Assignments in Moodle

Version 1.8

Notting Hill Housing Group

Contents
Contents .........................................................................................................................2 Introduction....................................................................................................................3 Assignments...................................................................................................................4 What is a Moodle Assignment? .................................................................................4 Adding Assignment Activities...................................................................................4 Offline Activity..........................................................................................................5 Online Text ................................................................................................................7 Upload a Single File...................................................................................................9 Advanced Uploading of Files ..................................................................................10 Submitting Assignments ..............................................................................................13 Offline Assignments ................................................................................................13 Inline Text Assignments ..........................................................................................13 Upload a Single File.................................................................................................14 Advanced Uploading of Files ..................................................................................15 Reviewing and Grading Submissions ..........................................................................17 Choice Activities..........................................................................................................19 Educational Benefits of Using Choice Activities ....................................................19 Adding a Choice Activity ........................................................................................20 Selecting a Choice Option and Displaying Choice Results .........................................24 Selecting a Choice Option .......................................................................................24 Displaying Choice Results.......................................................................................24 Quizzes.........................................................................................................................26 Adding Quiz Activities ................................................................................................27 Quiz options .............................................................................................................27 Editing Quiz Activities ................................................................................................33 Moodle Question Types...............................................................................................35 The Question Bank ......................................................................................................37 Category set-up ........................................................................................................38 Adding a New Question...........................................................................................39 Previewing, Editing, Deleting, and Moving Questions ...........................................40 Creating a True/False Question ...................................................................................47 Importing Questions.....................................................................................................51 Import File Formats .................................................................................................53 A note about character encodings ............................................................................55

Introduction
Assessments are a key element of the Moodle system. This course will introduce three assessment activities: Assignments, Choices and Quizzes. It will also introduce the Moodle Question Bank - a database of questions which you can create for use in Moodle Quizzes.

Iain McCulloch Learning & Development Team

Assignments
What is a Moodle Assignment?
An Assignment in Moodle is an activity that allows you to manage tasks that require material in electronic format to be uploaded to the Moodle server. This can include word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, sound files and movies etc. Anything that a learner can store on their computer can be submitted in response to an assignment. It is also possible to use Moodle Assignments to manage the process for tasks where work is not undertaken within, or uploaded to, the Moodle site. In Moodle these are known as offline assignments.

Adding Assignment Activities

To add an Assignment to your course, go to the Course Page, and turn editing on. Click on the Add an activity drop-down box in the topic where you want the Assignment to appear.

Four types of Assignment appear under the sub-heading Assignments. The assignment type defines how your learners will complete the assignment and submit it to you. Assignments can be carried out offline, as a text exercise within Moodle, or by completing an exercise/activity/portfolio and uploading the results as one or more files to Moodle. We will consider each in turn.

Offline Activity
If you select Offline Activity from the drop-down list, the Assignment activity settings page will be displayed:

The various options shown are described below:

Assignment Name
The content of this field is used to create a text-link on the course page which appears to the right of the Assignment icon. It is a mandatory field.

Description
Text entered here is displayed when the Assignment link name text-link on the Course Page is clicked. This should contain all the necessary information about the assignment and details of exactly what learners are expected to do to complete the task. The description can be as brief or as expansive as you feel is necessary to meet the needs of your learners. However, it may be to your benefit to provide as much detail and information as possible, especially at the start of the course while you are still establishing procedures.

Generally, the more information you are able to provide here the fewer questions and problems your learners will have completing the task .

Grade
The grade for the assignment is specified here. By default a drop-down list offers potential grades from 1-100. The chosen number becomes the maximum grade for this assignment. Apart from the numbers, one of the descriptive grades which have been defined for this course can also be picked. Additional options may be configured by clicking on the Scales link in the Administration block on the course page. If you will not be giving a grade for the assignment, choose No Grade Available from

Setting a date here prevents students from submitting their work before that date. This setting does not, however, hide the activity from the learners. Instead, the learner will see the activity, be able to view the instructions and use any materials you have include in the description, but the learner will not be able to submit or complete the assignment until the Available from date. If you do not wish to use the Available from option, just check the checkbox labelled disable by clicking on it; the rest of the field will turn gray and the date will be ignored.

Due date

If this is set, learners are prevented from submitting their assignments after this date. As with the Available from setting, the Due date defines when learners are able to submit their assignment. However, with the Due date settings, you also have the Prevent late submissions option (below the date and time fields). Setting Prevent late submissions to Yes will prevent learners from being able to submit this assignment after the Due date. If you set Prevent late submissions to No, then learners can submit the assignment as long as the assignment is visible or accessible to them. Both the Available from and Due dates are displayed for learners in the assignment details, but the Due date is also marked in the course Calendar as a visible reminder for participants. Furthermore, the indicator on the calendar will actually link learners directly to the activity!

Using the Available from setting will make it possible for learners to preview upcoming activities, while at the same time, prevent them from finishing the course in the first week and not returning for additional activities or information. Likewise, the Due dates help keep the learners from lagging too far behind and decrease the likelihood that your learners will become overwhelmed by having to complete several weeks worth of work at once.

