You can't modify a test after it's published. Period.
You can retract it (equivalent of taking it away from students!) and republishing a new version with the fixes, under a new name.
Do not publish a test until you have reviewed it thoroughly and it is truly "publication" material.
The system will just match what you put in the { }. For synonyms or multiple answers, you can insert a "|" (pipe) between the answers. For example, put {yellow|red|purple} to accept any of those for the answer. It's a good idea to check the fill in the blank answers the first few times to make sure that students get credit if they use a variation on the answer I put in the { }. It is easy enough to do and over-ride the answers marked wrong if you choose to.
The pipe key ( | ) is found on the keyboard above the Return/Enter key - use the shift key, too.
That's it. You got it. Imagine if you have a long or difficult test and students are stumped on some questions. Instead of straining and losing time, they can check "mark for review." When they are done, the questions they marked with be tagged in the table of contents and they can quickly return and finish them.
Note: this feature only works if settings allows for random access to questions (under the Assessment Organization category). If the settings are set to linear access, then students can't mark for review and return to skipped questions. Before you create your test you should check the template settings and make Assessment Organization editable if you might want to change this depending on the test.
Taking the time to complete the metadata field will pay off in the long run for searches. If you have a large question pool, having good metadata in your tests will allow you to zero in to the right question that covers a specific topic/term. The goal is to have search functionality in every tool.
If you have set the test up for a single entry, the deadline for submitting has passed, or if they submit accidentally you can't allow them to retake the same test. The only option that I know of is to set up a new test for the student.
Yes, it can be edited. Go to template settings to the Submission Message category and check the Can be Edited for Submission message or URL (or both).
The URL page is one you want to take your students to once they submit the test. If you have a final page that you have designed and published somewhere on the web, you can add that URL there. It may be a place to see solutions to the exam or model answers or a CONGRATULATIONS web page/image.
If you don't have a URL (web page), then simply adding a message for the final page, is sufficient. Something to greet students when they are done, like: Thank you for your effort. The grades will be available in a week.
It helps to alleviate worries that student have about whether or not their instructor received the test -- also then they don't send me emails asking if the test was received.
To preview a test, you must do it prior to publishing it, under Core Assessments. Here is what to do:
Nothing is saved when you preview a quiz. It's just for preview purposes to go through the questions and see what students see. You are not really taking a test as a student - just previewing it.
This is a function of your viewing the text in "preview" mode. The test isn't meant to be taken, just previewed, so the field is grayed out.
You can't assign a question to a pool UNLESS you first create pool to send questions to. Go to the question pools area first, create some pools and sub-pools, and then when you create tests, you can send questions to appropriate pools.
You are correct. It only goes one way, from subpool up to pool. So if you put a question into the wrong subpool, you can't move it into the correct subpool.
It's located under test settings => timed assessment. This is another area where you will want to check your template to see if these settings can be edited. Do this BEFORE you create your test.
The timed feature works really well. If you select "auto-submit" when time expires, the software says, "time is up," submits the answers to the database, and returns students to the T & Quizzes home page. Also, students have a green bar showing them how much time they have left and with 5 minutes to go, it turns red.
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Yes, it is related to browser settings. I have JavaScript enabled and because I write JavaScript, in IE I have enabled the setting that shows the JavaScript error. FireFox puts JavaScript errors in the JavaScript console which can be shown from the tools menu.
If students have taken the test, even if it is past due, they CAN see it again and (possibly) their scores. They may not be able to see the correct/incorrect answers and their score based on your feedback settings, but they can access the test. There is no difference in this behavior for tests that allow late submissions or not. The only thing you control is access to scores/feedback. Students can always access active exams and "submitted" exams (even if they are inactive/past due).
Students who have not taken a test cannot see it at all after it's inactive (past due). Retracted exams (you remove them from the active list manually, ideally after the due date) are not visible to students who have not taken them, but they are visible to those who have taken them. The latter is a bug, I believe. Need to check with Stanford U on the behavior prior to posting an issue on it. I thought that retracted exams should never be visible to any students.
Yes, right now, only Melete has the commerical Sferyx editor with the equation editor plug-in that we purchased. The other tools use an open source javascript light editor.
Our goal is to allow users (students and faculty) to choose one of the two editors from MyWorkspace >> Preferences. For some disciplines, the Melete editor with MathML and foreign language support is an overkill. For others, like yourself, they can't teach in the system and author assignments, tests, or content without it.
I don't know the timeline for this functionality. It is very likely that it would be available in the fall of 2006.
