Online Exams Questions and Grading

[HigherEd7]

Most of the people I have talked to about online final exams give 100 questions and 90 minutes to complete each question counting 1 point.  In the past, I have given a mixture of multiple choice and true and false question and some students have finished in record time. I have also mixed in essay and short answer questions.

What is the best practice to award points for a short answer essay or fill in the blank question? I have even thought about just giving them short answer and fill in the blank questions. Thoughts?

[Parasaurolophus]

I assign points based on how many items I expect them to give me. So if the answer to a short answer question has three elements, that's three points. If I want them to mention ten things in an essay, that might be twenty to thirty points (one for mentioning the thing, 1-2 for elaborating on it).

I don't know about 90 minutes to complete each 1-point question, however.

[HigherEd7]

I assign points based on how many items I expect them to give me. So if the answer to a short answer question has three elements, that's three points. If I want them to mention ten things in an essay, that might be twenty to thirty points (one for mentioning the thing, 1-2 for elaborating on it).

I don't know about 90 minutes to complete each 1-point question, however.

If you were to give a 100 question, how many of the questions would be essay? I was thinking about 2-3 points each. Thoughts?

[downer]

I don't know about 90 minutes to complete each 1-point question, however.

There's a missing comma after "complete" But you knew that!

100 questions and 90 minutes to complete each question counting 1 point.

OP My thought is that you should do what most other people do -- try something once and see how it goes. Then make some adjustments the next time you teach it. It seems very inefficient to be asking the fora for advice about every aspect of your course creation, getting a bunch of different advice, and then making some choice that you would probably have made anyway.

[HigherEd7]

I don't know about 90 minutes to complete each 1-point question, however.

There's a missing comma after "complete" But you knew that!

100 questions and 90 minutes to complete each question counting 1 point.

OP My thought is that you should do what most other people do -- try something once and see how it goes. Then make some adjustments the next time you teach it. It seems very inefficient to be asking the fora for advice about every aspect of your course creation, getting a bunch of different advice, and then making some choice that you would probably have made anyway.

You bring up a great point! I am just trying to make sure I am successful.........

[Parasaurolophus]

If you were to give a 100 question, how many of the questions would be essay? I was thinking about 2-3 points each. Thoughts?

100 is a lot of questions, so I don't think I would give an essay question. But when I design an exam with lots of multiple choice, T/F, short answer, etc., if it has essay questions, it only has one or two. I generally expect the student to take 20-30 mins. answering the essay prompt.

[quasihumanist]

You bring up a great point! I am just trying to make sure I am successful.........

The only things you can be sure of are death and taxes.

There isn't a single best way to teach, and one of the fastest ways to becoming a bad teacher is to not make changes because you're worried the changes will fail.

[downer]

You bring up a great point! I am just trying to make sure I am successful.........

The only things you can be sure of are death and taxes.

There isn't a single best way to teach, and one of the fastest ways to becoming a bad teacher is to not make changes because you're worried the changes will fail.

Yes. I don't know what your criteria of success are, OP. Mine is mostly getting paid, and not spending too much time teaching. 

I'd also say that most of the fine tuning of a course is a waste of time. You are not doing brain science. Keep it simple.

[HigherEd7]

Great points and advice! Well taken :)

[the_geneticist]

Most of the people I have talked to about online final exams give 100 questions and 90 minutes to complete each question counting 1 point.  In the past, I have given a mixture of multiple choice and true and false question and some students have finished in record time. I have also mixed in essay and short answer questions.

What is the best practice to award points for a short answer essay or fill in the blank question? I have even thought about just giving them short answer and fill in the blank questions. Thoughts?

That is a LOT of questions.  Are they doing the "let's give a ton of questions so they can't look up the answers" strategy to reduce cheating?  Sounds like they are mostly writing easy, recall level questions.  I like your style of including essays & short answer because you can look at deeper knowledge/applications.
For fill-in-the-blank, I tend to do one point per blank.  For short answer, it's 1 point for the "what" and 2-3 for the "why" [i.e. will X increase, decrease or stay the same? (1 point);  Using the data, explain your reasoning (2 points)]. I assume that students have been giving these type of questions already so they have practice and you're not asking them to write an essay for the first time during the exam.