Prevent late submissions

If this is set to "No" then assignments submitted after the due date will be marked as late, but students will still be able to submit them. If it is set to "Yes", assignment submission will be blocked after the due date.

Group Mode
There are three different Group Modes No groups, Separate Groups, and Visible Groups. In Separate groups mode, each group can only see their own group other groups are invisible. In Visible groups mode, each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups.

Visible
This determines whether the Assignment will be visible to students. If No is selected, students will not see the Assignment, although the link will still be visible (but greyed -out) to teachers. NOTE: There are no specific settings to be configured for Offline Assignments.

Online Text
If you select Online text from the drop-down list, the Assignment activity settings page will be displayed:

The General Settings and Common Module Settings are the same as those described above for Offline Assignments. The additional Online Text settings are described below:

Allow Resubmitting
If Yes is selected then students will be able to resubmit an assignment for regrading.

Email Alerts to Teachers

If this is set to yes then teachers will be alerted with a short email whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only teachers who are able to grade the particular submission are notified. So, for example, if the course is using separate groups, then teachers restricted to particular groups won't receive any notices about students in other groups.

Comment Inline
If Yes is selected here, the students attempt at the assignment will be copied into the teachers feedback text-box. This will allow you to edit or append directly to the students work.

Upload a Single File

If you select Upload a single file from the drop-down list, the Assignment activity settings page will be displayed:

The General Settings and Common Module Settings are the same as those described above for Offline Assignments. The additional Upload a single file settings are described below:

Allow Resubmitting
If Yes is selected then students will be able to resubmit an assignment for regrading.

Email Alerts to Teachers

If this is set to yes then teachers will be alerted with a short email whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only teachers who are able to grade the particular submission are notified. So, for example, if the course is using separate groups, then teachers restricted to particular groups won't receive any notices about students in other groups.

Maximum Size
The option selected from the drop-down box determines the maximum file size that can be uploaded for the Assignment. The default value is set on the Course Settings page (where the default is the site maximum file size).

Advanced Uploading of Files

If you select Advanced uploading of files from the drop-down list, the Assignment activity settings page will be displayed:

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The General Settings and Common Module Settings are the same as those described above for Offline Assignments. The additional Advanced uploading of files settings are described below:

Maximum Size
The option selected from the drop-down box determines the maximum file size that can be uploaded for the Assignment. The default value is set on the Course Settings page (where the default is the site maximum file size).

Allow Deleting
If this is enabled, students may delete uploaded files at any time before grading. 11

Maximum Number of Uploaded Files

This sets the maximum number of files that each student may upload for this assignment. The number is not shown to students. The actual number of requested files in should be specified to learners in the assignment description.

Allow Notes
If this option is enabled, participants may enter notes into a text area. This is similar to in form to the Online text Assignment. The text box can be used to communicate with the person grading the assignment. This communication may include descriptions of progress with the assignment or any other written activity.

Hide Description Before Available Date

If this option is enabled, the assignment description is hidden until the opening date (the Available from option).

Email Alerts to Teachers

If this is set to yes then teachers will be alerted with a short email whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only teachers who are able to grade the particular submission are notified. So, for example, if the course is using separate groups, then teachers restricted to particular groups won't receive any notices about students in other groups.

The next section explains the process for learners to submit Assignments in Moodle.

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Submitting Assignments
The way in which Assignments are submitted in Moodle will depend on the Assignment type. In this section we will review to process for each of the Assignment types. In order to view the details of any Assignment in Moodle the student must click on a link that contains the Assignment name. These will normally be visible form the Course Page.

Offline Assignments
Where the Assignment is offline the work is submitted in the manner specified by the teacher, and by the due date specified by the teacher in the Assignment settings page.

Inline Text Assignments

When the student clicks on the link for an Inline text Assignment they will see a page similar to the following:

The Edit my submission button is only displayed if:

The Available from date/time has passed, AND o The Due date date/time has not passed. o OR Prevent late submissions is set to No.

When the student clicks the Edit my submission button the text area for the Assignment is shown:

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The assignment can now be entered directly into the text area. Clicking the Save changes button will save the assignment. A confirmation message will appear thus:

Upload a Single File

Where the assignment type is Upload a single file the student is presented with an upload field similar to that below:

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To submit the file the learner either types the path to the file in the field or selects the relevant file using the Browse button. When the correct file is shown in the field the Upload this file button should be clicked. The date and time of the submission are recorded together with a link to the uploaded file in order that it may be accessed for review or downloaded by the student. A confirmation screen shows that the upload has been successful:

Advanced Uploading of Files

The method of submitting Assessments where the type is Advanced uploading of files is similar to that for uploading a single file. When the student clicks on the Assessment link they will see an upload screen similar to that shown below:

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To submit a file, the learner either types the path to the file in the field or selects the relevant file using the Browse button. When the correct file is shown in the field the Upload this file button should be clicked. The date and time of the submission are recorded together with a link to the uploaded file in order that it may be accessed for review or downloaded by the student. A new button Send for marking now appears on the form after the first file has been uploaded:

The above procedure is repeated until all files have been uploaded, at which point the student should click the Send for marking button.

