student can access a resource, activity, or an entire topic or section based on any of number of different criteria, including time range, grade range achieved on previous activity, user information, group membership, or by accessing/completing another activity.

This article will explain how to add simple web links into any editable content area where the HTML editor is available. For instructors the main places would be: the content section headers of their course home page, as content within page resources, in descriptions of activities or resources, and in forum posts. For students, the main places for this would be in the content of online text assignment submissions and in forum posts.

Question Tagging - A guide to show how you can organize your question bank by tagging.

Options for Bulk Creation of Quiz Questions

Manually creating questions from scratch within eClass may be time consuming. Here are a few faster options available for building questions:

Basic import of text-based questions - If instructors already have exam questions in text documents (e.g., MS Word), with some reformatting, questions can be imported directly after being converted into a .txt file:

eClass accepts a wide range of other importation formats; each with its own uses:

AIKEN format is the simplest and can import a large number of questions using the format depicted below:

Click Here for a sample AIKEN file.

To learn more about other specific formats, please click Here to see the following guide from Moodle.

Note: AIKEN format can only be used to import multiple-choice, text-only quizzes. If images are required within questions, Respondus is currently the best option.

Respondus Quiz Authoring Tool - The U of A has a site-wide license for the Respondus Quiz Authoring Tool, a Windows-only application which can import, manage, and publish quizzes and questions. It can import a wider range of question types than the basic text import methods and can import the embedded images in MS Word files. Respondus can push questions directly into eClass courses or even specific quizzes via integration and has a slightly different question syntax requirement than AIKEN (see image below):

Obtaining the U of A Version of Respondus Quiz Tool

Quick Start Guide for Using Respondus (vendor documentation with the graphics matching the latest version of the software).

Full User Guide for Using the Moodle (eClass) Personality in Respondus (full vendor user guide with screenshots showing older version of software but all functionality is the same).

An additional feature of Respondus that can be valuable is that a number of publishers have partnered with Respondus to provide question banks associated with some of their textbooks. The Respondus Text Bank website has a searchable interface allowing instructors to check if their particular text has any existing questions which can be downloaded into Respondus and then pushed into eClass courses. These types of questions can make 'homework' style quizzes as a formative assessment for students.

eClass Exam Digitizer - An eClass-developed tool that converts MS Word exam documents into eClass quiz questions. With a wider set of features than the basic AIKEN import, this web-based tool will work for Mac and PC users alike. The Digitizer is in open beta in hopes that it will assist some instructors with final exams in the coming terms. 

Creating and Using Categories in the Question Bank

The question bank in courses gives instructors flexible options for creating and organizing categories of questions. While optional, categories have several useful functions like having better organization of large numbers of questions. By default, all questions are created under a default category level. Organizing them into categories would allow you to better index and locate questions that you create. Coming up with a naming convention for your questions would also make indexing easier.

Adding multiple questions in one operation is only possible when questions reside within the same category:

Similarly 'Add random question' pulls a specific number of questions from the selected category. It is possible to create subcategories, which would be included when pulling random questions:

Quiz-Level Question Banks

So far, we know of question banks at the Course-level, but there is also a more subtle quiz-level question bank which is accessed only from within the context of a particular Quiz activity:

Questions stored at the quiz-level are not available at the course-level and is useful for copying a specific quiz from one course to another without having to copy the entire course-level question bank which occurs by default (see next topic). Questions already added to any course-level category can be moved into the quiz context.

Re-Using Quiz Questions WITHIN Courses

By default, questions added to a quiz or created from the course-level question bank are re-usable in other newly created quizzes (see previous topic).

Duplicating a quiz will not create extra copies of the questions. Unless the questions reside at the Quiz-level, editing questions in a duplicated quiz will alter the questions in previously deployed quizzes. Instructors who wish to practice version-management should duplicate questions from the question bank, and rename/re-categorize them using clear indexing logic.

Re-Using Specific Quizzes/Questions ACROSS Courses

The import function can be used to copy quizzes from one course in eClass to another. Unfortunately, due to the random question mechanism, this will always copy the original course's entire question bank along with any quiz imported even if questions are stored at the quiz-level.

To copy a single quiz, ensure that the questions are stored at the quiz-level. You can then backup the quiz and restore it in another course.

Alternatively, you can export and import categories of questions. This can be useful to select specific topics, concepts, etc. from one course and transfer them to another course.

Re-Using an Entire Course Question Bank in New Courses

When you request your courses, you are given the option to copy content from a previous class you instructed which includes the question bank and quizzes. Instructors wanting to build questions from a clean slate can exclude this option during the copy process (see image below).

This may be useful for faculties or departments that want to manage quizzes and question banks at a departmental-level by pushing quizzes from Respondus into specific courses. For units requiring that kind of capability, Category Question Editor and Sharer roles will provide additional functionality - please contact IST eClass support for more information.

This article outlines how instructors can use ExamLock Manager to manage existing secure exam sessions and review student activity during quizzes. Instructors should follow the instructions for Using ExamLock to Promote Quiz Integrity in eClass to configure their quizzes and create exam sessions. It is also recommended that instructors consult our current list of known issues before delivering exams using the tool and may find it helpful to review the latest troubleshooting steps for common issues during exams in advance to be prepared in case of issues.

Instructors should contact eClass support in advance of any exams if they have questions and are also encouraged to register their exams. 

Please note: if instructors elect to also hide eClass course content sections during their ExamLock exams, this should be done well before students launch their ExamLock attempts as otherwise there may be performance issues launching student sessions.

Managing Entire Exam sessions

On the ExamLock manager, instructors will see the list of all the exam sessions that they have created with action icons in each row to edit the session details, lock the session, and view session activity.

Adding extra time:

During an exam, if there have been disruptions or students need a longer time to complete the quiz, instructors can extend the time of the quiz for all the attempts. 

To add extra time for all students, click the Edit session settings button (pencil icon) in the row for the session:

Then, enter the desired time extension, in minutes, into the Extra time field:



Any students who have not yet submitted and have more than 2 minutes remaining on their own quiz timer will receive an alert in their quiz attempt indicating that they have received an extension. From that point onwards, their quiz timer will show the time added.

See below for adding extra time to an individual student's attempt. 

