Quizzes

Students may complete quizzes as part of their coursework, but these often differ from in-person models. Quizzes should only be formative assessments used to advance student learning. Due to the medium, they are open book and untimed, with multiple attempts.

Generally, quizzes should not count for more than 20% of the overall course grade because the online asynchronous medium should deemphasize summative assessments in the form of quizzes. Instead, quizzes should offer students the opportunity to practice and refine knowledge (a formative assessment).

Students should be allowed at least three attempts on a quiz and as such quizzes should have at least a 2:1 ratio of questions created to the number of questions on the quiz. If quizzes are valued at too high a percentage of the overall grade, this actually encourages students to cheat as a way to maintain their grade, but lower the percentage signals a lower stakes opportunity to learn. Some exceptions apply for quiz length and grading percentage, such as math courses or graduate versus undergraduate courses.