Academic Technology Updates for September 2023

We have new updates for MyCourses! See below for details, and please contact helpdesk@ggc.edu if you encounter any problems or have questions.

MyCourses

Quizzes – Quiz Timing Improvements featuring Synchronous Quiz

This release updates the Quiz Creation experience for instructors and students by adding a new synchronous quiz option.

With this release, instructors can facilitate quizzes where students take their attempts simultaneously, which is convenient for in-class sessions. The new addition of synchronous quizzes enables instructors to set up a quiz where the quiz timer starts on the start date for all students rather than when the student launches the quiz (asynchronous). The quiz timer then ends for all students at the same time.

To set up a synchronous quiz:

1. From a quiz page, expand the Availability Dates & Conditions area.
2. Set start date and time.
3. Expand the Timing & Display area.
4. Click Timer Settings.
5. In the Timing dialog, under Quiz Start, select Synchronous: Timer starts on the start date.
6. Click OK.

Note: If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No Start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due Date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes.

To ensure that students are aware of upcoming synchronous quizzes, instructors should create instructional or manual solutions:

• Make a synchronous quiz visible in the calendar:
  • Instructors can select Add availability dates to Calendar or set up an event showing the whole time.
  • Instructors should use the Start Date parameter when setting up a synchronous quiz and leave the End Date field empty.
• Create an announcement with information and a link to the synchronous quiz.
• Set up an event and give a link to the quiz to provide more context.

Instructors must modify or review quizzes one by one to avoid accidentally modifying quiz availability dates for synchronous quizzes.

A synchronous quiz starts at the Start Date and ends when the time limit has lapsed, regardless of any action taken by the student. For example, if a student clicks Start Quiz! 15 minutes after the start date on a 1-hour quiz, they only have 45 minutes left to complete it. To indicate when a quiz becomes available, students have a countdown timer on the Quiz Information and Start Quiz pages. The Start Quiz! button becomes available when the start date and time is reached.

Instructors must provide students with information about a synchronous quiz before it starts. Students can access this information on the Quiz Information page.

Did you know?

When a student is re-enrolled in a course, their submissions, attempts, and user progress are restored. To learn more, read Restoring Student Access and Data.