Creating an open response assessment is a multi-step process. This section covers each step in detail.
In addition, see these other topics about different aspects of open response assessments.
To create the component for your open response assessment, complete these steps.
Note
Do not add more than one ORA component in a course unit. Multiple ORA assignments in a unit cause errors when learners submit their assessments.
In Studio, open the unit where you want to create the open response assessment.
Under Add New Component, select Problem.
Select Advanced, and then select Peer Assessment.
In the problem component that appears, select Edit.
You use this component editor to add prompts and the rubric, and to specify other settings for the open response assessment component.
Select Save each time you complete an editing session. You can continue to edit the problem until you publish the unit.
Note
After you publish an ORA assignment, you can no longer change the structure of the rubric or the point values associated with each criterion in the rubric. If you correct typographical errors in the text of the rubric, only learners who have not yet started the assignment will see the corrections. However, you can modify due dates and the weight of the ORA assignment after you publish an ORA assignment.
To add prompts, or questions, complete these steps.
Note
If you want to add text formatting to the prompt, or include an image, see Add Formatting or Images to a Prompt.
Currently, you cannot format text or add images inside the Peer Assessment component. To include formatting or images in a prompt, you can add an HTML component that contains your text above the Peer Assessment component, and leave the text field in the Prompt tab blank. The instructions for the peer assessment still appear above the Your Response field.
Before you enable this feature for your open response assessment, be sure to read about its limitations and best practices. For more information, see Asking Learners to Upload Other Files in Responses.
To allow learners to submit a file along with their text responses, follow these steps.
In the open response assessment component editor, select Settings.
Set Allow File Upload to one of these options.
If you select Custom File Types, the File Types field appears. Enter the file extensions, separated by commas, of the types of files that you want learners to submit.
Note
To reduce the potential for problems from files with malicious content, learners cannot upload certain file types. For more information, see Asking Learners to Upload Other Files in Responses.
Verify that the text of the prompt describes the file type or types that learners can upload.
In this step, you add your rubric to provide guidance for assessing responses within the assignment. You add one rubric for each problem, regardless of the number of prompts in the problem.
For each step below, replace any default text with your own text.
Note
All open response assessments include a feedback field below the rubric so that learners can provide written feedback on a peer’s overall response. You can also allow or require learners to provide feedback for individual criteria. See step 6 below for instructions. For more information, see Feedback Options.
To add the rubric, follow these steps.
Note
After you publish an ORA assignment, you can no longer change the structure of the rubric or the point values associated with each criterion in the rubric. If you correct typographical errors in the text of the rubric, only learners who have not yet started the assignment will see the corrections. However, you can modify due dates and the weight of the ORA assignment after you publish an ORA assignment.
When you add a comment field to a criterion, the comment field appears below the options for the criterion. You can also provide a comment field, but no options.
In the following image, the first criterion has a comment field but no options. The second criterion includes options, but does not have a comment field.
To provide a comment field without options, complete these steps.
Before you specify the start and due dates and times for a response, be sure that you consider these aspects of, and best practices for, the open response assessment feature.
To specify a name for the assignment as well as start and due dates for all learner responses, complete these steps.
Open response assessment assignments can include learner training, peer assessment, self assessment, and staff assessment steps.
The component editor provides the steps in a sequence that works well for most courses. While you can change the order of the peer, self, and staff assessment steps, edX recommends that you include them in this order.
Note
If you include a learner training step, you must also include a peer assessment step. The learner training step must come before peer or self assessment steps.
If you include both peer and self assessment steps, edX recommends that you place the peer assessment before the self assessment.
If you include a staff assessment step, it should be the final step in the assignment.
To add steps to the open response assignment, complete these actions.
In the component editor, select the Settings tab.
Scroll down past the Allow Image Responses and Allow Latex Responses fields.
Locate the following headings.
Select the check boxes for the steps that you want the assignment to include.
(optional) To change the order of the steps, drag the steps into the order that you want.
After you select the steps that you want, you can specify settings for those steps.
Note
If you make changes to a step, but then you clear the check box for that step, the step will no longer be part of the assignment and your changes will not be saved.
For the learner training step, you enter one or more responses that you have created, then select an option for each criterion in your rubric.
Note
You must enter your complete rubric on the Rubric tab before you can select options for the learner training responses. If you later change one of your criteria or any of its options, you must also update the learner training step.
To add and score learner training responses, follow these steps.
For more information about learner training steps, see Learner Training Step.
For the peer assessment step, you specify the number of responses that each learner must grade, the number of learners who must grade each response, and start and due dates. All fields are required.
To specify peer assessment settings, follow these steps.
Note
The times that you set, and the times that learners see, use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You might want to verify that you have specified the times that you intend by using a time zone converter such as Time and Date Time Zone Converter
For more information about peer assessment steps, see Peer Assessment Step.
For the self assessment step, you specify when the step starts and ends.
Note
The times that you set, and the times that learners see, use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You might want to verify that you have specified the times that you intend by using a time zone converter such as Time and Date Time Zone Converter
For more information about self assessment steps, see Self Assessment Step.
For the staff assessment step, there are no additional settings after you have selected the step for inclusion in the assignment.
For more information about staff assessment steps, see Staff Assessment Step.
To allow learners to see the top scoring responses for the assignment, you specify a number on the Settings tab.
Note
Because each response can be up to 300 pixels in height, we recommend that you set the number of top responses to 20 or lower, to prevent the page from becoming too long.
For more information about the Top Responses section that you can include for an ORA assignment, see Top Responses.
To test your ORA assignment, you can set up the assignment in your course, set the section or subsection date in the future, publish the unit, and ask one or more beta testers to submit responses and grade each other. The beta testers can then let you know if they found the question and the rubric easy to understand or if they had any problems with the assignment.
For more information about beta testing, see Beta Testing a Course.