Advice: Online quizzes

[asterroc]

So this summer I'm prepping to teach my first online course (to be offered either in Fall 2008 or Spring 2009). In my face-to-face courses I give an open-book timed essay quiz every week, partially to make sure the students are staying on track with their readings, and partially to prep them for closed-book exams. In the online version I will be dropping the closed-book exams and putting more weight into the quizzes, so it's important to me that I do them right. The course I am currently working on is basic astronomy, but if it goes well I will likely work on making other courses available in online versions as well.

The part I'm agonizing over is how much time to allow for the online versions of the quizzes. The problem is that some people will know how to touch-type and therefore will finish faster than they would in a face-to-face quiz, while other students will be hunt-and-pecking and will therefore take longer.

So in addition to just wanting general feedback from you, I'd appreciate it if you'd answer a couple questions that I could give on a quiz (each would be a whole quiz itself, the students would have 20 minutes in a face-to-face class) and tell me how long it took you to do from starting reading the question to finishing the answer. Feel free to use any resources you like for these, including your own textbooks, your own notes, or the internet, just answer in your own words. I don't care if you get these right or not, I'm looking more at how long it takes you to think about them, type them up, and then decide you're done.

Thanks!


1) Explain the cause of the seasons.





















2) Is Pluto currently considered a planet by astronomers? Why or why not?





















3) Compare and contrast the Greenhouse Effect and the Ozone Layer.





















4) Why do astronauts in the Space Shuttle experience weightlessness?




















Thanks for taking the time to answer a couple or all of these, and jotting down how long it took you to answer. And for any other feedback you may have.

X-posted

Comments

[internettourist.livejournal.com]

I teach on line classes using Angel. To make sure students are reading as scheduled, I have untimed participation assignments students get full participation credit for if the assignment is at least 70% correct. This keeps the student from feeling too pressured. These assignments are submitted through drop boxes.

My tests have a timed objective question component and a non-timed component. I created the time tests with Respondus.

Each term one student will vigorously tell me that I have not given them enough time to take the test. Perhaps two others will comment about the time. Perhaps accounting students could beel a little more pressured and be a little more testy than students in other discplines. My distance learning economics students never say anything about the time limits I have in their courses.

I didn't take astronomy as a student. I took botany and chemistry. So the only value from my answering astronomy questions would be laughs.

I'll post my budgie update.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Do you find it takes your students more or less time to answer questions online than face to face?