In the next section we will explain how to review and grade submissions from students.

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Reviewing and Grading Submissions

To access submissions for Assignments a teacher needs to enter the Submissions Page for the Assignment. This is accessed by clicking on the text-link for the assignment on the Course Page and then clicking the link in the top-right corner of the Assignment page:

This will display the Submissions page:

The options displayed will depend on the type of Assignment set. If you have a large number of students enrolled on your course, clicking on the appropriate letter in the First name/Surname indexes displayed at the top of the screen will filter the displayed list of participants. The Grade column displays the grade awarded by the teacher (if any) and the Comment column any feedback from the teacher during grading. The Last Modified columns show the day, date and time that the student and/or teacher last modified the assignment or assignment feedback and grading. Clicking on the Grade button will open the grading area:

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Once again, the detail displayed will vary according to the type of Assignment set.

Name: the name of the student is displayed. Clicking on the profile image will display the individuals profile. Grade: Select the grade for the Assignment from the drop-down list. Text Area: Allows you to enter feedback for the Assignment.

Clicking on the Save Changes button will save the grade and feedback and triggers an email notification to the student. The emails are actually sent at the expiry of the editing period. When the student opens the Assignment the feedback and grade will be displayed on the Assignment page.

The next section looks at Choice activities in Moodle.

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Choice Activities
A choice in Moodle is a very simple concept. The teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. It can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent. Choice activities require some preparation time for creating the activity and deciding what result(s) you would like to achieve, but your participation in the activity itself is likely to be minimal.

Educational Benefits of Using Choice Activities

Pedagogically, the choice activity can be used to provide opportunities to share starting points through which learners are encouraged to think about and articulate existing knowledge and understanding of a topic. For example, you can ask students to make choices about a statement such as: In learning to become a teacher, the most significant issue for me is:

Trust, Theoretical underpinnings, Communication Delivering materials to students.

This has two benefits. Firstly, it forces participants to engage with their choice and think, in advance of a further related activity (you might wish to follow up such a choice activity with a forum discussion or a reflective activity like the online text assignment), about the context and consequences of this choice. Secondly, it allows tutors and students to gain a better understanding of existing views/ understandings/ knowledge related to the question, idea or concept involved in the Choice activity. The choice activity in Moodle only allows participants to select one choice from a variety of options (provided by the teacher), but you may set the activity so that participants can change their choice. You can also set the activity so that it closes or locks down on a specific date, making all choices final from that point on. This allows participants to change their minds several times before a final date.

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Adding a Choice Activity

To add a Choice Activity, log on to your course as a teacher, go to the Course Page and turn editing on. Click on the Add an activity drop-down box in the topic where you want the Assignment to appear.

Selecting Choice from the drop-down list will display the settings page for the Choice Activity:

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The various options shown are described below:

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Name : The contents of this field become the clickable text-link on the course page. It will appear to the right of the Choices icon. This is a mandatory field. Choice text : This will contain the question and any other relevant information for the choice. This is also a mandatory field. Limit : This allows you to limit the number of participants that can select each particular option. Once Limits are enabled, each option can be given a limit. When the limit is reached then no-one else can select that option. A limit of zero (0) means that no-one can select that choice. If Limits are disabled (The default value) then any number of participants can select any of the options. Choice options : These are where you specify the options that participants have to choose from. You can fill in as many, or as few, of these as you need. It is OK to leave some blank. Restrict Answering to this Time Period : This option allows you to define the time window within which participants are allowed to make a choice. Setting a time very far in the future (e.g. over a year) effectively makes the exercise open-ended, although if you don't need to set a restriction at all then you can simply uncheck the box

Display Mode : This setting allows you to choose how the choices will be displayed to the participants. Choices may be displayed either horizontally or vertically. Tip : In most cases, where there are only a few choices each with only a little text, they may be positioned horizontally. However, if there are more than 5-6 choices or if the text of the choices is longer than 2-3 words, it might be better to display them vertically.

Publish results : This setting determines whether (and when) the students will be able to view the results of the choice activity. They may: o Never see the results of the choice. o See the results only after they have given the answer themselves. o See the results only after the closing date of the choice. o Always see the results. Privacy of results : If the choice results are to be shown to students, this setting determines whether the results will be anonymous Allow choice to be updated : If this is set to "Yes", students can change their mind after they have voted. If it's set to "No", students cannot change their choice. Show column for unanswered: If the drop-down option is set to "Yes", a column will be displayed showing how many participants have not yet answered the choice activity. If "No" is selected, the results will only include the participants who have already voted. 22

Group mode : The group mode can be one of three levels: o No groups - there are no sub-groups; everyone is part of one big community. o Separate groups - each group can only see their own group, others are invisible. o Visible groups - each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups.

Group mode can be defined at two levels: a. Course level : The group mode defined at the course level is the default mode for all activities defined within that course b. Activity level : Each activity that supports groups can also define its own grouping mode. If the course is set to "force group mode" then the setting for each activity is ignored.

