Student Accommodations for Quizzes & Assignments in bCourses

A knowledge base article about Student Accommodations for Quizzes & Assignments in bCourses provided by the UC Berkeley IT Service Hub - Knowledge Portal

Students with Letters of Accommodation from the Disabled Students’ Program (DSP) must have their documented accommodations provided for all exams, quizzes, and assignments administered via bCourses. There are several features in bCourses that allow for these accommodations to be applied, which are described below.

The most common accommodations in bCourses are extra time on quizzes and finals exams, additional or multiple attempts, and extended deadlines on assignments. You can use the Moderate Quiz and Assign to features in Quizzes and Assignments to override the time limits and availability dates on quizzes or assignments for specific students.

This guide contains instructions for a few common scenarios, but is not exhaustive. If you have specific questions about accommodations in bCourses, please contact bcourseshelp@berkeley.edu or schedule a 1:1 consultation.

Table of Contents

 

Please note: Groups should not be created to support students who need accommodations in bCourses. Groups in bCourses are for collaborative work, and therefore all group members can see and interact with the other members of their group. It is not FERPA-compliant to create Groups where students can see other students who have been placed in the group due to accommodation needs. Instead, you may want to consider creating a custom section and adding students who you want to assign extended time or additional attempts.

Extended Time & Additional Attempts on Quizzes

Before you start: Quizzes cannot be simultaneously edited by multiple instructors. Doing so may cause instructors to overwrite one another’s changes. If you are collaboratively building a quiz, we recommend working sequentially and ensuring that the other instructor(s) have finished and saved their edits before you begin.

Granting the accommodation for extra time on quizzes and exams is usually described as getting "time and a half (150%)" or "double time (200%)." In bCourses, you can adjust the time on a quiz or attempts for a quiz for a specific student by "moderating" it.

  1. Configure your quiz in advance.
    1. Time limit. If you want to grant extra time, make sure you set a time limit for the quiz.
      1. Classic Quizzes: In the quiz settings, (1) check the "Time Limit" checkbox and (2) enter the number of minutes all students in the course have to complete the entire quiz.
        Classic quiz time limit UI

      2. New Quizzes: Open the quiz and select "Build." Select the "Settings" tab at the top of the page. Enable the "Time limit" setting and enter the hours and minutes all students in the course have to complete the entire quiz.
        New Quizzes time limit UI.

    2. Availability window. Make sure your quiz availability window setting is correct. Quizzes have an auto-submit feature tied to the "Available Until" date.

      Note: The availability window applies when moderating a quiz, so if the "Available Until" date/time is set to be before the date/time students with extended time are taking the quiz, the quiz will auto-submit even if the student's time extension has not expired. The "Available Until" date/time will override the setting for the time limit in all cases and auto-submit the quiz when the availability window closes (even if the time limit has not yet been met).

      There are two ways you can ensure your quiz availability window is set up correctly:
      1. One availability window. Set the quiz availability window to be longer than the longest extended time limit you grant. Follow the instructions in this Canvas Guide to set the “Available Until” date and time for Everyone. If it’s not critical that all students complete the assessment simultaneously, you may want to consider leaving a wide availability window to allow students to complete it at their preferred time or removing the availability criteria completely.


      2. Multiple availability windows. Alternatively, you can follow the instructions in the Canvas Guide to assign the quiz to individual students or a custom section of students who you are granting time accommodations. Then, set the quiz availability window to be longer than the longest extended time limit you grant for those students. In many cases, you will need to give students extra time and provide them with an alternate “Available Until” date and time.

        If you have a significant number of students with accommodations, you may want to create a custom section for students to be able to quickly assign extended time or additional attempts rather than assigning them individually. 


  2. Grant extended time and/or additional attempts for students.
    1. Publish the quiz and use the Moderate feature to give extra time to a specific student or multiple students. Follow the instructions below depending on if you’re using Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes.
      1. Classic Quizzes: Accommodations need to be set up separately in every quiz for the student(s). Select the "Moderate This Quiz" link on the right side of the Quiz page. Then, follow this Canvas Guide to grant extra time or this Canvas Guide to grant extra attempts for a student or group of students. Note that the "Extra time on every attempt" field only displays for quizzes that have a set time limit.


      2. New Quizzes: Accommodations that you set for one quiz in your course will apply to all quizzes in that course for the student(s) — so you only need to set it up once per course. Open the "Build" page for any New Quiz, select the "Moderate" tab, and follow this Canvas Guide to make time adjustments or this Canvas Guide to grant extra attempts for a specific student.


  3. Explain to students how they receive their extended time or attempts.
    When students first click on the quiz, it will not be obvious that the time has been extended or that they have multiple attempts. You can add an explanation by editing the quiz instructions and providing the information. Here is an example of the instructions you can use:

    "You can start this quiz anytime between [availability start date/time] and [availability end date/time] by clicking "Take the Quiz" below. Once you start this quiz, you will have the amount of time indicated as "Time Limit" to complete your quiz. Make sure to start in enough time so that you will be finished by [availability end date/time]. If you are still taking the quiz at [availability end date/time], the quiz will auto-submit even if you have not taken the entire amount of time you have been given!"

 

Extending Deadlines for Assignments

Extended due dates on assignments is a common student accommodation. There are two ways to extend due dates on assignments for students: 

  1. Option A: Extend the availability window of the assignment.
    You can choose to leave an assignment open so any student can submit after the due date by setting the "Available Until" date to be beyond the due date (see "Limit Submission Until Date" section). All students will be able to view and submit to the assignment until the "Available Until" date/time, even if the Due Date has passed.

    Grading consideration: If you leave the assignment open so students can submit past the Due Date, students who received permission to submit at a later date/time will still be flagged as "late" in the Gradebook. To ensure the student is not accidentally penalized, you will need to manually adjust their status in the Gradebook.

  2. Option B: Assign students separately with different availability window for accommodations.
    By default, assignments you create in your course are assigned to "Everyone." However, you can also use the Assign to feature in bCourses Assignments to provide different due dates and availability dates on assignments for specific student(s). Follow the instructions in the Canvas Guide to assign the assignment to individual students or a custom section of students who you are granting a deadline accommodation. 


Troubleshooting & FAQs

Q: How do time limits and availability windows interact?

A: The "Available Until" date/time will override the setting for the time limit if they overlap. If a quiz is in progress when the "Available Until" date/time ends, the quiz will be auto-submitted on behalf of the student. For instance, if students have a 120-minute time limit for a quiz, but the quiz availability window is only open for 60 minutes, then any in-progress quizzes will automatically submit at the 60-minute time limit.

If you need to set an end date/time for a timed quiz, make sure that you set the "Available Until" date/time to be far enough in the future to give students the required time to utilize the time limit for the quiz.

 

Q: A student accidentally submitted their quiz early, how do I let them finish the remaining questions?

A: You can provide students with additional attempts using the Moderate Quiz feature in Classic Quizzes or in New Quizzes, depending on what quiz engine you are using. 

Q: Students are reporting that they cannot view quiz questions or enter text in the quiz. What should they do? 

A: Students should try the following troubleshooting steps: reload the page; restart their browser, try a different browser; and clear their browser cache.

 

Additional Resources