The Blackboard test function is a versatile tool – the ‘go to’ question types may be single or multiple-choice questions but the Hotspot question type enables us to incorporate images into our questions and provide a multi-modal format.

The Hotspot question type shows an image to the students and asks them to click the area of the image that relates to the correct answer, for example.

The question is asking the students which of the SI units that are displayed relates to the measurement of temperature. Notice that in the picture above the ‘K’ (Kelvin) has a shadow around it. This is the area that students must click in order to correctly answer this question. The Hotspot question type can be populated with pre-written feedback and in this instance, clicking anywhere else but the ‘K’ will mark the answer as incorrect and display the Incorrect Feedback.

Of course, clicking the correct area will result in a ‘well done’ type message with feedback too.

To create a Hotspot question; from the Blackboard Test Canvas click on Create Question>Hotspot. You will be asked to author the question first and on the next screen Blackboard will ask you to upload your image and identify the ‘correct’ section of the image before you Submit.