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USC Marshall School of Business Customer Technology Services

AKINDI Test Forms Creating and Grading Test Forms

You can use AKINDI to create multiple choice test forms that can be printed out for student test taking. Once a test is taken, the forms can be scanned using any scanner (e.g., Marshall’s Canon copiers) into a PDF file, which is then emailed or uploaded to AKINDI. Once in AKINDI, the results are made available to the instructor.

Using AKINDI for the First Time Involves Eight Steps

Step 1: Contact the Marshall Help Desk to Request an AKINDI Account If this is your first time using AKINDI, you will need to contact the Marshall Help Desk (HelpDesk@marshall.usc.edu) to request an AKINDI account. AKINDI will then send an email to your Marshall email address inviting you to create the account. Please use your Marshall email address when creating your AKINDI account.

Request an AKINDI Account

Contact the Marshall Help Desk to request an AKINDI account. You will then receive an email invite from AKINDI to create the account.

Create AKINDI Courses

In AKINDI, create an AKINDI course for each section you teach.

Upload Students from the Grading and Roster

System into AKINDI.

CREATE AND PRINT TEST/ASSESSMENT

In AKINDI, specify a name for the test you are creating, select an answer key template, then print out your test forms.

STUDENTS TAKE TEST

CREATE ANSWER KEY

Fill in one of your test forms with the correct answers and set its Student ID to 0000.

SCAN FORMS AND UPLOAD FILE

Scan the answer key and completed test forms to PDF using a scanner (or Canon copier). To upload the results into AKINDI, you may either email them as an attached file to the AKINDI email address provided with your account, or you may login to AKINDI directly and upload the PDF file by choosing your assessment and proceeding.

VIEW RESULTS AND ADDRESS EXCEPTIONS

View the results in AKINDI and address any exceptions or issues.

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Step 2: Creating your AKINDI Courses Each AKINDI assessment must be associated with a specific class section. Therefore, you must create an AKINDI course for every section you are giving a test in. Note that the same course taught in a different semester must also be different AKINDI course. To avoid any confusion, we strongly recommend you use the same course naming convention that is used in Blackboard as shown in this example:

1. Go to: https://uscmarshall.akindi.com/ 2. Type your Marshall email address and the password you use for AKINDI then click "Sign-in". 3. From the left menu, click “Courses” then “Add Course”. 4. Type a name for the course using the structure recommended above and click “Save”. To view the new course click the “Courses” drop down arrow.

Step 3: Uploading Students into AKINDI Courses In this step, you will need to upload your students into the courses you have created in AKINDI. The most expedient method of doing this is to first download them from the USC Grading and Roster System, manipulate it into the structure required by AKINDI, then upload it into AKINDI. 1. Go to: https://grs.usc.edu 2. Log into GRS using the same username and password you use to access Blackboard. 3. Click the “Class Roster” link. 4. Click the “Download Student Info” link. 5. Save and open the file. (It should open in Excel.) 6. Manipulate your Excel file so it contains just the two columns shown in the example below.

Student IDs (Must be the left most column.) Student Names (Next to Student ID.) Note that First Last or Last, First syntax is unimportant and there are no column headings.

7. Click “Save As” and save the file as an Excel file (i.e. Save as Type should be XLS or XLSX) and close the file. 8. In AKINDI, click the course

you will be uploading into. 9. Click “Class Roster”. 10. Click “Import Roster”. 11. Click “Browse” and select the

file. 12. Click “Upload”. 13. To view the roster click “Class Roster” for the course in question. You should see your students listed.

20143_DSO_402_16220

Year and Semester Number (1=spring, 2=summer, 3=fall)

Course Name

Section Number

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Step 4: Create and Print the Test Forms In this step you will need to log into AKINDI and select the test form template you would like to use. 1. Go to: https://uscmarshall.akindi.com/ 2. Type your Marshall email address and the password you use for AKINDI then click "Sign-in".

3. Click the down arrow and select the course you are creating an assessment for.

5. Type a name for the assessment then click "Continue".

6. Select a template.

7. Select "Blank".

8. (Optional) These place information in the header of the form.

9. Click "Continue".

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10. AKINDI will download your test form in PDF Format. Open the PDF and print enough copies for each student and

one extra for the answer key.

Step 5: Students Take the Test Pass out copies of the assessment form to your students. Remind your students to fill in their name and use the bubbles to specify their 10 digit student ID number.

9. Click "Download Sheets".

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1. For one of your forms fill in all of the correct answers. Note that at this time a question can have only one correct answer.

2. To designate the form as the answer key you must specify the Student Number as four zeros by filling in the first four bubbles.

Step 6: Instructor Creates an Answer Key

Step 7: Scan the Forms In this step you will scan all of the forms in bulk (including the answer key) using a scanner or one of Marshall’s Canon copiers. 1. Stack your forms in the scanner as specified by the scanner instructions. (Order of the forms is unimportant.) 2. Scan your forms into a PDF file and have the scanner send it to your Marshall email address. 3. Once the PDF arrives in your inbox you can either email it to AKINDI using the email address AKINDI provided (see

image on previous page) or upload the PDF into AKINDI as shown below.

One method of getting the PDF file containing the scanned forms into AKINDI is to use the "Upload Sheets" button located within the assessment.

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Step 8: Viewing the Results and Making Exceptions In this final step you can view the assessment results and attend to any issues such as students not completely erasing a bubble, bubbling in the wrong Student ID, or giving credit for an incorrect question.

1. Click "View Results".

Indicates there were student errors in filling out their form.

2. Use this menu to look at the responses graphically or by name and score. Use the "Exception" option to handle issues AKINDI had reading a form. See the next page for tips on handling exceptions.

Run your mouse over a question to see its graph.

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You can solve this exception by either selecting the answer you think the student meant to fill in so AKINDI can grade the grade the question or select "Leave Blank" and have the response marked as incorrect.

Handling Exceptions

Giving Credit for an Incorrect Response This typically occurs when the instructor realizes that one of the incorrect responses is in reality also correct and wishes to given students credit for the question. At this time AKINDI does not allow a question to have more than one correct response, so to give student's credit for the question you must manually change their response to the original correct choice. For example, "B" was the original correct response for a question. Later you realize that some students answered "C" because it is also correct. To give credit to the students that answered "C" you must manually change their response from "C" to "B" within AKINDI.

Student ID Bubbles Wrong If a student fills in their Student ID bubbles incorrectly, the Responses area will add them as a new student without a name as shown in the image to the right. To fix this you must take three steps:

a. From the Class Roster, Delete the new student AKINDI has created with an incorrect ID. (This will also delete the associated test entry)

b. Correct the student ID number on their answer form.

c. Rescan and upload their form again.

Multiple Bubbles This exception occurs when the student fills out multiple bubbles for the same question. (Usually because they did not completely erase a response.)

1. Access the "Responses" menu located in the "View Results" area.

2. For the student who is to be given credit, change their response to the correct choice then click "Save Changes".