Locking sessions: After an exam session has been launched, or after it has been completed, you have the option of locking the session so no further attempts can be started or restarted. Existing attempts can be submitted normally when a session has been locked. To lock a session, click the Lock icon in the row for the session:

Session locking might be used in large course sections during exams where it is not possible to account for all the students submitting attempts - locking would prevent students from launching sessions from un-proctored locations and can also be used to ensure that students aren't quitting and resuming their exam session in cases where close proctoring is not possible. Locking should be standard practice after exams are completed and submitted if not all students have completed the exam.

Viewing Session Activity

The Session Activity button allows instructors to manage individual student attempts and review any flagged attempts. These functions are available before, during, or after an exam has been completed.

The session activity page displays all students who have accessed the quiz, along with their current status (the help icon describes all the available statuses.)
By pre-loading, all students in the course will be populated in the session list (whereas otherwise, they appear when they launch their attempt in ExamLock).



Pre-loading allows instructors to manage any students with accommodations by adding additional time for their attempt only. To add more time to individual students, you will have to click on the Clock Icon beside the student's name to add more time just for them

The exam activity page can be filtered to show only attempts that have been flagged, allowing instructors in large live exams to more easily check for potential issues.

Managing individual students:

For each student you can add extra time to their attempts, lock/unlock their attempt, or allow them to switch devices using the icons at the right:

The Device switch toggle will allow a student to switch to a different machine in case of a machine crash or a battery problem. This toggle will allow the student to re-launch the last saved attempt using ExamLock on a different/new device. Device switching takes the student's last saved data from the Examlock cloud manager and pre-fills a new ExamLock attempt on the new device. Students should select the option to Resume exam once they have input the exam session code. This should only be used if a student has access to a different machine - it will not function on the original machine.

Reviewing Student Attempt Evidence:

The interface for viewing evidence shows the attempt details at the top left and a bar representing the total duration of the exam. Any flagged events are listed as red ticks in the horizontal bar and appear in a list below the timeline. Clicking on any of the ticks in the horizontal bar will show the screenshots for 30 seconds on either side of that time.

The list of flagged events shows when they occurred. The types of events that are captured include:

Once displayed, clicking on a particular screenshot will enlarge it to provide more detail:

At the bottom of the evidence view of a particular student attempt, instructors can mark an attempt as clean in case a student has been flagged for a harmless infraction (eg. their monitor went to sleep or a windows update alert popped up) and the instructor has already reviewed the evidence. To do this:

The student’s status will now be updated in the overall class list:

There are two major kinds of blogs in eClass:

• Blogs that can be added to course pages
• Personal blogs that are external to eClass but are included in a course via the HTML editor. These blogs are generally available to all users at the U of A (or the broader internet).

This page explains how instructors can setup blogs that are contained within a specific course, using both the built-in Forum blog tool and the inclusion of external blog feeds.

Built-in blogging features in eClass

The most common blogging feature used in an eClass course is the blog forum. A blog forum functions like a standard forum; the difference is that the blog forum displays the user's first post as the main entry and nests all the replies underneath.
The posts are also displayed in reverse chronological order -- that is, with the most recent entries at the top.

To create a blog forum:

1. 1. Toggle on Edit mode.
   2. Choose a content section where you wish to add the blog and click the link 'Add an activity…'.
   3. Choose Forum.
   4. Complete at least the Required fields.
   5. In 'Forum type', choose 'Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format'.
   6. Configure other forum options if so desired.
   7. Click Save and Display.

To post to the blog forum:

1. 1. Click Add discussion topic.
   2. To post, click Post to forum.

Students have 30 minutes to edit the post.

Instructors can edit posts any time.

External blogging tools

If you want to set up a separate blog for each student, there are several useful blogging tools that can be linked externally within eClass.
One example is using Google Apps via the University of Alberta account. By default, each student with a UAlberta email has access to a (Google) Blogger account.
Blogger’s URL is: https://www.blogger.com/

Other popular blogging tools include:

Weebly

Wordpress

Tumblr

Blogger

Once an external blog has been created, you can link them within eClass using one of the following options:

Option A: Adding a page with blog links

1. Add activity or resource.
2. Under Resources, choose Page.
3. Enter some text and highlight it.
4. Click on the Insert/Add Link icon.
   
   
5. Paste the blog’s URL where specified. You can specify to have the link open in a new window if desired.
   
   
   
   

Option B: Adding a block with blog links

1. Turn editing on.
2. Add a block to your course and choose Text and a new Text block will appear
3. Configure the block by clicking on the gear icon and choose the 'Configure (new Text block) block'.
4. Configure the block where needed.
5. Add the Blog links using the same procedure from Option A (Step 3-5). (There may be slight visual differences.)
6. Save changes when complete.

Grading external blogs:

You can grade external blogs using the built-in grading tools in eClass if you have students post their blog URLs in a standard Forum or in an Assignment

If using an Assignment, be sure to allow Online text as a submission type in the Assignment settings:

This article shows how instructors can quickly embed Google Drive files including videos into their eClass courses. This process occurs through an external integration provided by the Google suite 'Assignments' tool and only functions for files inside the ualberta Google domain.

Note that a known issue can sometimes cause issues for students viewing or accessing Google drive files embedded using this mechanism. This issue occurs most commonly on video files due to underlying access limits in Google so whenever possible, it is recommended that instructors, especially those in large enrollment courses, first place the content or file in a shared Google drive before embedding in eClass (see below for more details.)

It should also be noted that Google Docs, including Sheets, will embed as Read-Only documents, so shared documents meant for collaboration should be linked a different way, such as using the 'share' link with a URL activity. 

To embed a file:

1. Turn editing on by clicking Edit mode in the top right of your course page and select Add an activity or resource in the desired content section area.

2. In the activity chooser, select the 'Google File Embed' activity: 

3. In the 'Add an External tool' dialog, add a descriptive name to identify your file.

4. Nothing else is required and you should NOT click Select Content. 

5. Click Save and Display to attach content from your UAlberta Google Drive.

6. If you are not already authenticated into Gmail or Google Drive, you will be required to sign in with your @ualberta.ca account. External personal Google accounts will not work.

7. When you're signed in, click your account to 'Select' it (in case you are signed into multiple Google accounts in the same browser):

8. A file dialog will open where you can navigate to and select and Add the desired file in your Google drive:

9. You will see a confirmation dialog to attach the file to your course.

• Note This may change the file-sharing settings on the file in Google to allow anyone with the link to access. If a greater level of privacy is required, you can open the sharing settings in your Google Drive and adjust the settings for the specific item:

Share embedded file:

10. Right-click on the file you are embedding and select Share: 

11. Select sharing with University of Alberta users only:

• Note: There will be a Google dialog that displaying that the link will be available to 'anyone with the link', regardless of your previous sharing settings. Never before shared documents will be shared with 'anyone with the link' settings, while other variants of sharing will remain as specified.

