Test Pilot™ can be used for practice quizzes, with unlimited access for any users who want to take the assessments. Students will still see the Test Pilot™ login screen asking for a user ID, but students many enter any user ID or may leave the login ID space blank and still access the assignment. However, if instructors plan to use Test Pilot™ to deliver graded assessments to students or want to track how well students do on the assessments, instructors will need to use some of the security features of the Test Pilot™ program.   

If you use some of the security features that Test Pilot™ allows, including password protection, time limits, and access and submission limits, you may have some students who complain about problems accessing Test Pilot™ assessments. In some cases, students may be complaining because the security features are working, preventing students from accessing a Test Pilot™ assessment after the due date, for instance. In other cases, though, there may be legitimate technical problems with Test Pilot™. This page is designed to help instructors understand the process of logging in to Test Pilot™ assessments and to help instructors understand some of the error messages that may arise as students try to access assessments.  

Accessing and Completing Test Pilot™ Assessments
Test Pilot™ is easy for students to use. After clicking on a link to a Test Pilot™ assessment on an instructor's web pages, students will see a screen including the login box, illustrated below. Students should enter a login ID established by the instructor. The login ID will be whatever ID the instructor entered for that student in the Test Pilot™ program, everything in front of the comma for that student in the "User List" for the assessment. Instructors may find that the student's social security number (with no spaces and no hyphens) is the most convenient login ID.

Important information about the assessment may appear under the login box. The message in the illustration above, for example, indicates that the answers to the assessment may be submitted only once. However, in the example above, there is no message indicating how many times students may access the assessment, meaning that there is no limit to the number of times students may access and read the assessment. For each assessment, the instructor sets the access and submission limits in the Test Pilot™ program.

After typing the login ID and clicking "Request," students should see the Test Pilot™ assessment. After marking or filling in the answers, students click "Submit your Responses" at the bottom of the page. Students should then see the results. The results that students see will depend on the settings the instructor has marked for the assessment. Students may see only a "Thank you," or they may see their scores. Instructors can also set Test Pilot™ to show students all of their responses, the correct responses, and their scores. 

Important: After students click "Submit your Responses," they should be patient if the assessment takes a while to be submitted. If, after clicking "Submit your Responses" and waiting a while for the responses to be sent, a student clicks the "Stop" button of the web browser and clicks "Submit your Responses" again, the student is likely to receive the error message that "You have exceeded the number of times that a user is permitted to submit responses to this document." (If the assessment is set to allow only one submission per student.) However, the student's results may be recorded accurately by Test Pilot™ even if this occurs.

Reviewing Responses
The instructor can set Test Pilot™ so students can view the results of an assessment immediately after submitting responses, but Test Pilot™ can also be set up so that students can return to the assessment after the due date and review their responses, the correct answers, and the score. If the instructor has set up the assessment to allow students to review the results after the due date, students clicking on a link to the Test Pilot™ assessment after the date will see the information below on the login screen.

If a student enters his or her Test Pilot™ login ID and clicks "Review Your Score" (instead of "Request"), the student will be able to see the results of the assessment.

Trying to Submit Late Responses
If a due date and time is set for a Test Pilot™ assessment, the program will not allow students to access the assessment after the due date has passed. If students try to access an assessment after the due date, they will see the message below after entering the login ID.

If the instructor sets a due date for an assessment, there is no way that students can access the assessment after the due date. Therefore, it is especially important that students complete Test Pilot™ assessments by the due dates. 

Avoiding Problems
While the login procedure for Test Pilot™ is simple, there are a few important things that instructors should be aware of. 

Incorrect Login ID
If a student types an incorrect login ID, the student will see the kind of login screen illustrated below, with two boxes, one for the Test ID and one for the student user ID.

Important: The Test ID is whatever file name the instructor gave the assessment, whatever appears after "tests/" in the URL for the assessment, which will appear in the Location or Address bar of the web browser, but the Test ID can be long, and students have no way of knowing the Test ID unless the instructor tells them what it is. Because it is not easy for students to figure out what to type in the box for the "Test ID," the best thing for a student to do if this happens is to click the "Back" button of the web browser, re-enter the login ID correctly, and then click "Request" again. 

Attempts to Resubmit Responses
If a Test Pilot™ assessment is set by the instructor to allow only one submission per student, once a student has submitted his or her responses to the assessment, the student will receive the error message below if attempting to resubmit responses. 

As noted above, students are also likely to see this error message if, after clicking "Submit your Responses," they click the "Stop" button of the web browser and click "Submit your Responses" again. The submission process may be slow at times, but students should be reminded to allow the program to try to register their submission the first time they click "Submit your Responses." 

Technical Problems
Test Pilot™ is not free from technical problems. If the URL for the assessment is correct, but the error message below appears, there may be a technical problem with Test Pilot™ that needs to be fixed by the college web master. The error message below may also indicate that the assessment was not saved in the "tests" folder of FrontPage.

If students receive an error message indicating technical problems, the instructor should seek assistance in figuring out the problem.

Attempts to Access Assessments Too Early
Instructors can also set a Test Pilot™ assessment to allow student access only during specified times. For example, an exam delivered in Test Pilot™ could be accessible only during a scheduled class, with the instructor setting both the start time and end time in the Test Pilot™ program. 

Important: Notice the login screen below. One of the messages under the login box states that "You may only request to see this assessment once." This message indicates not that students may access the assessment just once but that they may request to see it only once. If there is a specific start time, and a student requests to see the assessment before the start time, the student will receive the error message that "This document is not available at this time" (illustrated above), and the student will have used his or her one time to request the document, meaning that the student will not be able to request to access the assessment after the start time. This security feature of Test Pilot™ is convenient for instructors, allowing instructors to post quizzes, tests, and other assessments prior to when students will take the assessments without having to worry about students accessing the assessments before the specified times. However, if Test Pilot™ is set to allow each student to request the assessment only once, students should be warned of the consequences of trying to access the assessment early.