SJCC: Creating a Question Bank in Moodle

SJCC: Creating a Question Bank in Moodle

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SJCC Moodle Resources for Faculty

B. Creating a Question Bank in Moodle These are instructions for one of the three main tasks in creating quizzes in Moodle: A. Add the Quiz activity and select the settings for the way it will be delivered. B. Create and/or import questions into the Question Bank. C. Edit the quiz to add the questions. The order of the tasks is flexible. It doesn't matter whether you add the quiz (A) or create the question bank (B) first. But it is advisable to complete those two steps before adding questions to the quiz (C), unless the quiz is very short.

I. Question Bank Overview The course Question Bank is a database of questions from which assessments can be created. You can access the Question Bank by clicking on the Questions link in the Administration block. (You can also open the Question Bank by clicking on Edit inside a quiz.) When you create questions for a quiz, they are stored in the Question Bank for the course. In addition to creating questions in Moodle, you can import questions from publishers' question banks, from a file containing questions in a given format, or from Respondus (a software application for creating, importing, or exporting quiz questions in various formats). When you open the Question Bank, you will see tabs across the top of the screen for Questions, Categories, Import, and Export.

II. Creating Question Categories It is good practice to set up Categories for the questions you will be adding to the Question Bank. This makes it easier to find questions to add to a quiz. It also makes it easier to use the question randomization feature and to set up matching questions. You may find it useful to set up a hierarchy of categories, with subcategories inside parent categories. You could, for example: Divide a category into subcategories for difficulty levels, such as Easy and Difficult. This would allow you to select a given number of questions from each difficulty level, when you randomize the selection of questions for a quiz. Use one category for Quiz 1, and then divide it into subcategories for the specific topics covered in Quiz 1. This would allow you to make sure you cover each topic in Quiz 1, if you randomize the question selection. It would also allow you to make sure you cover specific topics, if you are selecting some of the quiz questions for the final exam. To set up question categories: 1. Open the Question Bank and click on the Categories tab at the top of the screen. 2. You will see the current categories listed. Initially, the Question Bank has only the Default category, which is the parent category for the course.

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SJCC: Creating a Question Bank in Moodle

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3. At the bottom of the Categories screen is the Add category section.

4. First select the Parent category for the new category you are adding. If this is the first new category, it will be the Default category. 5. In the Name field, insert a name that is clear. Keep in mind that you can create additional categories inside this category. 6. In the Category info field, add a description of the category (optional). 7. Click Add category. The new question category will appear in the list of current categories.

Modifying Categories You can use the editing icons to modify categories after you have created them. You can also delete categories or move them to a different place in the category hierarchy. delete the category edit the category move a category into or out of a parent category move a category up or down in the list

III. Creating Questions 1. In the Question Bank, click on the Questions tab at the top of the screen (if

12/14/2012 11:41 AM

SJCC: Creating a Question Bank in Moodle

http://www.sjcc.edu/OnlineLearning/Moodle/Moodle-HowTo-Faculty/...

it is not already selected). 2. From the Category drop-down menu, select the category to which you want to add the question. 3. From the Create new question drop-down menu, select the type of question you want to create: Calculated — Numerical questions that use wildcards (i.e. {x} , {y}), which are substituted with random values each time the quiz is taken. The particular solution will thus vary, but the task remains the same. Description — This type is not, strictly speaking, a question. It simply displays text and/or graphics without requiring an answer. It might be used to provide information (such as a text, image, sound file, etc.) to be used for a subsequent group of questions. Essay — Provides a means for students to use the HTML editor to write an essay that is manually scored. Matching — The question is made up of sub-questions that are matched with the correct answer. Embedded Answers (Cloze) — Consists of a passage of text with answers embedded in the text. Answers can be: Multiple-Choice, Short-Answer, or Numeric. You use the GIFT format (see below) to embed the questions. Multiple Choice — Allows the student to select the correct response(s) from multiple answers. Short-Answer — Allows the student to type a word or phrase in response to a question. You can specify more than one acceptable correct answer. Numerical — Allows numerical answers to have an accepted error (a range of answers). Random Short-Answer Matching — A type of Matching question in which the sub-questions are drawn randomly from Short-Answer questions in a specified question category. True/False — Allows the student to select the correct response from two possible answers: True or False. 4. The screen will open for adding the type of question you have selected. 5. The question set-up will vary for each question type, but the General section of the main question set-up page contains information common to most question types: a. Category — Select the category into which you want to put the question you are creating. If you haven't created the category yet, you can move the question to the correct category after it is created. b. Question name — Enter a distinct name for the question. As your Question Bank grows, it will become more difficult to differentiate questions by name. Thus it will save you time in the long run, if you select a name that will let you identify the question from a list, without opening it. A name such as "Question 1" doesn't provide much information when you are viewing a long list of questions that you have created over the course of a semester or perhaps several years. c. Question text — This is the text that will be displayed at the beginning of the question. The content

