In Blackboard, assignments and tests are both kinds of assessments. They are grouped together under Assessments on the Course Content page, and they share the same page and the same settings. The main difference is how students respond.

Create either one from the Course Content page: select the plus sign where you want it, select Create, then choose Assignment or Test. Creating an assessment also creates a matching item in your gradebook.

Step-by-step guides

Guides to share with students

Open a guide to find a link you can share with students.

On the assessment page, select the plus sign to add a question, text, or a file. Choose the question type you want and add it. Questions number automatically in the order you add them, and they renumber if you reorder them.

Question types in Blackboard

• Multiple Choice
• True/False
• Essay
• Fill in the Blank
• Fill in Multiple Blanks
• Matching
• Hotspot
• Jumbled Sentence
• Calculated Formula
• Calculated Numeric
• Likert
• Extra Credit

You can also add text blocks and files between questions to give directions or provide reference material.

If you give tests across several sections or terms, you can store questions and reuse them.

Question banks

A question bank is a collection of questions you keep and draw from when you build a test. You can add questions to a bank, then pull questions from that bank into any assessment.

Question pools

A question pool lets a test draw a set number of questions from a group of questions, so students can receive different questions from the same source. This is useful when you want each student to see a varied set.

You can also upload or import questions, including from a QTI package, to build banks without retyping them.

Open the assessment settings to turn on options that support academic integrity. Available settings include:

• Time limit. Give students a set amount of time to complete a timed assessment.
• Presentation options. Randomize the order of questions and answers, or show questions one at a time, so students are less likely to see the same sequence.
• Access code. Require a code to open="" the assessment, which lets you control when students begin.
• Proctored assessments. Turn on a proctoring tool for the assessment. At WSU, this is Honorlock. See the next section.

Step-by-step guide

Honorlock is Wichita State's virtual proctoring tool. It is available to your students online and on demand within the testing window you set, so students can test where and when they are able.

How Honorlock works at WSU

• Honorlock uses automated proctoring rather than a live proctor.
• Sessions are recorded by Honorlock and monitored by the Honorlock system, which looks for suspicious activity and flags it for faculty review.
• Proctored exams are reviewed by faculty. The flags support your review; they do not decide the outcome.
• WSU pays for all Honorlock exams, at no extra cost to departments or students.

Learn more on the WSU Honorlock pages:

• Honorlock for Instructors
• Honorlock in Blackboard
• Honorlock for Students
• Honorlock Proctoring overview

For written assignments, you can turn on SafeAssign to check submissions for originality. SafeAssign compares a submission against a set of sources and produces an originality report that shows matching text and where it came from.

Turn on SafeAssign in the assignment settings when you create or edit the assignment. Use the originality report as one piece of information as you review student work.

Step-by-step guide

The AI Design Assistant is a tool built into Blackboard that can draft content for you as you build your course. It is meant to give you a starting point that you review and edit. You stay in control of what goes into your course.

What it can draft for assessments and content

• Test questions
• Question banks
• Assignment prompts
• Rubrics
• Discussion prompts
• Journal prompts
• Learning module structures for your course
• Images for a module or page

How you stay in control

• You can set the level of complexity of what it generates, so the draft fits your students.
• You can review and edit everything it produces before you add it to your course.
• Treat the output as a draft. Check it for accuracy and fit before students see it.