Revisiting Respondus

Many faculty at ASU don't know that long before ASU purchased the Respondus LockDown Browser, we site licensed the rest of the Respondus suite to make faculty lives easier.

On request, instructors are provided with these easy-to-use quiz creation and learner flash-card/memorization authoring tools. The major (and most time-saving rather than draining) component of the software is a PC-only piece of software that allows the instructor to quickly type up exam questions (albeit in a stylized, Respondus format) and upload to Blackboard. If you're a Mac user, type up the questions and install Respondus/load into your BB course shell from a department PC on campus.

If as an instructor, you make use of Blackboard exams, Respondus saves you the tedious, time-consuming, dull BB process of creating exam, typing each question and answer in a little box, setting points, clicking next and waiting, etc. Yes, it takes a bit of time to download and configure the Respondus software, recognize the BB server and find your course, but do it once, and then you're good to go for all your courses. It helps to keep a cheat sheet of Respondus question formats nearby, as the format is strict, documentation hard to find and it's easy to forget an asterik or parenthesis where needed. If you're willing to learn the process, then creating a Blackboard exam can truly take just minutes.

Here are a few links to help you with the learning curve:

• Requesting the software from ASU site license store. (You'll receive an email that ASU has given you access to the Blackboard community shell where the install and tutorials are kept). Once you receive, login to Blackboard, find the org shell, download Respondus and install.
• Example formats for each type Blackboard quiz questions - (begins on p. 9 of user guide)
• ASU's Respondus Help site
• One-time configuration of our Blackboard server to recognize and upload Respondus files

Now wasn't that easy?