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Moderate to Accommodate: Setting Accommodations on a Canvas Quiz

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Have you ever wondered how to set accommodations for a student on a Canvas quiz? Good news! That’s what today’s post is about.

Whether you’re using Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes in Canvas, you can use the Moderate option to give students extra time and/or extra attempts on a quiz. You’ll want to know how to use these features if you have a student who receives these accommodations through the Mt. SAC ACCESS Department.

In Classic Quizzes

Once you publish a quiz in Classic Quizzes, you can use “Moderate This Quiz” in the right-side menu while viewing but not editing a quiz. On the next screen, you’ll click on the pencil icon at the end of a student’s row. From the pop-up, you’ll have the option to add extra attempts and extra time for a student as well use the check boxes to “Let the student to see the results one more time” and “Manually unlock the quiz for the next attempt.” Save your changes.

Using Moderate This Quiz in Classic Quizzes

However, depending on your quiz settings, you may not have all these options available to you. Also, adding “extra” attempts and/or time means in addition to what you’ve already set in your quiz settings. For example, if students already get two attempts on a quiz, adding two “extra attempts” for a student means that student will get a total of four attempts. Or if everyone gets 15 minutes on a quiz, and you enter 30 minutes of “extra time” for one student, that student will get a total of 45 minutes.

NOTE: You can also use “Show Student Quiz Results” under the three vertical dots to allow extra attempts only, but I prefer “Moderate This Quiz” for three reasons:
  1. It lets you add extra attempts AND extra time for a student.
  2. It lets you add extra attempts/time for more than one student at once.
  3. Both Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes have a Moderate option, so it’s easier to remember.

To add extra attempts/time for multiple students, click the check boxes to the left of their names from the “Moderate Quiz” page, and select “Change Extensions for [x number] Selected Students.”

Moderate Quiz for more than one student at once

Unfortunately, you can’t moderate multiple quizzes at once for a student in Classic Quizzes but you can add extra time on multiple quizzes for a student in New Quizzes. And conversely, you can’t moderate a quiz for multiple students in New Quizzes but you can in Classic Quizzes.

Before we move on to New Quizzes moderation, here are some helpful guides for moderating Classic Quizzes:

In New Quizzes

New Quizzes are a separate quiz option in Canvas that are still in beta mode. Eventually New Quizzes will become the default quiz type in Canvas and Classic Quizzes will be retired. It is possible to use New Quizzes in Canvas by turning this feature on under Settings > Feature Options > toggle on New Quizzes. New Quizzes work on an integration. Each quiz uses either New Quizzes or Classic Quizzes, but both can be used in the same Canvas course. New Quizzes does not yet work with proctoring software. For more about New Quizzes, see this New Quizzes Canvas video introduction or visit the links to New Quizzes in the Canvas Guides.
For accommodations, New Quizzes is similar to Classic Quizzes. It has a “Moderate” tab at the top of the quiz screen. From there, you can either click the pencil icon in the “Accommodations” column or click the “Moderate” button at the end of a student’s row.
options from Moderate tab in New Quizzes
apply time adjustments to all New Quizzes

 

To adjust time for a student on all New Quizzes in a course, select the pencil icon in the “Accommodations” column.

You’ll have three options for “time adjustments”:
  • “Give additional time” – Allows you to add extra time as explained above for Classic Quizzes
  • “Remove time limit (unlimited)” – Simply removes the time limit and allows unlimited time for the student to take their quizzes
  • “Time limit multiplier” – Allows you to increase time by ratio. For example, you can give time and a half to a student on their quizzes.
options under Moderate button

If you select the “Moderate” button at the end of a student’s row, you’ll have additional options, but you won’t be able to moderate for multiple quizzes. You can reopen a current attempt, add additional attempts, and give additional time or remove the time limit. As under the pencil icon, “Give additional time” allows you to add extra time as explained above for Classic Quizzes and “Remove time limit (unlimited)” removes the time limit and allows unlimited time for the student to take the quiz. After making your changes, click the x at the top left of the pop-out, and your changes will automatically save. Changes made under the “Moderate” button will only apply to the current assessment for the single student.

 
At this time, you can’t moderate a quiz for multiple students in New Quizzes but you can in Classic Quizzes. Don’t quote me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Canvas added this functionality to New Quizzes at some point.
While we’re on the topic of New Quizzes, if you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend that you do because it will replace Classic Quizzes as the only Canvas quiz option in July 2022. I smell a future blog post, hehe.
But back to the topic at hand; here are some helpful guides for moderating New Quizzes:
That’s all for today’s post. Did you learn something new? Do you have a blog post idea or request? 
Tell us in the Comments below!

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