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will depend on the question type and the specific question itself. d. Default question grade — The default value is 1. You can override this setting in the quiz settings of any quiz to which you add the question. e. Penalty factor — This setting is only relevant for quizzes run in adaptive mode, when the student is allowed repeated attempts for each question. It specifies the fraction of the score the student achieves for the question that should be subtracted for each wrong response. Enter a value between 0 and 1. The default value is 0.1. f. General Feedback — This refers to any text you want to display after the student has attempted the question, regardless of whether the response was correct. 6. Other settings depend on the question type. They may include the correct answer, the percentage of the question grade awarded to specific answers, feedback for correct and incorrect answers, whether to shuffle answer options, etc. 7. When finished with the question options and settings, click Save changes.

III. Importing Questions You can import questions into Moodle from many different sources.

General Settings 1. Click on the Import tab at the top of the Question Bank page. 2. Select the Format of the questions you are importing from the list of format options. Aiken — This is a very simple format that can be used to quickly create multiple-choice questions in a plain-text file. Blackboard — This is an XLM format for questions exported from the standard version of Blackboard (not Blackboard CE) Blackboard V6+ — Format for later versions of the standard Blackboard platform (This does not refer to Blackboard CE6) Course Test Manager format — The format for Course Test Manager test banks from Course Technology (Cengage Learning) Embedded Answers (Cloze) — A special format for embedded-answers questions. Examview — Moodle can import questions that have been exported in the XML Export Format available in Examview 4, but images must be treated separately. Examview is a format used by some textbook publishers for their test question banks. For questions from later versions of Examview, you may need to modify a Word file to put questions in the Aiken format. GIFT format — The native Moodle question format, which uses a variety of symbols. It can be used to create multiple-choice, short-answer, true/false, and matching questions in a plan-text file. Hot Potatoes format — Format of quizzes created with the free Hot-Potatoes quiz software. Learnwise format — Format of quizzes created in Learnwise (an online learning environment) Missing word format — This format is a variant of the GIFT format. It automatically inserts a fill-inthe-blank line. Moodle XML format — XML format that uses the Moodle schema. It can be used for questions exported from another Moodle server.

12/14/2012 11:41 AM

SJCC: Creating a Question Bank in Moodle

http://www.sjcc.edu/OnlineLearning/Moodle/Moodle-HowTo-Faculty/...

Respondus QTI format — A format option in that is compatible with Moodle. It can be used with older versions of Respondus (before 4.0) that did not have a Moodle question format. WebCT format — Format for WebCT CE4 quiz questions — not compatible with the Blackboard CE8 system used at SJECCD. 3. Select the Category to which the questions should be imported. Some import formats (GIFT and XML Format) permit the category to be specified inside the import file. In order for this to happen the Get category from file box must be checked. If it is not, the questions will go into the category you have selected, regardless of any instructions in the file. Formats exported from Moodle may also contain the category context (the location of the category in your hierarchy) embedded in the category string. Deselect Get context from file to force the default context to be used. When categories are specified inside an import file, if they do not exist they will be created. 4. Match grades checks whether the grades stipulated in each question (if there are any) match one of these grades: 100% 90% 80% 75% 70%

66.666% 60% 50% 40% 33.333

30% 25% 20% 16.666% 14.2857

12.5% 11.111% 10% 5% 0%

a. Error if grade not listed— If any of the questions being imported contain a grades not found in the list above, an error will be displayed and that question will not be imported. b. Nearest grade if not listed — If a question grade is found that does not match a value in the list, the grade is changed to the closest matching value in the list 5. Stop on error — Before importing questions into the Question database, Moodle checks the questions for validity. If you select Yes for this option, when Moodle discovers an error in parsing the file, it will stop and not attempt to import the questions.

Importing Options 6. Select the file of questions you want to import into the Question database. There are two options for the source of the questions you import into your course question bank: You can upload a file that you have exported from another server or from a different source, such as a publisher's test bank (Import from file upload). You can import questions from a file exported from a different Moodle course (Import from file already in course files). Import from file upload... a. Click Browse and then select the file you want to upload.

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b. Click Upload this file. Moodle will parse the questions and display them on a new screen. You can review them to see if there are any problems. c. Click Continue at the bottom of the page.Your question bank will be displayed, with the new questions in the category you selected. Import from file already in course files... a. Click Choose or upload a file. A new screen will open, displaying your course files start page. b. Select the file you want to import. 7. Click Import from this file. Created by Jane Rice. Updated January 2010. For further information, see Quiz Module in MoodleDocs.

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