Visible : This determines whether the text page will be visible to students. If No is selected, students will not see the page, although the link to the text page will still be visible (but greyed -out) to teachers.

In the next section we will look at selecting a Choice option and displaying the results from a Choice activity.

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Selecting a Choice Option and Displaying Choice Results

Selecting a Choice Option
To open and participate in a Choice Activity the participant simply clicks on the textlink containing the Choice name from the course page. The choice page will be displayed:

To chose an option, simply click on the radio-button above (or to the left of) the option. Clicking on the Save my choice button submits the choice.

Displaying Choice Results

The format of the display when displaying choice results will depend on the settings chosen in the Publish results and Privacy of results options in the Choice settings page. The display below assumes that results are to be published to all participants and that results are to be published anonymously.

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The next section introduces one of the most commonly used assessment tools in Moodle: the Quiz activity.

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Quizzes
Quizzes in Moodle provide the means to add a variety of assessment questions to a course. The Quiz module allows teachers to design and set quizzes consisting of a large variety of Question types. The types of question include multiple-choice, true-false, and short answer type questions. The questions are kept in the course Question bank and can be re-used both within the course and also between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts. Each attempt is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give feedback and/or show the correct answers. Feedback on performance is a critical part of a learning environment, and assessment is one of the most important activities in education. Teachers need a way for learners to demonstrate what they understand and what they dont. A well-designed test, even a multiple-choice test, can give you critical information about student performance. If the feedback is rapid enough, it can also be a valuable tool for students to gauge their own performance and, so, help them to become more successful. Quizzes in Moodle provide a large number of options and tools. It is thus extremely flexible. It is possible to create quizzes with different question types, randomly generated quizzes from pools of questions, to allow students to have repeated attempts at a question or to retake quizzes multiple times, and have the computer score it all. These features allow you as a teacher to employ a variety of strategies which are usually impractical when using paper-based testing systems. It is difficult enough to mark one batch of quizzes, and nearly impossible to repeat it 10 times for every learner! When the computer does the work for you, it is much easier to allow

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Adding Quiz Activities

Creating a new quiz is basically a two-step process. Firstly you create the quiz activity and set the options which define the rules for interacting with the quiz. In the second step you will edit the quiz in order to add questions to it.

Quiz options
There are a large number of options available for quizzes, and the site administrator has chosen default values for most of them such that you should not have to modify them for the type of quiz that you use most often. To add a Quiz Activity to your course, log on as a teacher, go to the Course Page and turn editing on. Click on the Add an activity drop-down box in the topic where you want the Assignment to appear and select Quiz from the drop-down list:.

The settings page for the Quiz activity will be displayed:

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The various options shown are described below:

Name: The content of this field is used to create a text-link on the course page which appears to the right of the Quiz icon. If you do not enter anything here, Moodle will enter the default name "Quiz". Introduction: Text entered here is displayed when the Quiz link name textlink on the Course Page is clicked. This should contain all the necessary information about the quiz and details of exactly what staff are expected to do to complete the task.

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The description can be as brief or as expansive as you feel is necessary to meet the needs of your learners. However, it may be to your benefit to provide as much detail and information as possible, especially at the start of the course while you are still establishing procedures. o Generally, the more information you are able to provide here the fewer questions and problems your learners will have completing the task . . Open the Quiz: You can specify times when the quiz is accessible for people to make attempts. This is optional. If set, before the opening time the quiz will be unavailable. Close the Quiz: If this is set, after the closing time, the quiz will be unavailable. Time Limit: By default, quizzes do not have a time limit. Students have as much time as they need to complete the quiz. o If you do specify a time limit, several things are done to try and ensure that quizzes are completed within that time: JavaScript support in the browser becomes mandatory - this allows the timer to work correctly. A floating timer window is shown with a countdown When the timer runs out, the quiz is submitted automatically with whatever answers have been filled in so far If a student manages to cheat and spends more than 60 seconds over the allotted time then the quiz is automatically graded zero. Questions per Page: For longer quizzes it makes sense to stretch the quiz over several pages by limiting the number of questions per page. o When adding questions to the quiz, page breaks will automatically be inserted according to the setting you choose here. However you will also be able to move page breaks around by hand later on the editing page. Shuffle Questions: If this is enabled, then the order of questions in the quiz will be randomly shuffled each time a student attempts the quiz. This is not related to the use of Random Questions. This is only about the order questions are displayed. The intention is to make it a little harder for students to copy from each other. Shuffle Within Questions: If this is enabled then the parts making up individual questions will be randomly shuffled each time a student starts an attempt at this quiz (provided the option is also enabled in the question settings). o The intention is simply to make it a little harder for students to copy from each other. o This can only be applied to questions that have multiple parts, such as Multiple Choice or Matching Questions. For multiple choice questions the order of the answers is shuffled only when this option is set to "Yes". For matching type questions the answers are always shuffled, this setting controls whether, in addition, the order of the questionanswer pairs is shuffled. o This option is not related to the use of Random Questions. Attempts Allowed: Staff may be allowed multiple attempts at a quiz.
o

