LON-CAPA Help

There are many ways in which BTs differ from other assessments.

1. Multiple Versions. There are multiple versions of a BT. A person taking a BT may receive a different version than the person taking the same BT sitting next to him or her. To create BTs that have different versions, the instructors who created the BT will create multiple sub-questions. The BT engine then chooses one of the sub questions and gives that sub question to the student, thus creating multiple versions.

2. Essay/task based. Bridge task questions open-ended. Users create files which they upload and submit to the system.

3. Rubric-Based Grading. Each question in a bridge task has scoring rubrics, criteria, associated with them. These criteria are used as the basis of grading. The grading page provides the criteria checklist on which the grader enters whether a student passes or fails each criterion. This ensures inter-rater reliability among multiple graders.

4. Mandatory and Optional Criteria. Some criteria can be made mandatory, that is a student will fail if the student does not pass that criteria. Some criteria are optional and the student must pass a certain number of these optional criteria. Criteria are associated with questions, which can also be made optional or mandatory. LON-CAPA calculates whether a student has passed or fail based on the number of mandatory and optional questions the student has passed.

5. Automatic Bookkeeping. The system calculates whether the student has passed a BT or not and records it into the database. The system stores
   • a complete record of the BT each student received

   • when each student's BT was administered

   • the BT instance

   • the files the student turned in

   • the associated grading criteria

   • the grading results (and history of grading, including grader ID)

6. Sequential Bridge Tasks. The system can be set in such a way that a student can only take a certain bridge task after passing the previous bridge task on the list. This is done using conditionals in LON-CAPA. There are other ways to use conditionals and bridge tasks to customize the usage of bridge tasks in a course.

7. Slots. Slots can be created to relate students with time and location. This allows control of where and when a student can take a bridge task.

8. Proctor Authentication. Slots also allow a particular proctor to be in a particular location for a bridge task. Each student who is scheduled to take the bridge task must be authenticated by the proctor.