Legacy Portal: Review Assessment Results and Adjust Scoring

After an assessment has been administered, you can review the exam-taker activity, grade essay questions, and make various types of adjustments. For example, you might need to import answers from Scantron® forms. You might decide to reduce the total points for the assessment as a whole or change the point value for for a particular question. If many exam-takers selected the same wrong answer for a particular question, you might want to accept that answer for full or partial credit. If very few people answered a particular question correctly, you might want to throw it out or make it a bonus question.

Note: Adjustments will apply to this assessment and any re-postings of this assessment.

Procedures

• View Exam-Taker Activity
• Adjust the Points Earned by Selected Exam-Taker(s)
• Import Answers
• Adjust Scoring for the Assessment as a Whole
• Adjust the Scoring and Correct Answers for Individual Questions
• Change the Answer Key for Multiple Choice Questions
• Adjust the Grading Scale
• Grade Essays
• View Reports

View Exam-Taker Activity

1. Select the Assessments menu.
2. Select the posted assessment that you want to view.
3. Select the Exam Taker Activity tab.

   
   
   For each exam-taker, you can take various actions:

   • To toggle between exam postings or to view all, use the drop-down menu at the top of the screen.

     

   • You can select an exam-taker’s name to view the download and upload history. 
   • Select the green arrow to increase max downloads of exams permitted for each exam-taker. 
   • Uncheck the arrow in the Score column for those exam-takers who should not be included in scoring calculations.
   • To email a group of exam-takers, select the exam-takers, and then select Bulk Email Selected.
   • Select the pencil icon to increase downloads, add comments, or mark exam-takers. 

     Tip: Marking exam-takers is useful if you want to review their records more closely. You can use the Advanced Search to quickly find all marked exam-takers.

   • Select the report icon to view the Strengths and Opportunities Report. For more information, see: Legacy Portal: Reporting & Scoring Overview
   • Select the camera icon to view an exam taker's snapshot report. This report shows the major actions taken by the exam taker during the assessment. For more information, see: Legacy Portal: View Exam Snapshot & Log Files
   • Select the email icon to send an email message to the exam taker.

Adjust the Scores for Selected Exam-Takers

You can adjust the total points earned by one or more exam-takers within the Exam Taker Activity tab..

1. Select the Assessments menu.
2. Select the posted assessment.
3. Select the Exam Taker Activity tab.

   

4. Select the checkbox for each exam-taker whose score you want to adjust.
5. Scroll down and select the Exam Taker Bulk Options dropdown menu (below the list of exam-takers).
6. Select Adjust Scores to Selected.
   • To increase the score for these exam-takers: Enter the plus sign, followed by the number of points, and then select Save. For example, if you enter+5, then the selected exam-takers will receive 5 additional points.
   • To reduce the score for these exam-takers: Enter the minus sign, followed by the number of points, and then select Save. For example, if you enter-5, then the selected exam-takers will lose 5 points.

Import Answers

If your ExamSoft account includes this option, you can upload Scantron® answers for a posting.

For detailed instructions about printing the assessment, preparing the exam takers' response data for import, and importing the data, see: Legacy Portal: Prepare and Import Data from Scantron Forms

Adjust Scoring for the Assessment as a Whole

1. Select the Assessments menu.
2. Select the posted assessment that you want to view.
3. Select the Adjust Scoring tab.

   

   At the top of this page, you can make the following changes:

   • Select Equal to distribute the points equally amongst the questions. Select Proportional to distribute the points proportionally.
   • To adjust the total score for the assessment, enter a new value in the New Total box.
   • Select Auto Adjust Points to save the above changes.

   You can make additional adjustments for each question, as described in the next section of this article.

Adjust the Scoring and Correct Answers for Individual Questions

You can adjust the correct answer for each question in an assessment, change the scoring options for an item to give full or partial credit, throw out a question altogether, or designate it as a bonus question.

Note: Any adjustments to the answer choices will only affect the current assessment. To update the question permanently, edit the question.

1. Select the Assessments menu.
2. Select the posted assessment that you want to view.
3. Select the Adjust Scoring tab.

   

   The questions in the assessment will be listed in the table.
   
   

4. Find the question that you want to change, and then select the pencil icon in the Actions column. 

   The question and options appear in a pop-up window. 

5. Make your adjustments as described below.

   Note: There are standard Scoring Options that apply to all question types and additional options for certain question types.
   