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This will depend on the purpose of the quiz. Is it intended to be simply an assessment or is the process of taking the quiz meant to be more of an educational activity? Each Attempt Builds on the Last: If multiple attempts are allowed and this setting is set to Yes, then each new attempt contains the results of the previous attempt. o This allows a quiz to be completed over several attempts. o To show a fresh quiz on every attempt, select No for this setting. Grading Method: When multiple attempts are allowed, there are different ways you can use the grades to calculate the student's final grade for the quiz: o Highest grade The final grade is the highest (best) grade in any attempt. o Average grade The final grade is the average (simple mean) grade of all attempts. o First grade The final grade is the grade gained on the first attempt (other attempts are ignored). o Last grade The final grade is the grade gained on the most recent attempt only. Adaptive Mode: If you choose Yes for this option then the learner will be allowed multiple responses to a question even within the same attempt at the quiz. So for example if the student's response is marked as incorrect the student will be allowed to try again immediately. However a penalty will usually be subtracted from the students score for each wrong attempt (the amount of penalty is determined by the penalty factor, set by the next option). o This mode also allows adaptive questions that can change themselves in response to a student's answer. Here is how the IMS QTI specification defines adaptive questions (items):
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"An adaptive item is an item that adapts either its appearance, its scoring (Response Processing) or both in response to each of the candidate's attempts. For example, an adaptive item may start by prompting the candidate with a box for free-text entry but, on receiving an unsatisfactory answer, present a simple choice interaction instead and award fewer marks for subsequently identifying the correct response. Adaptivity allows authors to create items for use in formative situations which both help to guide candidates through a given task while also providing an outcome that takes into consideration their path"

In adaptive mode an additional Submit button is shown for each question. If the student presses this button then the response to that particular question is submitted to be scored and the mark achieved is displayed to the student. If the question is an adaptive question then it is displayed in its new state that takes the student's answer into account and will in many cases ask the student for another input. In the simplest adaptive questions this new state may differ only in the feedback text and prompt the student to try again; in more complicated

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Apply Penalties: If a quiz is run in adaptive mode then a student is allowed to try again after a wrong response. o In this case you may want to impose a penalty for each wrong response to be subtracted from the final mark for the question. The amount of penalty is chosen individually for each question when setting up or editing the question. o This setting has no effect unless the quiz is run in adaptive mode. Decimal Digits in Grades: This setting sets the number of digits that should be shown after the decimal point when displaying learner scores or grades. For example choosing '0' means the displayed grades will be rounded to integers. o This setting only effects the display of grades. It does not affect the internal calculations and rounding of the grades. Students May Review: This controls whether and when students will be able to review their past attempts at this quiz. o You can choose to allow learners to review their responses, their scores, any feedback, and/or their answers. o You can decide whether they can review immediately after the attempt, later while the quiz is still open, and/or after the quiz is closed. Time Delay Between First and Second Attempt: If you set a time delay here, then learners have to wait for that time before they can attempt a quiz again after their first attempt. Time Delay Between Later Attempts: If this is set a, then learners have to wait for that time before they can attempt their third or later attempts. Show Quiz in a "Secure" Window: The "secure" window tries to provide a little more security for quizzes (making copying and cheating more difficult) by restricting some of the things that students can do with their browsers. o What happens is that: Javascript is made a requirement. The quiz appears in a new fullscreen window. Some mouse actions on the text are prevented. Some keyboard commands are prevented. NOTE: This security is NOT watertight. Do NOT rely on these protections as your sole strategy. It is impossible to implement complete protection of quizzes in a web environment so please do not rely on this option if you are really worried about students cheating. Other strategies you can try are to create really large databases of questions from which you randomly choose questions, or even better, rethink your overall assessment to put more value on constructive forms of activity such as forum discussions, glossary building, wiki writing, workshops, assignments etc.

Require Password: If you specify a password here, then participants must enter the same password before they are allowed to attempt the quiz. o This password is optional

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Require network address: You can restrict access for a quiz to particular subnets on the LAN or Internet by specifying a comma-separated list of partial or full IP address numbers. This is especially where you want to be sure that only people in a certain room are able to access the quiz. There are three types of numbers you can use (you can not use text based domain names like example.com): 1. Full IP addresses, such as 192.168.10.1 which will match a single computer (or proxy). 2. Partial addresses, such as 192.168 which will match anything starting with those numbers. 3. CIDR notation, such as 231.54.211.0/20 which allows you to specify more detailed subnets. This field is optional. Group Mode: There are three different Group Modes No groups, Separate Groups, and Visible Groups. In Separate groups mode, each group can only see their own group other groups are invisible. In Visible groups mode, each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups. Visible to Users: This determines whether the Assignment will be visible to students. o If No is selected, students will not see the Assignment, although the link will still be visible (but greyed -out) to teachers.

Clicking on the Save Changes button will bring up the Editing Quiz Window:

This will be explained in more detail in the next section, Editing Quiz Activities.

