If you set a day and time for the test to become available, you must choose Yes for the Make the Link Available option. This does not turn to Yes automatically when it is time for the test to become available to students, and therefore students would not be able to access to test.

The Force Completion setting generally should not be turned on*. Force Completion allows for a one-time only entry into an exam. While this sounds useful, if a student accidentally closes their browser window or loses their connection to the internet/wifi, the student will not be able to reenter the exam. The instructor would need to intervene and reset the test (losing all student answers to that point).

*Note: To ensure test integrity during proctored exams, the Force Completion option may be helpful to ensure only the student in the room is taking the test.

It is recommended to set the Set Timer option without using Force Completion for Blackboard exams. With this set-up, if the exam connection is broken, the student will be able to re-enter and continue taking the exam (all work will be saved). The timer will continue to countdown the time from the initial exam entry time.

When designing Blackboard tests, we recommend you set the Test Presentation Mode option to "One at a Time." If the option is set to "All at Once" and a student is logged out of their Blackboard session (for example during an extended wifi outage), they may continue to answer questions but their responses would not be recorded. "One at a Time" prevents this because when the student goes to the next question (on another page), they would receive an error message, and the student could log back into Blackboard and continue to test. This is especially important during longer tests (more than one hour).

Advice for Longer Tests (More than 60 Minutes)

Please keep in mind that for security reasons there is a 90 minute session time out in place. If you will be creating exams that are longer than one hour, we recommend you set the Test Presentation Mode option to "One at a Time" which will help ensure students are not logged out before they complete the exam. Another option for longer exams and quizzes would be to divide them into multiple tests.

WARNING: It is highly recommended that students press the Save button every 10-15 minutes during an exam. While the Auto-Save function saves student responses approximately every 15 seconds, it does not prevent timeouts.