Share a Google Drive:

12. To share files in large-enrollment courses, it is recommended that instructors move or add the files to Shared drives.

13. To create a Shared drive for a course, enter Google  Drive, open the 'Shared drives' area in the left nav drawer, click New, then enter the details and Create: 

Please see here for more information about Shared drives

14. The file will now be embedded in your course and available for students:

Note: If you transfer a Google File Embed activity from one course to another, either from copying content from one course to another during course creation or from the Import function in the previously linked article, it will not copy over the video. It will just be an empty Google File Embed activity that you have to add the file to again.

If you need the link to transfer over, and if you don't want to re-add the video and don't need the video embedded in eClass, consider adding a shareable link from Google Drive to your eClass. To do this, go to your Google Drive, right-click on the file that you want to share, click on Get shareable link, make sure to change the sharing settings under "Get link" to University of Alberta: Anyone in this group with this link can view, and then click Copy link. This will copy a link that you can put into your course.

Instructors can now add H5P interactive activities directly to their eClass courses.

H5P ( ) activities are interactive learning objects based on a range of open-source templates that can now be used as gradable activities. The name is an abbreviation for HTML5 Package.

Any pre-existing H5P activities created and/or hosted on h5p.org or h5p.com may also be uploaded into a course Content bank. Existing activities or content created using the in-system H5P editor tools must then be subsequently displayed in the course through the editor or by using the H5P gradable activity.

Adding content to a Content bank:

1. Access the Content bank from the More dropdown at the top of your course page:

2. The Content bank lists all previously added content (or content copied forward from previous terms) and provides the option to Add or Upload H5P activities:

3. Add activities by clicking Add and scrolling through the list of available activities to select content:

4. The available content types allow for a range of different types of interactivity from answering embedded questions to recording audio to dragging objects. Instructors can customize the templates to include their own images, videos, or presentations, and then add the specific interaction allowed by the template.

• The range of content types is inter-operable and by default many of the recommended, 'fuller' activities are constructed using the 'smaller' ones as building blocks. See below for a table of what the different content templates do and to access links to specific instructional materials for the most popular types.

Unlisting Content bank items:

By default, your creations are set to 'Public' and may be searched by other H5P authors or Instructors in the same eClass course.

If you wish to hide the visibility of your content bank item,

1. Click on the item in your content bank:

2. From the More dropdown menu, choose 'Make unlisted'.

3. When you return to your content bank, you will see an indicator showing that the item is now unlisted:

Available H5P interactive content types:

New in June 2023, instructors can create attempts for students within the quiz activity. These attempts would reflect any random answer ordering or question ordering specific to those students. Once created, these attempts can be easily printed, giving instructors the option to fill in the answers in the students attempt (to allow grading to occur automatically). It is also possible to view and/or print student's completed attempts including answers to provide secure review or retain copies.

This new functionality can be used if students need to complete a quiz but do not have internet access and will also streamline the process of creating print or PDF copies of exams to share with the Academic Success Centre for alternate format conversion.

BEFORE printing exams, it is essential that instructors are aware of the limitations of this workflow:

• Several quiz question types CANNOT be converted to static/paper form including the drag-and-drop types, multi-answer (Cloze) questions that contain dropdown boxes, and STACK online computational questions.
• Creating attempts using this workflow actually launches student attempts on eClass so if quizzes have time windows or time limits for completion, the countdown will start for those attempts. Students can be given overrides that work around the timer so that that any offline processes can occur in an appropriate time. Instructors CANNOT submit attempts for students if the countdown timer has elapsed or the exam completion window has closed. 
• When you are submitting answers for students, if you have a multiple choice questions that allows the user to select multiple answers at once (a select all that apply question), when you are in the Submit student responses interface, then you will only be able to select one answer. If two or more answers are correct, you cannot choose them all. Right now, there is no workaround for this issue, so it is best to not use "Select all that apply" questions.

Creating Student Attempts

To access the attempt creation interface, open a quiz, click the Grades tab from the top header, and then select Create student attempts from the options dropdown at top left:

This page is similar to the standard quiz results table with additional columns is opens a table that lists all students in the course with new columns Attempt sheets, Answer sheets, Submit student responses, and Create attempt.

In a particular student's row, click Create attempt, then confirm to launch their attempt and pull any random values. Note: if a student has already attempted the quiz, there is no option to create their attempt:

Printing student attempts

Once created, a number of new options appear in a student's row - Attempt sheet, Right answer sheet, and Submit student responses:

Click Attempt sheet to display the student's entire attempt with random question/answer ordering in a printable form. This page displays all the questions as they would appear to students so should be proofed to ensure all the questions are working correctly:

Scroll to the very bottom right to Print the page. This triggers a standard browser interface for printing with options to save as pdf or send to a printer device for a paper copy:

Submitting answers for students

If a student has completed an exam on paper, instructors can use the Submit student responses link to transcribe their answers into eClass. Instructors could equeally score the paper copy themselves and enter the total score directly into the eClass gradebook. Entering the answers as the student allows the automated grading actions of the quiz to do the scoring and pass values to the gradebook.

The student's answers can be directly entered into the page but must be saved by clicking the green Submit answers on behalf of [student name] and finish attempt button at the very bottom right:

When importing questions from the Question Bank there are several formats that easily transfer into eClass quizzes.  One approach is to write questions using the AIKEN format. The AIKEN format allows you to create multiple choice or true/false questions using a plain text file. 

To set up AIKEN format questions:

1. Using a word-processing application (e.g. MS Word) or text editor (Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac), type out your questions using the following AIKEN conventions:
   • write the entire question on one line
   • add the response choices starting with an upper-case letter (ie. A, B, C) followed by a period or parenthesis.  For example, A.  or  A)
   • In the next line after the final response choice, type "ANSWER: " in all upper-case letters with a space after the colon.  Then, type in the letter of the correct response for that question.
   • For example:
     • What is the capital city of Alberta?
       A. Barrhead
       B. Calgary
       C. Edmonton
       D. Toronto
       ANSWER: C
     • Nunavut is a Canadian province.
       A) True
       B) False
       ANSWER: A
2. When you are finished adding all the questions in the document, click Save As and ensure that your file is being saved as a .txt (plain text) file in UTF-8 format.  Note: If you do not see this option in TextEdit, select Format in the top menu and choose Make plain text. Then save the file as .txt
   
   

The eClass mobile app, currently in a public beta release, offers faculty, students, and staff easy access to eClass course content. The app is available for download here.

