Creating an open response assessment is a multi-step process. Each step is covered in detail below.
For more information about the components of an open response assessment, see Open Response Assessments. For information about viewing metrics and learner responses for released open response assessments, see Accessing Assignment and Learner Metrics.
To create the component for your open response assessment, complete 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.
To add prompts, or questions, complete these steps.
Currently, you cannot add text formatting or images inside the Peer Assessment component. To include formatting or images within the text of 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.
To allow learners to submit an image with a response, complete these steps.
Note
In this step, you add your rubric and provide your learners with feedback options. 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 2.4 below for instructions. For more information, see Feedback Options.
To add the rubric, complete 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 includes options, but does not have a comment field.
To provide a comment field without options, complete these steps.
To specify a name for the assignment as well as start and due dates for all student responses, complete these steps.
Note
Unlike other problem types, ORA assignments are not governed by the subsection due date. Due dates for each ORA assignment are set in the assignment’s settings.
Note
EdX recommends that you set the response due date at least one week before the peer assessment due date and time, to allow enough time for peer assessments to be performed after learners have submitted their own responses. If the response due time and peer assessment due time are close together, and a learner submits a response just before responses are due, other learners may not have time to perform peer assessments before peer assessments are due. For details, see Best Practices for Open Response Assessments.
Open response assessment assignments can include learner training, peer assessment, and self assessment steps.
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.
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.
Note
If you include a student training step, make sure it is the first step in the assignment.
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 student 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 student training responses. If you later change one of your criteria or any of its options, you must also update the student training step.
To add and score student training responses, follow these steps.
For more information, 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.
For the self assessment step, you specify when the step starts and ends.
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, see Top Responses.
To test your assignment, set up the assignment in your course, set the section or subsection date in the future, and ask a group of beta users 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.