Faculty Guides and Documentation

Making Tests Available to Specific Students

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Blackboard provides two methods of making tests available to specific students. For example, instructors may want to limit makeup tests, alternative versions, and academic accommodations to specific students. Instructors can use either Adaptive Release or Test Availability Exceptions for this purpose.

Option 1: Adaptive Release

Adaptive Release allows instructors to limit availability of a test to students who meet specific criteria. Adaptive release is most useful if you are delivering multiple versions of the same assessment, and you wish to release each version to different students.

Test Availability Exceptions allow instructors to change availability windows, time limits, and number of attempts for specified students in a single assessment. Test Availability Exceptions offers a simple way to allow extra time for students who need academic accommodations, or for students completing makeup exams.

Using Test Availability Exceptions may cause conflicts with Adaptive Release date and membership roles if these roles are included. Therefore, it would be recommended to use either Test Availability Exceptions or Adaptive Release Date and Membership rules to limit access to content, but it is inadvisable to do both at the same time. Adaptive Release rules using the Grade criterion are unaffected. Adaptive Release options must also be enabled under Course Tools > Customization > Tool Availability. This tool is turned on by default.

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