This article describes some of the differences between the app and regular desktop access as well as the main expected uses for the app. Overall, the app should be thought of as a tool for students and instructors to access course content on-the-go. 

Please note, that there are some major differences between the functionality in the mobile app and the regular browser-based experience:

• Instructors should not plan to perform any major administrative functions using the app such as constructing their courses or grading students.
• Students may encounter issues viewing content on mobile and should not plan on using the mobile app as their sole option for accessing eClass.
  

General Interface Differences:

• The Dashboard page (course list) uses a standard version that is missing many of eClass’s customisations including re-ordering, highlighting, and hiding.
• Course content is displayed one section per page with options added for navigating between sections.
• The different course formats available in the regular browser view are not available in mobile. Note that this may drastically change the display of content between the browser version of eClass and the app.
• The online text editor has a different look and includes a different set of options.
• The right-side blocks available in the desktop view are not available in the mobile view.
   

Student Activity Differences:

• Forum posts and replies can be added through the app by clicking the large green plus icon near the bottom right. Files and photos from the device can be attached to a post and as assignment submission (but cannot added through the system editor within posts.)
• Quizzes can be taken using the mobile app with an alternative for offline delivery. Note: quizzes containing the ‘All-or-Nothing Multiple Choice’ question type cannot be completed in the app.
• Many of the U of A’s custom developed plugins are not yet available in the app but instead display a link to launch the mobile browser view of that tool. These include:
  • Tab display
  • Group peer assessment
  • Anonymous forum
• LTI external tools do not function reliably including Zoom meeting links.

Instructor / Course Administration Differences:

• Many administrative functions are not possible in the mobile app including adding or changing course participants, viewing or modifying groups, viewing course usage reports, creating or editing course content, and modifying the gradebook setup.
• No grading table is available for instructors. Student grades can be viewed (not entered) by clicking Participants > [Student name] > Grades.

Known Issues:

In addition to the above known functional differences, there are a number of known bugs and issues in the app functionality that are under investigation or which are already being repaired (some by Moodle HQ and some by the eClass team). These include:

• Many of the blocks in the right-hand block drawer, including the "Library Resources" block, will not display in the app.
• Styling and display of activity completion restriction messages on course content items.
• The ‘Add New Discussion’ button in forums that do not yet have posts is not currently working (posts can be added via the green plus icon).
• Improving display for custom local activities and resources by replacing the generic puzzle piece icon with actual existing icons.
• Android navigation back button and the bottom application navigation options do not function consistently.
• Android app looks for any installed audio recording apps for doing audio recording submissions. Fails when none are detected.
• Embedded google drive videos will not play.
• Kaltura video content will only load on the second attempt.
• Some filters, such as the MathJax filter for displaying mathematical notation, may not display properly.
• At the top of a course, a student might see a percentage bar. This relates to the percentage of activities that are able to be marked as complete that are marked as complete. This does not relate to course completion or the grade that you have on the course. 

Instructors can access the system at: 

https://digitizer.cloud.eclass.ualberta.ca/

U of A instructors can access the tool from any modern browser where they can upload files that will then be converted into an xml format (QTI) that is compatible for import into Canvas. The format can create the following question types: multiple choice (including images), essay, and true/false questions.

A walkthrough of using the tool is available in the following video:

Using the Exam Digitizer for Canvas  (running time ~6 minutes)

Usage Notes:

- All users must sign in with their CCIDs to use the tool.

Adding a URL

1. Click on Edit mode at the top right of your course page.
2. Move to the topic area where you wish to add content (the week, unit, etc.) and click on the Add an activity or resource link.
3. Click on URL.
4. A new page will open with the URL settings.

General

• "Name" is required. Make this as meaningful as possible for your students.
•  An "External URL" is required. Enter the URL here.
• "Description" is optional. You may provide explanations or instructions here for your students.
• "Display description on course page" toggles whether or not the description of the URL will be displayed on the course page below the link to your URL.

Appearance

• "Display": Together with the file type and whether the browser allows embedding, determines how the file is displayed.
  • 'Automatic' - The best display option for the file type is selected automatically.
  • 'Embed' - The file is displayed within the page below the navigation bar together with the file description and any blocks.
  • 'Open' - Only the file is displayed in the browser window.
  • 'In pop-up' - The file is displayed in a new browser window without menus or an address bar.
  • 'In frame' - The file is displayed within a frame below the navigation bar and file description.
  • 'New window' - The file is displayed in a new browser window with menus and an address bar.
• "Pop-up width (in pixels)": You may enter the pop-up width here, provided that the ‘In pop-up’ option for the display is enabled.
• "Pop-up height (in pixels)": You may enter the pop-up height here, provided that the ‘In pop-up’ option for the display is enabled.
• "Display URL description": Toggles whether or not the resource description will be displayed, provided that either ‘Automatic’, ‘Embed’, or ‘In frame’ is enabled for the display.

URL variables

• This setting allows you to pass internal information and parameters as part of the URL.

Common module settings

• "Availability": This setting has 3 options:
  • 'Show on course page' - The activity is available to students (subject to any access restrictions which may be set).
  • 'Hide from students' - The activity is only available to users with permission to view hidden activities (by default, users with the role of teacher or non-editing teacher).
  • 'Make available but now shown on course page' - A link to the activity must be provided from elsewhere, such as from a page resource. The activity would still be listed in the gradebook and other reports.
• "ID number": An ID number identifies the activity for grade calculation purposes.

Restrict access

• See this article.

Activity completion

• "Completion tracking": Activity completion is tracked, either manually or automatically, based on certain conditions. Multiple conditions may be set if desired. If so, the activity will only be considered complete when ALL conditions are met. A completion image with text such as "Done" next to the activity name on the course page indicates when the activity is complete. Note: In order to set activity completion options, completion tracking must be turned on in your main course settings. See our article on Completion Tracking.
• "Require view":
  • Student must view this activity to complete it: A tick will only appear once the student views the activity.
• "Expect completed on": This setting specifies the date when the activity is expected to be completed. The date is not shown to students and is only displayed in the activity completion report.

Tags

• See this article.

