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Respondus Demo (Steve Budge, MCC; Roger Yohe EMCC) "It saves a ton of time!" Steve states that Respondus clearly has reduced the time and task of creating quizzez- from what took two hours using the WebCT interface takes about 30 minutes in Respondus. He says that Peg Johnson at MCC has used it extensively to import test items from text files for her online Biology courses This is a compelling feature, the ability to import test banks provided by publishers or perhaps even shared between instructors. In Respondus, you create all the types of questions one would do in WebCT, preview it how it wil be displayed, and set all of the parameters such as the scoring and availibility. You can also easily generate a formatted print version of the test as well. "It is a simple program easy to use," says Steve, "peg was up and going in about 5 minutes with it." In the program you can also import graphics, sound files, and movie files from your desktop to be uses as part of questions or answers, and the media are then transferred to the server. From Respondus you can save the quiz items in a plain text (*.TXT) or rich-text (*.RTF read-able in MS Word) formats, so they could even be emailed between instructors. Roger then downloaded and demonstrated the version of Respondus for Blackboard. It is almost indistinguishable from the WebCT version, with very similar features. This is currently a beta version (free for now), and licensing is available to use both the WebCT and the Blackboard versions. Note that the software is PC only, so Macintosh users would have to either run it on a PC or run on a Mac with Connectix Virtual PC (Alan verfied that its fine). Tom asked the company about it, but they seemed to doubt the market need for a Mac version. Roger noted that Respondus addresses many of the faculty complaints about limitations in Blackboard's gradebook and testing features. It is not clear if the features of Respondus will be incorporated into Blackboard. He also described how software such as QuestionMark (used at Dallas Community Colleges) is not integrated into web courseware- while it is robust it si a separate environment. Math instructors would be interested in the Equation editor that is bundled with Respndus. It allos faculty to use a tool like the Word Equation Editor to generate complex math expressions which are converted into a graphic when Respondus generates a quiz (however, the equation can later be edited within Respondus). A lacking feature is a spell checker! The documentation you can download from Respondus specifies the text file format if you plan to import a test bank. Sometimes you might have to do some massaging or search and replace to get it in good shape (there are no standards for quiz question formats, and publishers use a wide variety of formats). According to Michelle Traveler, the MIDAS system in use at Rio Salado College and later available for the rest of Maricopa has similar features, such as the ability to import items from text files. However, Respondus does not have an Anlon version, and may not do so, and the MIDAS file format it likely not the same as Blackboard's or WebCT's. Roger had contacted the company and obtained some pricing information that would offer Maricopa a substantial discount on a license as a consortium of colleges. So what to do next? We hope that representatives from eahc college will download and try Respondus, and help determine if it truly adds value to the web course development process. We will poll again at the September 7 meeting and if there is interest from multiple sites, we can consider the next steps for a combined licensing package. Other TopicsRoger recommended we continue to consider discrete learning "objects", such as the collections available from the MERLOT project. He was also excited about the quality and content of the KnowledgeNet (Scottsdale-based company) modules, and given a recent license deal with ASU, Maricopa might have cheap access to this content. And there is talk that they may license their delivery engine, "Monsoon". See also: We are looking for ideas and inout for what OLG can focus on next year! |
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