Time allowed for open-book multiple-choice quizzes?

[fosca]

I'm planning on moving my quizzes to open-book in my fully-online introductory courses, since I figure many are using sources like the text anyway so I might as well make it legal and maybe limit it to the book and not the Internet (kind of a Jedi mind game).

How much time should I allow per question?  I do set it up so that students can't return to questions they've answered, but I don't want to give a huge amount of time.  These are multiple-choice, with some strictly factual and others more application.  I generally allow one minute per question, but when I gave the open-book final last semester students were finishing in a lot less time than that.

Anyone have any suggestions? 

[Kron3007]

I'm planning on moving my quizzes to open-book in my fully-online introductory courses, since I figure many are using sources like the text anyway so I might as well make it legal and maybe limit it to the book and not the Internet (kind of a Jedi mind game).

How much time should I allow per question?  I do set it up so that students can't return to questions they've answered, but I don't want to give a huge amount of time.  These are multiple-choice, with some strictly factual and others more application.  I generally allow one minute per question, but when I gave the open-book final last semester students were finishing in a lot less time than that.

Anyone have any suggestions? 

I think I gave them about a minute per question for an open book MC test.  If there are calculations involved etc., I would give a little more, but otherwise that seems reasonable.

Onf think I like to do is include pictures and ask questions about the image.  I feel this is much harder for them to look up and they will either know the answer or not.  However, depends on the field etc.

[arcturus]

I give students 2 minutes per question in my open note, open internet, open book multiple choice exams. My exams are randomized questions, randomized answers, and you-cannot-go-back. Because students cannot return to answer questions that they were uncertain about, I want to make certain they have sufficient time to consider their choices carefully. Further, because they are taking the exam on their own time, it does not bother anyone if they finish quickly, or take the full allowed time. Thus, I err on the side of giving them more time rather than less.

I should note, though, that most of my questions require application of material, so they take more time than simple factual recall (or factual search).

[Hegemony]

I give them 90 seconds per question.

[kaysixteen]

The idea of planning the quiz with 'x# of minutes per question' in mind is that, well, unless you are teaching a class where students' abilities are all more or less the same, how exactly do you decide how much time to allot?  A dumbass question I have often  been asked over the years in k12 school interviews is 'how much homework per night would you assign?'   Esp in things like Latin, this just does not work-- some kid will do the '20 minutes' hw perfectly in five minutes, whereas others would take an hour and still not do very well.   How do you decide?  Another related problem would of course be that if you set a time for quiz questions at the semester start, this would also not work unless all the questions on all the quizzes would require, even of the top students, an essentially equal amount of time to complete...

[Hegemony]

My idea is that the quick students will choose the answer in maybe 10-20 seconds, and the slower students may take the whole 90 seconds, on average. In other words, I gear it toward the fairly slow students. The ones who have slow processing or other needs get accommodations, and so they get extra time (the amount is mandated by the accommodations office; it's typically 50% extra, but sometimes 100%).

But it's easy enough to check whether one's allotment of time has been on target. The LMS tells how long each student took. So if the quiz was allotted 20 minutes, and most people finished in 10, and a few at 15 or 16 minutes, I gave enough time, or maybe a little too much. If most students used up the whole 20 minutes, and got a number of questions wrong, I probably didn't allot enough time. And so on. So after the first time you've run the course, you check the timing, and adjust if needed.

[fosca]

Thank you all for your feedback.

In face-to-face classes, I find that one minute per question is generous, as almost nobody uses the entire time.  I looked at the open-book final for last semester and again I don't think anyone took the entire time.  I wanted to get some more data points before deciding for sure, and it look like one minute per question will work.

[Caracal]

Thank you all for your feedback.

In face-to-face classes, I find that one minute per question is generous, as almost nobody uses the entire time.  I looked at the open-book final for last semester and again I don't think anyone took the entire time.  I wanted to get some more data points before deciding for sure, and it look like one minute per question will work.

Why do you want to time the quizzes?

[marshwiggle]

Thank you all for your feedback.

In face-to-face classes, I find that one minute per question is generous, as almost nobody uses the entire time.  I looked at the open-book final for last semester and again I don't think anyone took the entire time.  I wanted to get some more data points before deciding for sure, and it look like one minute per question will work.

Why do you want to time the quizzes?

It's one way to reduce the risk of cheating, especially in an unmonitored setting, such as fully online. Unless the quizzes are so low stakes that cheating doesn't matter, then it's a reasonable thing to do. (And if they're so low stakes that cheating doesn't matter, they might as well be completely optional.)

[arcturus]

Thank you all for your feedback.

In face-to-face classes, I find that one minute per question is generous, as almost nobody uses the entire time.  I looked at the open-book final for last semester and again I don't think anyone took the entire time.  I wanted to get some more data points before deciding for sure, and it look like one minute per question will work.

Why do you want to time the quizzes?

- to ensure all students have access to the same resources, including the amount of time required to complete the quiz

- to indicate the extent of the activity: an hour-long exam is conceptually different than an unlimited-time exam

- to keep the time-required for my class at a reasonable level for the students

From my perspective, the online MC midterm and final exams (quizzes) are equivalent to in-class versions of these exams. Students should not be required to spend more time on them than they would in an in-person class (1 hour and 2 hours, respectively, at my school).

[fosca]

I want to time them to make it less likely that students use the Internet to find the answers (since this is a canned course and I'm not allowed to change the questions, I'm 100% sure all of the questions are on various cheating sites).  I'm hoping if they are allowed to use the text they will at least think about the question and answer a bit, particularly since many don't seem to know how to search in the provided readings. 

[the_geneticist]

If the class is online, then they will have to be on the internet already.  I'd tell them that they should use the text (if possible, give a link in the quiz to the text/chapter/section). 
I'm assuming these quizzes are just a way to make sure students are keeping up with the readings & pretty low-stakes.  A time limit is a way to indicate how much time these ought to take out of their day. 

[Dismal]

I time the online quizzes because I want the students to have studied the material first and then take the quiz. The mean is 3 minutes for mine, but occasionally a student will get timed out in the 12 minutes available. To me, that suggests that the student didn't do the reading.