Notes

• It is also possible to add URL links to your course in page resources, within label resources, or in the headers of a topic (content section). Basically, anywhere that the eClass content editor is available you have the option of adding links. The following article outlines that process: Adding Clickable Links into eClass
• If you are adding a very long list of links such as a reading list or a list of supplemental websites, it may be especially beneficial to add a Page resource. Instead of having a long list of single links using the URL resource, creating a Page would allow you to create a single link on the main course page (for example: 'Reading List') within which you could copy and paste your list of links so that your students would click within the page to see a list of links and the content on your main course page would stay a bit more focused.

Conditional release based on activity completion:

In order to conditionally release a resource or activity in your course based on the completion of another course item, you will need to make sure that Completion Tracking is enabled in your course. Please see our article on Completion Tracking.

Once you have enabled completion tracking in your course, you can set up completion criteria within the activities or resources in your course. In essence, these settings allow you to specify how students can interact with any activity or resource in your course in order to mark it as ‘Complete’. You can allow students to simply read or access an item before it is considered complete, or to manually mark items as complete. In the case of activities, you can also specify that a certain number of posts be made to a forum or that a passing grade be achieved in a quiz before the activity can be marked complete.

After setting some completion criteria for an item in your course, you can then restrict access to other resources or activities based on that item within Restrict Access settings.

Restricting access:

Restrict Access settings are available within the 'Common module settings' area of all activities and resources in your course. Here, you can restrict student access to any item based on a number of different criteria:

• Activity Completion
• Date
• Grade
• Group
• User Profile

The settings and selection mechanisms for these different criteria has not changed and is described here: Restricting Access to An Activity or Resource.

Restriction Sets:

You can add multiple access restrictions in combinations. This is especially useful in cases where you require multiple conditions to be met, or when you would like to grant access to your item based on the completion of one of several possible conditions.

For example, let’s say that you have a discussion forum that you want to release to students, but only after a certain lecture has occurred on a specific date AND the student has achieved the requisite score on the previous topic’s practice quiz.

1. To do this, you would click the Restriction set option in your restrict access settings. This will create a nested area where you can create any combination of conditions.

2. For this example, we would Click the Add restriction button in the nested restriction set.

3. Choose the date restriction with the required information.

4. Then click the nested Add restriction button once again.

5. Add the grade criterion (second criterion).

6. After both restrictions have been added, we can confirm at the top of the nested area that each student MUST match ALL of the nested criteria before they can access this forum.

7. Alternatively, you can also change the restriction set criteria to allow the students to have completed ANY of the listed criteria, or none of the listed criteria by selecting ‘MUST NOT’ in the available dropdowns.

8. For more complex restrictions, restriction sets can be nested inside of one another allowing for the usage of both AND and OR sets for a single activity or resource.

For instructors, common spots for adding media would include the content sections of pages, quizzes, assignments, and discussions.

For students, media would most commonly be added to Discussion posts or in assignments requiring online entry submissions. This article will show the process from a student's point of view when adding a video to a Discussion post, but the process is common to all content entry locations.

Adding a video to a content area (example)

To add YuJa videos in a discussion post, for example, click the +Add Discussion button, add a topic, open the content editor, then select the YuJa button:

Note: If the YuJa button is hidden, you can find it under the plug-in button marked above.

YuJa videos can also be added to any content editor in quizzes, assignments and pages.

Uploading media

The first time a student accesses YuJa, no media will be available to select, so they should select Upload media or Record content:

When uploading, it is possible to drag and drop or browse to upload existing video files. Once selected, these will appear in a progress bar below the uploader while they are in progress:

Recording media

If students do not have their own media content to add, they can record content.

To record, students will first need to download the YuJa desktop capture application and should select the desktop recording option (browser recording is recommended only if a user is working on a machine that does not have the desktop capture application installed):

Once launched, the capture application allows users to select the video, audio, and screen feeds:

More information on recording videos in YuJa can be found in Recording Videos Using YuJa and on the YuJa support portal.

Adding media to a course

Once they have uploaded or recorded a video, students will need to re-launch the Yuja Media Chooser from the Discussion editor. They should now see the media they have added, which can then be selected and inserted:

Once the YuJa video title appears in the discussion topic content area, it can be posted into the forum or assignment by clicking Insert Content.

The resulting Discussion post will display the video in the message frame. Since it is hyperlinked from YuJa, it does not increase the file storage in the course.

As an extension of the Groups/Groupings functionality, the Group Sign-up block allows students to create or join pre-created groups for collaborating in eClass activities without the instructor needing to manually add them to the groups. The block allows instructors to pre-create groups in a grouping they want students to self-select into or allow students to create and then join their own groups.

This article describes how instructors can use the Group Sign-up block in their eClass course. The block can additionally be used in conjunction with a pre-survey to have students create well-matched teams for group work. For more information on that option see Advanced Use of the Group Sign-up block.

 Initial set up

The Group Sign-up block requires that there is a grouping in the course in which the groups will be added/self-created. Instructors must create a grouping - basically a collection of groups to serve a purpose in a course activity (projects/assignments/discussions/etc). This grouping will be used so students can either sign-up for groups or will allow students to create their own groups. Any groups created will be associated specifically with this grouping and will categorize the groups created to differentiate them from other associated activities.

Adding the block

1. Add the Group Sign-up Block. (How to add blocks)

2. Once the block is added, click Edit skills group settings to specify the parameters:

3. The 'Inputs' section is only required if using the advanced features of the block.

4. Under 'Outputs':

• Choose the grouping created in the Initial setup
• Decide whether students can create groups for themselves, name them, add other classmates, and/or view other group members
• Set a maximum group size and a group formation deadline

5. Save changes.

Student usage of the block

After you save changes, students can access the Group Sign-up block. The sign-up block allows them to:

• Create (if enabled)/Edit a group
• Join existing group

For more information on how students interact with it, please see Using the Group Sign-Up block (Students).

Final steps: Associate groups to activities

1. Create an activity.

2. After specifying the parameters for your activity, scroll down to the 'Common module settings' section.

3. Under the 'Grouping' dropdown, choose the grouping that you created in the initial step.

* Note: If you are using an Assignment activity, you may be interested in Group submission settings.

Badges are a gamification feature in eClass intended to make learning more interesting for students. This article will introduce basic Badge usage in eClass and is tailored to instructors who are new to Badges.

