Ashbury College in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has been using Dugga for over two years and was initially struck by the ease of use to get started, says Lisa Bettencourt, who works as a Technology and Innovation Coach at Ashbury College. Due to the pandemic, Ashbury, like many schools, set off to find new ways of assessing their students remotely.
- We evaluated other secure testing options, and LMS (Learning Management Systems) which have built-in assessment functionality, but none of the other assessment platforms we tested came close to the variety of functions and number of question types that Dugga offers. We found several features to be quite notable including the option to label diagrams, hand write equations, draw responses, and match geographic names to locations on maps with a drag and drop function. These built-in features, as well as the Microsoft SSO integration, were of importance when Ashbury chose Dugga in competition with other assessment platforms.
Lisa also teaches Communications Technology and Technological Design at Ashbury College. She therefore understands the importance of intuitive digital design in learning processes. Lisa and her colleagues found it easy to integrate images, audio, and video when creating a new exam. In addition to more traditional written test questions, the science, social studies, and language teachers in French, Spanish, and Mandarin appreciate the possibility to ask questions in video format using Dugga. Innovative features like these distinguished Dugga in comparison with other assessment platforms!
Straight forward interface
The Dugga platform, from an administrator's perspective, is straightforward. The user experience for students is easy to understand and the interface is simply navigated during a test. Small aspects of the system, such as the hyperlinks on the right panel of the Dugga interface, which leads to each individual question, make it easy for teachers, and students alike, to go back and forth between exam questions.
Apple iPad Program
Ashbury has an iPad program for all senior students, and students write on their iPads with their Apple Pencils.
- Handwriting is still important in the digital age, says Lisa. Studies show that visual notetaking can improve learning and assist with recall. iPads and Apple Pencils are not only being used at Ashbury during tests, but also for classroom instruction, student notes, teacher feedback, and test correction. SEB (Safe Exam Browser) works nicely on the iPads as well, when a secure testing environment is required. Ashbury College has come up with a suggestion to the Dugga support team on a feature that could speed up and simplify correction even more. This is to have downloadable result files from Dugga named individually for redistribution.
- As it is today, we must open the file, check the student identity, and rename each file. The Dugga development team is looking into this to come up with a solution to be communicated in the recurring Release Notes, which pops up automatically when logging in to Dugga. New releases in Dugga come regularly, about once every month, sometimes more frequently. Many improvements in Dugga originate from feedback from teachers and students using the system.
Dugga is an approachable solution to online testing that is student-friendly, accessible, and secure.
Lisa Bettencourt, Technology and Innovation Coach at Ashbury College