   Scoring Options(applicable to all question types):

   • Original Answer: Credit will be given only for the answer that you originally marked as correct.
   • Give Full Credit to All Exam Takers: Regardless of the response, every exam-taker will receive full credit for this question. Even the exam-takers who skipped this question will receive full credit.
   • Throw Out Question: This question will no longer be included in the total possible points or in any reports for this exam. No one will receive credit for a correct answer or lose credit for a wrong answer.
   • Bonus Question: This question will not be included in the total possible points for this exam. However, correct answers will be awarded bonus points. Exam scores can be greater than 100%.

   
   Multiple Choice and True/False Questions: In addition to the standard Scoring Options, you can adjust the answer choices.

   • To mark a different answer choice as the correct answer: For example, let's say that you mistakenly marked A as the correct choice, but B is actually correct. In this case, you'd select the checkbox for B in the Adj Answer column. When you do this, the Scoring Option field will display Accept Adjusted Answer. This means that full credit will be given only for B (the answer that is checked in the Adj Answer column).
   • To mark an additional answer choice as correct: For example, let's say that you originally marked C as correct, but an exam-taker makes the argument that both D also is a valid response. You want to give full credit for either answer. In this case, you'd select the checkbox for D and then you'd go to the Scoring Options dropdown menu and select Accept Any Adjusted Answer. Either answer in the Adj Answer column will receive full credit.

     Note: If this question was set up with the "Select all that apply" option, exam-takers will receive full credit only if they selected all of the choices in the Adj Answer column.

     Example

     

   
   Fill in the Blank Questions: In addition to the standard Scoring Options, you can adjust the answer choices. 

   • Edit or add responses in the Adjust Answer field: Enter your changes in the box. If you want to enter multiple responses, separate them by entering the pipe character: | 

     For example, the entry below will give full credit if exam-takers entered USA or United States.

     USA|United States

   • Accept Exam Taker responses as correct: Review the ET Responses. If you want to accept a response as correct, select the green plus sign.

     

   • Ignore Non-Alpha Numeric Characters: Select this checkbox if you want to ignore punctuation and other symbols within the exam-takers' responses.
   • Ignore Words: Enter any words to ignore, such as the, and, or, and so on. For example, if United States is the correct answer but many exam-takers entered The United States, you might want to ignore the word the.

   
   Hot Spot Questions: The pop-up window shows the hotspot image, the correct area (indicated by a bold black border), and red pins that indicate the exam takers' responses. The pins that are within the border are correct responses, while those on or outside the border are incorrect responses. You cannot change the hotspot area, but you can change the Adjusted Weight and/or use the Scoring Options list to give full credit to everyone, throw out the question, or make it a bonus question.

6. Rationale and Internal Comments: Edit these fields if needed. Any changes made here will be permanent changes to this question.
7. To finalize these changes, select the Update button.

Change the Answer Key for Multiple Choice Questions

With this approach, you can change the correct answers for your Multiple Choice questions by going through a list of question numbers and answer choice letters. The questions themselves are not displayed.

To use this option: On the Adjust Scoring page, scroll down to the bottom of the question list, and then select Change Answer Key. Make your changes, and then select Save.

Note: Alternatively, you can use the Import Answer Key option at the top of the Adjust Scoring page to import a new answer key from a tab-delimited TXT file.

Adjust Scoring by Changing the Grade Scale

1. Select the Assessments menu.
2. Select the posted assessment that you want to view.
3. Select the Adjust Scoring tab.

   

4. Select the Grade Scales sub-tab.

   The page displays the existing grading scale and Maximum Points.

5. Make changes as needed. The graph will adjust as you make changes in the scale.
   • You can change the Maximum Points for the assessment.
   • For each letter grade in the grade, you can select the pencil icon to adjust that level of the scale. In the pop-up window, you can enter a new value for Min. Points, and the percentage will be calculated for you. Or enter a new percentage, and the Min. Points will be calculated for you.
   • After making changes in the scale, you can select Set My Default to set use this scale as your default grading scale.

Grade Essays

Another tab under Assessments is Grade Essays. For detailed instructions and information, see: Legacy Portal: Grade Essays

View Reports

Another tab under Assessments is Reporting/Scoring. For detailed instructions and information, see: Legacy Portal: Reporting & Scoring Overview