Three steps are required to use badges in a course:

• Adding/Creating a new badge
• Managing the badge
• Setting up criteria for the new badge
• Enabling the badge so that it can be awarded to students

Adding/Creating New Badges

1. In the tabs above your course, dropdown More and choose Badges.
   
   
   
   
2. Click on Add a new badge.
   
   
   
   
3. On the next screen, enter all of the required badge information.

    4. Click Create badge and you will return to the Badges main screen for further configuration options.

Managing Badges

Once a badge has been created, you will gain access to options for managing them from the Badges area initially accessed.

1. By default, it will display all the badges and give you a dropdown to add badge criteria.

You will now specify the criteria that students will need to meet for receiving the badge. Badges may be awarded based on:

• Manual issue (this article's example)
• Course completion
• Other awarded badges
• Activity completion

Please see the article on Advanced Use of Badges for information on the other criteria types.

In this example, to set up Manual issue by role criteria:

1. Choose Manual issue by role in the drop-down badge criteria menu.
   
2. Select the role or roles of issuer(s). Specify whether the badge must be awarded by a person from each of the selected roles (e.g. awarded by Instructor AND TA) or if it must be awarded by Any one person with one of the selected roles (e.g. awarded by Instructor OR TA).
   
   
   
3. Enter a Description to show the criteria to students. Click Save once finished.
   
   
   
   

Enabling Badges

 Finally, you will need to enable your new badge.

1. Click on the Enable access button from the Badge index.
   
   
   
   
2. Click on the Continue button to confirm. For more information on criteria locking see Advanced Use of Badges.
   
   
   
   

Awarding badges manually

After enabling the badge, you can start awarding them to students:

1. In your Badges index, dropdown and click on the 'Recipients' option, and click Award badge.
   
   
   
2. Choose or search for any students from the right hand side and then click Award badge.
   

For more details and advanced usage of Badges in eClass, please see Advanced Use of Badges.

The starting point for this article is to have at least one video uploaded into YuJa and appear in a user's 'My Media' area.

Sharing a single video via URL

You can share a video by sending a link, either publicly or privately via a generated URL.

1. Go to your YuJa admin page and locate your video.
2. Hover over the desired video and click 'More':
   
   
   
   
3. In the window, click on the 'Links' category:
   
   
   
   Here, you can copy the direct link to the video and paste it into a webpage or email to individuals. You can also copy an embed code for the video to add it to a webpage with a built-in player. Other options include obtaining a Permalink (an unchanging link that you can share in other resources).
   
   Note that you must adjust your Security Settings to ensure that your intended audience will be able to view the video - by default videos are only available to U of A authenticated users. It is possible to adjust privacy settings and enter restrictions based on password, authentication, dates, IP, geographical location, and/or domain:
   
   
   
   

Once you have copied the Direct Link (or the Embed Code or Permalink if preferred), you can paste this into your destination's content area. This could be any external website or into an email if sending directly to specific users.

It is also possible to add the URL link to a Canvas Module. Click the +plus sign next to the Module title. In the popup, click the Assignment dropdown and select External URL:

Add the URL, give it a title, and click Add Item:

Embedding Videos

When embedding videos, if Canvas is the destination, instead of pasting the embed code, the preferred method of embedding videos is to use the YuJa editor plugin button, which allows users to select any of their videos from the interface Media Chooser:

If the YuJa icon is hidden, click the plug icon to find it.

Note: Videos can be added from YuJa in any editor window in a Canvas Assignment, Quiz, Discussion or Page.

When the YuJa Media Chooser opens, click to highlight a video, then click Insert Content:

The video will be added to the editor window.
 

Publishing videos to another course channel 

Existing videos in YuJa can be easily shared with other course channels by publishing. The system provides the ability for bulk publishing of any or all videos within the same folder in a single operation.

1. Locate a folder of your videos that you wish to share then select the videos to share. Select videos by:
   • Dragging a selection box around videos
   • Clicking CTRL or CMD + Clicking on videos
   • Clicking CTRL or CMD A to select all videos in the folder
   
   
   
2. Selected videos take on a light blue background - screenshot showing videos not selected:
   
   
   
   Screenshot showing videos selected (faint blue border around videos selected):
   
   
   
   Note: You may only bulk publish videos within folders to other locations; entire folders or collections cannot be published. If a folder is included in your selection, other options will not be available.
   
   
3. After you make your selection, the 'More Actions' menu will change to show you more options to choose from. Click 'Bulk Publish':
   
   
   
   
4. Here you may publish your items to any one of your courses. Search for, then choose your courses by clicking on them. Use the right arrow to add them to the 'Selected Channels' area:
   
   
   
   
5. You can use "Additional Options" to select the date range videos will be available in the new channel.
6. Click to highlight any wrongly added course and use the left arrow to remove it.
7. Click Save, and you will see a progress popup indicating the sharing progress.

Sharing Folders

If a user needs a colleague (eg. a co-instructor or a TA) to be able to edit videos or add/change video transcript files, this can be accomplished by creating shared folders. To do this users should:

1. Access their 'My media' page and click New Folder. Note that a user's 'Default Collection' folder cannot be shared with colleagues:
   
   
   
   
2. Highlight the newly created folder by clicking on it and then from the top centre More Actions dropdown, click Share Folder:
   
   
   
   
3. Search for a user by first and last name, then select them from the returned list. Click Share to share the folder:
   
   
   
   
4. The user will then be listed below 'Who has access' and this change confirmed by clicking Save:
   
   
   
   
5. Full access is granted by default; the permissions options include the more restricted Edit Access, Edit Caption Access, and Read Only. These can be changed for the individual user:
   
   
6. Once a folder is shared with a user or users, they will receive an email alerting them to the link, and the folder will also appear under Shared with me in the left nav:
   
   
   
   
7. Any videos added to shared folders will be editable, subject to the permissions settings.

Sharing Video Folders with Multiple Users

It is possible to share a folder with multiple users by sharing a link to the folder. if you have a mailing list you can send a link.

Once you have located the folder, click the three-dot dropdown and click on More:

In the window that opens, click Links:

You can copy the link to the folder that you are going to share by clicking the copy icon:

You will want to select the security options for sharing by clicking on Security:

Choose Public so that it can be shared by the link:

You can also set a password as one of the other restrictions. If everyone has a ualberta.ca account, you can set the default domain restriction (automatically populated), which will force residents to log in to YuJa.

Click Save, and say yes to sharing all videos and subfolders in the folder.

 Create Recording

To get the software for lecture capture, you first need to create a YuJa  activity in your course.

Once added, when you click on a course-level YuJa activity in your course, the YuJa video platform will open in a new tab.