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Editing Quiz Activities

As we saw in the previous section, the Editing Quiz window is displayed immediately after a quiz has been created:

Questions in Moodle Question Banks are arranged into categories. Initially each course has only one category called "Default". It is good practice to create more categories to help you organize your questions. It is certainly better than keeping all of your questions in one big list in the Quiz module! Hierarchies of categories can be created by creating subcategories inside parent categories. More information about creating and managing categories will be found in the later section on Question Banks. Questions can be added manually from this screen. Click on the drop-down list next to Create New Question will provide a list of the available question types:

Click on the question type that you require and the settings page for that type will appear. Further details on the available question types is provided in the next section.

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To add one or more questions to your quiz either click on the Add to Quiz icon next to the question, or check the box next to the question(s) that you wish to add to your quiz and click on the Add to Quiz button . The selected question(s) will now be listed under your quiz on the left of the screen:

In the next section we will consider the types of quiz question that are available in Moodle.

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Moodle Question Types

Each question type in Moodle has its own form and its own options. The types of question are described briefly below. Multiple Choice : In response to a question (that may include a image) the respondent chooses from multiple answers. There are two types of multiple choice questions single-answer and multiple-answer.

Short Answer: In response to a question (that may include a image), the respondent types a word or phrase. There may several possible correct answers, with different grades. Answers may or may not be sensitive to case.

Numerical: From the student perspective, a numerical question looks just like a shortanswer question. The difference is that numerical answers are allowed to have an accepted error. This allows a continuous range of answers to be set.

True/False: In response to a question (that may include a image), the respondent selects from two options: True or False.

Matching: A list of sub questions is provided, along with a list of answers. The respondent must "match" the correct answers with each question.

Embedded Answers (Cloze): These very flexible questions consist of a passage of text (in Moodle format) that has various answers embedded within it, including multiple choice, short answers and numerical answers.

Random Short-Answer Matching: From the student perspective, this looks just like a Matching question. The difference is that the sub-questions are drawn randomly from Short Answer questions in the current category.

Random: A Random question in a quiz is replaced by a randomly-chosen question from the category that was set.

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Description: This is not a real question. It simply prints some text (and possibly graphics) without requiring an answer. This can be used to provide some information to be used by a following group of questions, for example.

Calculated: Calculated questions offer a way to create individual numerical questions by the use of wildcards that are substituted with individual values when the quiz is taken.

Essay: In response to a question (that may include an image) the respondent writes an answer in essay format.

Links to further information about the different question types can be found on the online course Assessments in Moodle 1.8 on the Learn Where You Work Site. Examples of creating Multiple Choice and True/False questions are included in the next section on Question Banks.

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The Question Bank

The Question Bank in Moodle allows you as a teacher to create, preview, and edit questions in a database of questions. The questions that you create can then be used in Quizzes (and, through the export process, in Lessons). The question bank is accessed either by clicking the Questions link in the Administration Block on the Course Page, or through a quiz activity. Clicking on the Questions link on the course page brings up the Question Bank page for your course:

Questions in Moodle Question Banks are arranged into categories. Initially each course has only one category called "Default". It is good practice to create more categories to organize your questions. It is certainly better than keeping all of your questions in one big list in the Quiz module! Hierarchies of categories can be created by creating subcategories inside parent categories. To add or edit categories either click on the "Categories" tab on the Edit categories button. Categories page: or click

This will bring up the

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Category is the name of the category and Category info is a short description. Categories can be grouped into hierarchies using the Parent option on the left. If you choose Yes in the Publish drop-down box, the category (and all the questions in it) will be available to all courses on the LWYW Moodle site. Note: If you use questions from published categories you should be aware that teachers of the course that owns the question category can modify or delete the question without your knowledge. Also, there is a potential problem if you try to use a question with an image, since only students enrolled onto the course that owns the question category will be able to see the image. In such cases it may be better to create or import a local copy of the question within your own course.

Category set-up
The steps involved in creating a new category are as follows: 1. If you are within the Question bank, either click on the "Categories" tab or click on the Edit categories button as described above. If you are editing a quiz, click on the "Edit categories" button. 2. Above the list of current categories you will see a space to add a new category. 3. Choose which category your new category will be placed. If no other categories have been created, only 'Top' will be available. 4. Type the name of your new question category in the text box. 5. Add a meaningful description in the category info area. 6. If you want to share your question with teachers of other courses on the site, select Yes in the Publish column. 7. Click the Add button. Your new question category will appear in the list of current categories.

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Categories can be created or deleted at will. However, if you try to delete a category containing questions, then you will be asked to specify another category to move them to. By clicking on the arrows in the 'Order' field, you can change the order in which the categories are listed.

Adding a New Question

First, select the category you want to add a question to from the drop-down menu. From the Create new question drop-down menu select the question type you want to create:

and complete the form for the type of question that you are creating. Each question type has its own form and has its own options. The types of question are described below. Multiple Choice : In response to a question (that may include a image) the respondent chooses from multiple answers. There are two types of multiple choice questions single-answer and multiple-answer. Short Answer: In response to a question (that may include a image), the respondent types a word or phrase. There may several possible correct answers, with different grades. Answers may or may not be sensitive to case. Numerical: From the student perspective, a numerical question looks just like a shortanswer question. The difference is that numerical answers are allowed to have an accepted error. This allows a continuous range of answers to be set. True/False: In response to a question (that may include a image), the respondent selects from two options: True or False. Matching: A list of sub questions is provided, along with a list of answers. The respondent must "match" the correct answers with each question.

