Respondus Exam Authoring Tool - How to Publish an Exam to Blackboard (Automatic or Manual)

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This article provides instructions for uploading/exporting your exam or pool from Respondus Exam Authoring Tool to Blackboard. The Respondus Exam Authoring Tool is a Windows-only application used for creating exams offline (in Word or RTF) and publishing exams directly to Blackboard. The software provides many time-saving tools such as equation editors, web links, and multimedia functions. For more information about using Respondus, please see their help page or refer to the instructor user guide. Instructions for installation/updates can be found in our other Knowledge Base article.

If you are looking for information about Respondus Lockdown Browser (used by students to access and take secure exams), please view this article instead.

Options for Publishing an Exam to Blackboard

AUTOMATIC UPLOAD (RECOMMENDED PROCESS)

After you complete the installation and update steps, you can start importing your exams into your course in Blackboard. The connection information has changed, and you must update the server settings before you can transfer exam information – please see the instructions below or watch this video for an overview. If the automatic upload fails, please see the next section (Publish an Exam to Blackboard - MANUAL UPLOAD) for alternative instructions.

Before you begin the exam export process, you must confirm that you are running the latest version of Respondus: Click Help, then select Check for Update – you should see a message "No update needed, this is the latest version". If you need to update, please see the instructions under Keep Respondus Exam Authoring Tool Updated, in this KB article. Once you have confirmed that Respondus is up to date (version 4.0.8.09 or newer), you may proceed to the next step.
Click Open a Respondus file, browse your computer to select the Respondus exam file that will be exported to Blackboard, then click Open.
Use the Edit tab and Settings tab to configure your exam as desired – this part of the process hasn't changed. When you arrive at the Preview + Publish tab, continue to the next step.
On the Preview + Publish tab, click Publish Wizard to edit the Blackboard server information (used by Respondus to connect with Blackboard and transfer your exam).
You may leave item #1 as-is. For item #2, Blackboard Server, the process depends on the way you completed this step before (when you first set Respondus up):
- If you previously used the preconfigured server settings, and the server information was retrieved for you automatically: The new server information should also update automatically. If you would like to confirm that new information was populated, you can use the Edit Settings button to view the details. Then you can skip to step 8, below.
- If you previously added the server information manually, or haven't added server information yet (publishing for the 1st time): you will need to edit this setting and tell Respondus to check for new server settings. Use the drop-down menu to select -add new server-. This will open a pop-up where you can edit the Blackboard server information.
In the pop-up window, leave the first option selected: Yes, check for preconfigured server settings, then click Next.
For item #1, enter any name that will help you remember to use this version of the server settings. You can leave the other items as-is, then click Next. Respondus will now run a connection test and determine the correct server settings automatically.
After Respondus completes the connection test, a window will pop-up – click OK to continue. For the next step, you will need to enter your login information for Blackboard.
The NDUS SSO (single sign on) page will open automatically – since the login process has changed, this sign-in step may look different from before. Click the button for My Bb Login. This will open a second page where you can type in your User ID and Password (only use your firstname.lastname without '@UND.edu' at the end).
After you enter your login information, click the button to Log In, and you should see the main Blackboard page (below). Click the Close After Login button (in the top-right) to return to the Respondus Publish Wizard setup page.
Back on the Publish Wizard page, click OK, then wait while Respondus logs you in – do not click the Back/Next/Cancel buttons! When your login goes through, Respondus will open the next page automatically.
After you have been logged in, you should see the course selection page of the Publish Wizard (see screenshot below). Use the first drop-down to select your course, and use the rest of the form to set up the other aspects of your exam. Click Next to finish copying your exam to Blackboard.
That's it! Your exam should now be available in your Blackboard course.

MANUAL UPLOAD (ALTERNATIVE PROCESS)

If the above process (automatic upload) fails, you can still export your exams to Blackboard manually. Please see the following steps to download and upload the exam file from your local files. Note: If you followed the above instructions and ran into an error, you may have already completed steps #1 - #4... if so, you can skip to step #5 below:

Before you begin the exam export process, you must confirm that you are running the latest version of Respondus: Click Help, then select Check for Update – you should see a message "No update needed, this is the latest version". If you need to update, please see the instructions under Keep Respondus Exam Authoring Tool Updated, above. Once you have confirmed that Respondus is up to date (version 4.0.8.09 or newer), you may proceed to the next step.
Click Open a Respondus file, browse your computer to select the Respondus exam file that will be exported to Blackboard, then click Open.
Use the Edit tab and the Settings tab to configure your exam as desired – this part of the process hasn't changed. When you arrive at the Preview + Publish tab, continue to the next step.
On the Preview + Publish tab, click Publish Wizard to edit the Blackboard server information (used by Respondus to connect with Blackboard and transfer your exam).
For item #1 in the Publish Wizard, Type of Publish, select “Save pool to local file for manual uploading" (instead of "Publish to single course"). This will save the test package to your computer's local storage as a ZIP file – do not open/extract it. Instead...
...open your browser and navigate to your course in Blackboard. In the Course Tools menu on the bottom-left, click the link for Tests, Surveys, and Pools.
On the next page, click the Tests option to open that page
On the Tests page, click Import Test (in the menu at the top of the page).
This will take you to the Test Import page. Select Browse Local Files, and browse to locate the exam's ZIP file on your computer. Select the file, and click open to upload. It should appear in the list on this page – now you can click Submit to finish the upload.

You will see a processing message/log with the status *failed, completed, etc.).
Now the test will appear in your course files. It will not be deployed automatically or available to students by default. To deploy the exam and make it available to students, navigate to the area where you would like the exam link to appear and use the Assessments > Test menu to create an exam link. This will opren the Create Test menu, where you can use the Add an Existing Test menu to select the test you just uploaded. After selecting it, click Submit (in the bottom-right) and follow the remaining steps to configure the exam settings and create the link. This link may be visible to students (depending on the settings you chose in the set-up).