<< Assessment

Exams

Anchor Links Example

Compare assessment tools

This overview is created to help lecturers of the TU Delft in choosing a tool they can use for assessments, ranging from assignments to (on-campus digital, on-campus paper-based, or remote) written exams.  

Summary

  1. Ans Delft is the recommended tool for exams, both on-campus as well as remote.  

  1. Brightspace Assignments is recommended if you want students to hand in assignments that you grade online. It contains a plagiarism scanner.  

  1. Brightspace Quizzes can only be used for classroom quizzes only, and not for summative (graded) assessments.  

Comparison of the main assessment tools

 

Ans

Brightspace Assignments 

Brightspace Quizzes 

Main Application 

Standard exam tool, suitable for the majority of courses. 

1) on-campus digital exams 

2) on-campus written exams 

3) remote assessments 

Handing in documents, e.g. reports (pdf, word), powerpoints, pictures, movies, audio recordings. 
Plagiarism scanner available for documents. 

Formative quizzes, the options are limited and it is hard to set the correct settings, as it was not developed for summative examinations. 

Entering questions (teacher experience) 

1) Direct test creation (digital or paper-based): Easy. Preview of the exam looks like a traditional exam, which makes it intuitive. 

2) Creating an exam after entering questions in a question bank: Intermediate.  

Easy 

Easy 


Question types that can be automatically graded (i.e. student answer types): 

 

 

Click on answer option 

  1. Multiple choice (digital & paper) 
  2. Order (digital) 
  3. Match (digital) 
  4. Hotspot (digital, click areas that...) 
  5. Hotspot match (digital) 

Type short answer 

  1. Fill-in (digital) 
  2. Numerical (digital) 
  3. Mathematical equation (digital) 

 

Click on answer option

Type short answer 

* This requires the use of regular expressions, which is not straight forward.
How can manually graded question types be graded? 
  1. Points per criterion
  2. Slider
  3. Rubric with levels
  1. Rubrics
  2. Points and feedback
  

Parametrization 
(anti-fraud: every student gets different values to solve a numerical problem) 

More advanced. 

Possible to program in Python. 

Not available 

No built-in functionality, possible with a work-around using student numbers. 

Intermediate 

Only with Arithmetic Questions 

Versioning (anti-fraud) 

Question pools. 
(random version per question) 

No built-in functionality, possible with workaround to publish different versions of exams without students knowing the group they are in. 

Question pools. 
(random version per question) 

Ease of setting up exam settings 

Digital Exams will do this for your scheduled exams. 

NA 

NA 

Data entry by students 

Uploading Files/pictures 
Textboxes 
Checking boxes 
Other (formulas, code) 
Can directly capture e.g. calculations / graphs by accessing the laptop’s camera (faster than uploading) 

Uploading files /pictures 
(Typed documents, like pdf or .docx, audio/movies files, pictures/scans of handwritten stuff) 

Uploading files /pictures 
Textboxes 
Checking boxes 
Other 

Grading 

Manual and/or Automatically (depends on the question type). 
Easy to develop and change your answer model during grading. Flexible. 

Offline grading before scanning is possible.  

Manual only. 
Grading takes place online in Brightspace.  
It is currently not possible to download commented student work in bulk (if you comment in Brightspace). 

Manual and/or Automatic (depends on the question type) 

Giving feedback 

 

Annotations: Lecturers appreciate the ease of annotations with balloon 

 

Regrading of automatically graded answers 

Manually 
When changing the points per answer option, the grading is done automatically. 
In case you want to adjust the score for 1 student, this can be done by making an adjustment to the (total) number of points. 

NA. 

Manually per student 

Students reviewing graded exam 

Easy to publish feedback 
Students can ask questions on the grading in the graded exam in the system. Saves reviewing appointments. 

Easy to publish feedback. 
Graded /feedback document can be downloaded. 

Intermediate. 

There are quite some settings. Most of them are developed for formative assessments. 

Fraud detection 

Possible to keep track of similar mistakes, might enable fraud detection. No plagiarism scan available, yet. 

Plagiarism scan available for typed student work. (Ouriginal: similarities between students, and between student and internet sources.) 

By hand only, or write your own script. 
No plagiarism scan available. 

Security 

Only employees from Ans Delft and graders have access to student answers, question & answer models. 

TAs with student accounts who grade exams can only access the questions and student answers that you appointed them to. 
Currently, if you grant your TAs with employee accounts access to your course, they have full access to all questions and answers, like your colleagues. 

Brightspace helpdesk SAs have access. All TAs and teaching staff in your course have access to questions and everybody with grading rights has access to student answers & grades. 

Security/Privacy level 

 

 

Support 

Website: Ans support page 
Helpdesk:   
1) Scheduled exams: Exam Support. Available during office hours.   

2) Other assessments (mostly formative): 
Teaching & Learning Support. Available during office hours.  

Website: Teaching & Learning support page about Assignments / Quizzes 
Helpdesk (email & phone): Teaching & Learning Support. Available during office hours.   
No specific helpdesk/hotline/quick queue available for technical issues during exams. 

 

Start with Ans Delft 

Start Brightspace Assignments 

Start Brightspace Quizzes 
Anchor Links Example