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Embedded Answers (Cloze): These very flexible questions consist of a passage of text (in Moodle format) that has various answers embedded within it, including multiple choice, short answers and numerical answers. Random Short-Answer Matching: From the student perspective, this looks just like a Matching question. The difference is that the sub-questions are drawn randomly from Short Answer questions in the current category. Random: A Random question in a quiz is replaced by a randomly-chosen question from the category that was set. Description: This is not a real question. It simply prints some text (and possibly graphics) without requiring an answer. This can be used to provide some information to be used by a following group of questions, for example. Calculated: Calculated questions offer a way to create individual numerical questions by the use of wildcards that are substituted with individual values when the quiz is taken. Essay: In response to a question (that may include an image) the respondent writes an answer in essay format.

Previewing, Editing, Deleting, and Moving Questions

The first column in the list of questions contains a number of icons and a selection box. Clicking on the Preview icon will open a preview window in which you can test the question. The Edit icon allows you to edit the question via the same form that you used to create it. The Delete icon deletes the question, provided it is not already in use in some activity. The selection box allows you to select a subset of questions that you can then move to another category using the controls below the list of questions.

In the next section we will describe the steps involved in creating a multiple-choice question for use in Moodle quizzes.

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Creating a Multiple-Choice Question Access the question bank either by clicking the Questions link Administration Block on the Course Page, or through a quiz activity. in the

Clicking on the Questions link on the course page will bring up the Question Bank page for your course:

Click on the drop-down list next to Create New Question and choose Multiple Choice:

The Multiple-Choice question settings screen will be displayed:

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The available options are described below:

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Category: The category in which the question will be stored Question Name: The name of the question. Try to avoid giving hints to the correct answer in the name.

Question: This is where you enter the question. You can include images, HTML, tables etc. Image to Display: You can select an uploaded image here to display with the question

Default Question Grade: The maximum mark that can be achieved on this question. o The default value is 1. Penalty Factor: This specifies what fraction of the available score should be subtracted for each wrong response. o This is only relevant if the quiz is run in adaptive mode so that the student is allowed to make repeated responses to the question. o The penalty factor should be a number between 0 and 1. A penalty factor of 1 means that the student has to get the answer right in his first response to get any credit for it at all. A penalty factor of 0 means the student can try as often as he likes and still get the full marks. One or Multiple Answers: The options are One Answer Only or Multiple Answers Allowed. o Single-answer questions allow one and only one answer to be chosen. Generally all the grades for such a question should be positive or zero. o Multiple-answer questions allow one or more answers to be chosen each answer may carry a positive or negative grade, so that choosing

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NOTE: Be careful. It is possible to create questions that have scores greater than 100% .

Shuffle Answers: If this option is set to "Yes", then the order of the answers is randomly shuffled each time a learner starts a quiz containing this question, provided that "Shuffle within questions" in the Quiz settings is set to "Yes". o The intention is simply to make it a little harder for students to copy from each other.

Available Choices: These are the answer choices for your question. You must enter at least two. o Choice: Enter the option here. Note that choices can currently only contain text. o Feedback: Each answer (right or wrong) should include feedback. This is shown to the respondent next to each of their answers (if the quiz itself is configured to show feedback). o Grade: Grades should total 100% over all the choices

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Once you have entered the required information, click on the Save Changes button to add the question to your question bank. When you return to the question bank you can preview the question to check that it appears as you intended by clicking on the preview icon next to the question:

Enter one or more choices as appropriate and click on the Submit button test your question and review any feedback:

to

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The question can now be added to a quiz as described in the earlier module Editing Quiz Activities

Next we will look at the steps involved in creating a True/False question for your quizzes.

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Creating a True/False Question

Access the question bank either by clicking the Questions link Administration Block on the Course Page, or through a quiz activity. in the

Clicking on the Questions link on the course page will bring up the Question Bank page for your course:

Click on the drop-down list next to Create New Question and choose True/False:

The True/False question settings screen will be displayed:

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The available options are described below:

Category: The category in which the question will be stored Question Name: The name of the question. Try to avoid giving hints to the correct answer in the name.

Question: This is where you enter the question. o You can include images, HTML, tables etc. Image to Display: You can select an uploaded image here to display with the question

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Default Question Grade: The maximum mark that can be achieved on this question. o The default value is 1. Penalty Factor: This specifies what fraction of the available score should be subtracted for each wrong response. o This is only relevant if the quiz is run in adaptive mode so that the student is allowed to make repeated responses to the question. o The penalty factor should be a number between 0 and 1. A penalty factor of 1 means that the student has to get the answer right in their first response to get any credit for it at all. A penalty factor of 0 means the student can try as often as they like and still get the full marks.

Correct Answer: Select either True or False as the correct answer for your question. Feedback: Each answer (True and False) should include feedback. This is shown to the respondent next to each of their answers (if the quiz itself is configured to show feedback).