Click on the Create Recording tab at the top of the page:

At the bottom of the dialogue box that opens, click on Download if you have not yet installed the software:

The installation will automatically detect your operating system, whether it's a Mac or a Windows PC.

For detailed instructions on using the capture software, please see the YuJa documentation:

- PC - Installing | Usage

- Mac - Installing | Usage

Note: if you already have video files on your device, you do not need to re-record; you can simply drag and drop the files or select them from your computer. If you have videos on YouTube or Google Drive, you will need to download them first before uploading them to YuJa. If you are recording video using Zoom, you can also set up automatic importing from Zoom to YuJa.

For an overview of the basics of working with uploaded or recorded video, please see Using the YuJa Enterprise Video Platform.

Recording Lectures in Classrooms Using YuJa

The YuJa capture software is already installed in all centrally-managed classrooms. Instructors can view the following guide, prepared by the Learning Spaces Support team, to identify specific video and audio sources to use in classrooms. It is possible to arrange in-person training sessions in lecture rooms for additional assistance using YuJa. The LSS team can also be contacted directly through the U of A Service Portal available on the Staff Service Centre and the Student Service Centre webpages.

For urgent classroom issues, call the Service Desk at +1 780 492 8000.

Picture-in-picture controls

For recordings created in YuJa Create Recording, you can use the controls to switch between different views of the screen and camera captures. If there is no camera feed, viewers can turn off the blank picture-in-picture frame by switching to a single-stream view.

This article describes the Question bank in eClass and the basic operations available within it. 

Adding a question to the Question bank from a quiz:

Adding any new question within a quiz also automatically stores it in the question bank for the course. For more details, see Adding Questions to Quizzes. Questions are added by default into a generic category for the course titled Default for [course name].

It is possible when creating questions to change the default category by adjusting the category dropdown in the question settings to any pre-existing categories set up in the course question bank (see below) or into a category specific to the current quiz.

Note that the quiz-level category of the question bank is only available and visible when accessed from within the quiz and has some very specific functions. See Creating and Managing Large Question Banks for more information.

 See also the article on Question Tagging to learn more about how to better organize your question bank.

To access a course Question bank and add questions:

Instructors can also add questions directly to the course-level question bank. This is the mechanism used for randomizing student quiz attempts by pulling a range of questions from a larger pool but can also be useful simply for organizing larger question banks in courses where multiple assessments are being delivered. Once added to the question bank, questions must still be added to specific quizzes as shown in Adding Questions to Quizzes.

1. From the main course page, click the More menu in the header and select Question Bank.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a category for your question using the dropdown menu, or simply click Create a new question to begin generating items in the Question Bank in the currently selected category. Within a particular category in the question bank, you may also click Edit using the drop-down. This allows you to edit,  duplicate, copy, preview, or delete questions in the list.
   
   
   
   

Bulk operations in a question bank:

Instructors can perform bulk operations on questions in categories:

1. To move questions to different categories, select the corresponding checkbox beside questions in the category.
2. Scroll to the bottom and select a new category from the dropdown in the row underneath 'With selected'.
3. Click Move to...
   
   
   
   
4. It is also possible to delete multiple questions by selecting question(s) and clicking Delete.

Create new Question bank categories:

To manage existing categories and create new categories in the Question Bank:

1. Click the Categories tab at the top of the Question bank.
2. To delete, edit, or move categories, click the corresponding icon to their right.
3. To set up a new category, scroll down the 'Add category' area.
4. Select a 'Parent category', enter a name, and click Add category.
   
   

 (H5P) activities are interactive learning objects based on a set of open-source templates that instructors can add into their courses (the name is an abbreviation for HTML5 Package). Any pre-existing H5P activities created and/or hosted on h5p.org or h5p.com may be embedded into courses to provide interactivity in eClass. This can be accomplished by either linking the URL or by uploading the file anywhere where the standard editor is available (labels, pages, content section headers, etc.)

These activities can also be pulled from the course Content bank, either by linking or copying. Note: H5P activities added through the eClass editor cannot send grades to the eClass gradebook; if this is required, instructors can use the H5P activity type.

There are three ways to add H5P content to your course.

From within any content editor showing the  button

Method 1 - Entering a URL from an external H5P site:

1. Copy the HP5 URL from a website.
2. Where you want to add the interactive content, access the in-system editor and click the  button:

3. Paste it into the URL or embed code" box.

4. Expand the H5P options if necessary to allow downloading, embedding, or to add a copyright button.
5. Click Insert H5P at the bottom.

Method 2 - Upload an H5P file:

1. Download an H5P file to your local computer (from h5p.org or h5p.com).
2. Access the editor as above and click the  button.
3. Click Browse repositories... to go to the File picker.

4. Select "Upload a file". Click Choose File, locate, and attach your H5P file.
5. Click Upload this file.
6. Set any H5P options if necessary.
7. Click Insert H5P.

Method 3 - Pull content from the course Content Bank:

1. Access the editor as above and click the  button.
3. Click Browse repositories... to go to the File picker.

4. Select Content Bank.
5. Select the desired content and click on it to open the h5p package information overlay.
6. Then select whether to link or make a copy of the file (copied files will not contain any changes made to the content); change the file name, author information, or the license information if required.
7. Set any H5P options if necessary.
8. Click Insert H5P.

Note: The H5P content type libraries are updated regularly but newer activities created on h5p.org or .com may have issues when added by instructors. Please contact eClass support if you have issues with an incompatible H5P format.

Related Articles:

Preparing and Adding Content to eClass

This article describes how instructors can use the ExamVis external tool to provide students with feedback on their eClass exams. This tool, developed as a part of a TLEF project headed by Dr. Okan Bulut from the Faculty of Education, splits exam questions into subject matter categories that provide students detailed information on their strengths and weaknesses in those areas as well as a range of summary statistics. Dr. Bulut has provided this short overview of the tool.

For the Fall 2022 term, we have made a number of performance improvements over the summer as we continue to transition ExamVis to central support. Instructors should ensure to check the known issues before using the tool.

ExamVis can be added to an eClass course through Add an activity or resource > External tool > Select ExamVis from the list of preconfigured tools:

To get started using the tool, Dr. Bulut has prepared a user guide for using this tool that contains complete instructions.