Once you have entered the required information, click on the Save Changes button to add the question to your question bank. When you return to the question bank you can preview the question to check that it appears as you intended by clicking on the preview icon next to the question:

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Click on an answer and click on the Submit button review any feedback:

to test your question and

The question can now be added to a quiz as described in the earlier module Editing Quiz Activities

The final section looks at what is involved in importing questions into your Moodle question bank.

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Importing Questions
Moodle supports a number of different formats for importing questions into question banks. Some of these enable imports to be made from proprietary quiz software, while others allow questions to be imported from text files and some provide Moodle specific formats enabling the transfer of questions between quiz banks. The best-supported text import format for Moodle is the General Import Format Template (GIFT format). The GIFT format allows you to write multiple-choice, truefalse, short answer, matching and numerical questions in a text editor using a simple format. Once you become familiar with a particular format you may find it easier to just type the questions directly into a text editor rather than using the web interface. This allows you to keep typing instead of waiting for a new web page to open for every question. To import questions to your course, go to the Question Bank and click on the Import tab to bring up the Import questions from file screen:

Choose the category for the questions and select the file format from the drop-down list:

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The available file formats are described in more detail at the end of this section. Match grades: There are two options for this switch. They affect how the import routine treats values that do not exactly match one of the values in the list of valid grades. The options are :

Error if grade not listed. If a question contains any grades not found in the list an error is displayed and that question will not be imported. Nearest grade if not listed. If a grade is found that does not match a value in the list, the grade is changed to the closest matching value in the list

The valid grades are:

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%

Negative values in the above list are also permitted. Note: some custom import formats write directly to the database and may bypass this check

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Browse to select the import file and click the button to import from that file.

Stop on error: Questions are imported in two passes. First the input file is 'parsed' and checked for validity. Then it is written to the database. If this option is selected (the default setting) and an error is detected in the parsing pass then no attempt will be made to write to the database.

If it is not checked, an attempt will be made to write any valid questions to the database.

Import File Formats

GIFT format: GIFT is the most comprehensive import format available for importing Moodle quiz questions from a text file. It was designed to be an easy method for teachers writing questions as a text file. It supports Multiple-Choice, TrueFalse, Short Answer, Matching and Numerical questions, as well as insertion of a _____ for the "missing word" format. Various question-types can be mixed in a single text file, and the format also supports line comments, question names, feedback and percentage-weight grades. Below are some examples: Who's buried in Grant's tomb ?{ ~Grant ~Jefferson =no one} Grant is {~buried =entombed ~living} in Grant's tomb. Grant is buried in Grant's tomb .{ FALSE} Who's buried in Grant's tomb ?{ =no one =nobody} When was Ulysses S. Grant born ?{ #1822}

Missing Word: This format only supports multiple choice questions and short answer question, depending on the number of answers. One answer generates a short answer question, two or more answers generate a multiple choice question. Each answer is separated with a tilde (~), and the correct answer is prefixed with an equals sign (=). Here is an example of a multiple choice question: As soon as we begin to explore our body parts as infants we become students of {=anatomy and physiology ~reflexology ~science ~experiment}, and in a sense we remain students for life. Here is an example of a short answer question: As soon as we begin to explore our body parts as infants we become students of {=anatomy and physiology}, and in a sense we remain students for life.

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Blackboard: This module can import questions saved in Blackboard's export format. It relies on XML functions being compiled into your PHP. Note that this version does not work with Blackboard Version 6 and newer.

Blackboard V6+: This module can import questions saved in Blackboard's export format. It provides limited support for Blackboard Version 6 and 7. It relies on XML functions being compiled into your PHP. You must upload the zip file exported from Blackboard.

WebCT : This module can import questions saved in WebCT's text-based format.

Course Test Manager: This module can import questions saved in a Course Test Manager test bank. It relies on different ways of accessing the test bank, which is in a Microsoft Access database, depending on whether Moodle is running on a Windows or Linux web server. On Windows it lets you upload the access database just like any other data import file. On Linux, you must set up a windows machine on the same network with the Course Test Manager database and a piece of software called the ODBC Socket Server, which uses XML to transfer data to Moodle on the Linux server. Please read the full Moodle help file below before using this import class.

Embedded answers (Cloze): This special purpose format imports just one type of question, the Embedded Answers (also known as Cloze ) format.

Learnwise format: This format can import multiple choice questions saved in Learnwise's XML format.

Examview format: This format can import from Examview 4 XML files. Note that the older versions of Examview are not supported.

Moodle XML format: This Moodle specific format imports quiz questions that have previously been exported in the same format. The format is straightforward and is best demonstrated by exporting a category in the Moodle XML format. The XML format is capable of importing image files.

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A note about character encodings

If your file contains non- ASCII characters then it must use UTF-8 encoding. You may be able to select or convert to UTF-8 using your favourite editor, or it may be an option in the exporting software. XML based import formats will be handled automatically provided your Moodle server is running PHP 5. Be particularly careful when creating questions using Microsoft Word. For reasons best known to themselves, Microsoft used their own encoding for some characters and this is likely to break the import.

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