Please note, since the tool is in open beta, instructors should be aware of the following known issues before opting to use ExamVis:

• The Description type question is not compatible with the tool. Descriptions will cause issues with calculating students correct total scores within question categories. If this type of question is required in a quiz, it/they can be added to a separate question bank category to prevent errors - this category would appear in the reports but not have any student scores associated. Note that collecting description questions will break the display of top visual graph, 'Radar chart'- per category scores and class averages will still be displayed in the Bar Chart below.
• Questions cannot be pulled randomly from categories into quizzes. If random order is required in a quiz, the shuffle feature can be used.
• Images within quiz questions cannot be added as base-64 encoded data (which commonly occurs when question text including images is pasted from word docs). These will cause the ExamVis tool to throw an http 504 error when loading the tool in a course. Base-64 encoded images can be identified by opening the html editor view of a question or answer and looking for either an image with a file name or an image consisting of a (very) long string of characters as in the screenshots below:
  
  
  • Not base-64:
    
    
    
    
  • Base-64:
    
    
    
    
• Very large courses (in terms of quizzes, question bank size, and overall content) may encounter errors when trying to load the ExamVis tool. This issue only appears intermittently and can sometimes be circumvented by launching the tool and running reports at off-peak hours when there is less overall traffic on eClass.
• Student reports are sometimes not fully generated on first attempt but if instructors click 'Generate reports' again, they should all appear.
• Student reports sometimes report that all student reports are generated when the actual number is lower and some reports are missing. This issue can sometimes be resolved by clicking 'Generate reports' again.
• ExamVis reports will not display correctly when questions with multiple versions are set to the default version setting 'Always latest' in quizzes. New versions of questions are created automatically every time a questions is edited so instructors who have made any changes to questions in ExamVis-enabled quizzes may need to manually change the version. This issue is being worked on by eClass developers. This issue can be resolved by selecting the latest version in the question's version dropdown (instead of 'Always latest'): 
  
  

Instructors encountering any issues should contact eClass support.

Through the normal course content copy procedures, student and instructor contributions into the database activity are not copied forward from year to year.

These submissions are considered user data and for that reason are excluded from the regular routines. If you require entries in a database to be copied forward into a new term's course, you need to use the activity's Export/Import Entries functions. This process is detailed below:

1. Enter the previous term's course and access the database activity.
   
   
   
   
2. On the database page, click on the 'Actions' dropdown menu at right, then select Export entries.
   
   
   
   
3. De-select 'Include user details'. Then, click on Export entries and take note of the file location.
   
   
   
   
4. Now enter the new course where you want the entries to appear. On the new database page, Select  Actions >> Import entries.
   
   
   
   
5. Click Choose a file then navigate to the file produced in step 3 (or drag the file into the uploader area).
   
   
   
   
6. Leave the options untouched and click Submit.
   
   

Now your database will include all of the previous entries. These will all be attributed to you so no student data will be inappropriately visible to new students.

Notes

• Along with entry data, database Presets may be downloaded locally as a zip and imported into a new course. If you are using eClass' standard course creation content copying process, this will not usually be required because all of your old database setup presets will already be copied into your new course.
• The field names in the top row of the CSV file must match exactly the names of the fields in database activity and are case sensitive. It is best to not edit the exported file in any way.
• User uploaded files and pictures are lost in this process.

This article outlines how instructors can set up individualized versions of exams for specific students. This is most commonly required if an instructor needs to facilitate an approved Exam Audio (AF) accommodation and this article will describe that use case in detail. The eClass steps for creating individual, printed copies of exams may apply to other situations.

New in June 2023, instructors can now create individual student versions of quizzes that use both randomized values WITHIN questions such as the calculated, simple-calculated question types and that have both shuffled question or answer orders. These attempts have a convenient option to create print versions. This new workflow is now the recommended process for creating audio versions of printed exams. It is still not possible to create printed-in-advance versions of exams using the STACK question types, the drag-and-drop question types, or CLOZE questions with dropdown boxes so these scenarios require an alternative delivery method for audio accommodations.

The eClass quiz tool has several delivery options but converting an exam to audio requires three primary steps: 

1. Configure the quiz in eClass for printing (and optionally, if the student will be writing online, ensure they have access to the quiz);
2. Upload the resulting file to ClockWork’s Instructor Services portal; and
3. Share the converted audio file with the student.

When conversion for an Exam Audio (AF) accommodation is required, instructors will be contacted by the Academic Success Centre’s Alternate Format Team to request electronic files of the eClass quiz at least three (3) working days in advance of the exam. (Exam accommodation procedures can be reviewed on the Academic Success Centre’s Academic Accomodations website.) 

Important note: at this time it is not possible to create an audio conversion or printed-in-advance version of an exam that uses randomized values WITHIN questions such as the calculated, simple-calculated, and STACK eClass question types because these create the questions for each student “on-the-fly” when each attempt gets launched. In these situations, a separate static quiz must be created.

Step 1: Configure the quiz in eClass for printing

A. No randomization. The easiest case is a quiz that involves no randomization of questions OR answer order. When a quiz is static, students using an audio format copy of the exam can use the same version as the rest of the class. The basic instructions for quiz printing apply: switch the layout of the quiz temporarily so that all questions are on a single page, launch a preview of the quiz, and then use the browser print function to create a PDF. Save this file and then share it with the Academic Success Centre’s Alternate Format team as per the instructions in Step 2 below.

After saving the PDF, ensure to return the layout of the quiz to its original question-per-page format (quizzes should never be delivered with all questions on a a single page.) Approved exam time multipliers can be added as overrides. In this case, no extra steps are required to give the student access to the online quiz.

B. Randomized quiz. Any time you have used question or answer order randomization as part of a quiz setup, you must create a separate version of the quiz in order to enable an audio conversion. You can do this easily by using the eClass Duplicate function available in the '3 dots' (⋮) menu to the right of the quiz:

Once duplicated, the options for question and answer shuffling can be turned off.

Question order shuffling:

Answer order shuffling: 

The quiz can then be printed following the steps in part. A. above, ie. switched to 'All on 1 page, printed, and then returned to 1 question per page. If the student is taking the quiz on paper, this version can be hidden. If the student is taking the quiz online, this quiz version can then can be access-restricted to the specific student requiring with the audio accommodation. This student should also be excluded from accessing the non-audio version of the quiz using another access restriction.

Specific notes on quiz construction:

For audio conversion to be successful, all features used in the digital eClass quiz must be able to be translated to a paper format:

- Any online content such as linked files, embedded videos, or You Tube links must be shared separately with the student.

- The drag-and-drop eClass question types cannot be printed so will not convert to audio.

- The matching question type uses dropdown boxes so it will not convert to audio.