As for the improvement of the equation editor, I would have to check with the company where we purchased it from to find out how often they expect to put out new releases. As I said in the other post, it's a new product (released in Nov. of '05) that will only get better.
The equation editor is an add-on plug-in that we purchased for the Sferyx Editor in Melete. We are not in charge of its future enhancements nor in a position to extend it (not our code base, and outside of our area of expertise), but we will be getting the upgrades from the vendor, as they come out. Keep in mind that the equation editor for Melete was just released in November by the company (beta version), so it is a young product that will only get better.
It could be that you set the test to be visible to "anonymous" users, which is nobody in your class.
This would be done using the Import function, as long as the test was in the proper, compatible format. (You see Import as soon as you click on the test tool, just under "Create a new assessment" and "Title.") The publisher would need to support (provide test banks in) the international standard QTI IMS specification that the Tests & Quizzes import function uses.
No, you cannot change a test from "Late Submissions NOT Accepted" to "Late Submissions will be accepted but will be tagged during grading" after it's published (active or inactive).
But you CAN activate an inactivated exam:
It will now be moved up to the active list for students to see and take.
The newest release DOES take off points for incorrect selections in multiple-answer m/c questions. The software determines the possible max value per question and takes off points for wrong answers down to zero. It's nice to students and won't go negative.
For example: You have a m/c question that is worth 5 points and it has give choices (A, B, C, D, and E), with A and B being correct. If a student chooses all five, he will get zero points (-3 + 2).
You can now request to have your classic ETUDES tests from x course site/term converted to an XML file that you can import into your new system site. Because there are hundreds of you that need this done, we'll have to process requests for those who go live in the spring quarter and summer terms first. There is a link on the faculty support page that you need to fill out and submit to start the process.
Hmm, here is one thought. Offer one question worth 30 points and then outline 3 different essay questions within that one question. Instruct students to pick two of the three questions to respond to. It will show up as a test worth 30 points and they answer two of the questions.
The interface needs a bit work in the question pool area. You might have to open your browser window completely, and scroll down and horizontally, to access the links. You want to click on the pool/subpool name to access that pool. Then scroll down to see the questions. Click on a question to open it up for editing.
No, the system does not have student tracking at this time. It is a requirement that teachers want, so I trust it will be available some time in the future. Students get booted out if they exceed the time limit. The software respects the time limit you set. This is a forced requirement with timed exams - tests can be set to "auto-submit" when the specified time expires.
That is odd. Be sure that if you are using pools, the point value of the questions within a single pool are the SAME. Otherwise, if you use 'randomization' from pools that have questions with different point values, the random feature might give students questions that are worth varied values, getting a totally different score in the exam than other classmates!
It could it be that you have multi-part multiple choice questions in your pools, and that in addition to checking the right answers, your student checked incorrect answers and got points off? There is a penalty for checking incorrect selections in m/c multi-answer questions.
When you create test questions, please do not paste Word code into your exams! Your survey/exam was full of non-standard code that Microsoft Word is equipped to understand, but hardly any other editor.
The editor is a standard simple javascript editor. It is not smart. It accepts what you paste. The export function needs clean data to convert it to xml. There was no other way to clean this up but by going to each of your questions one-by-one! You should be able to export your assessment now.
If your questions are in Word, copy/paste the questions into Notepad or Simple Text first, then copy and paste from there into your exams. Or Save As the Word document into text format (.txt, NOT .doc) before using that text in Tests & Quizzes. That will strip out the bad Word code.
There is a "mark for review" feature. If students mark a question for review, they can then click on the 'table of contents' link located at the top of the window at any time and go through each question to review them and change answers. This will be available to students IF you have made the choice to allow for a table of contents to show. Additionally, there is "save and exit" and return to the test and go through it one more time, and THEN, click on "submit for grading."
Now, if your student clicked on 'submit for grading,' his/her answers were sent to you and it's too late. 'Submit for grading' means submit for grading. This mistake is very easy to do without paying attention, because the Submit for Grading button is on the last question in the same location that Save and Continue is located in previous questions. We had posted an announcement to warn students to not submit for grading until they are done. You might want to send that reminder (again) to them.
Unfortunately, the editor currently used in the Tests & Quizzes tool does not support image upload. It only supports inserting an image URL. This means that you need to have your images somewhere on the web and point to them. In other words, you will need to add the full image URL ending with the image file name. http://......gif or http://....jpg
The rest of the tools will be upgraded to a new editor that supports image uploads soon. I'm not sure when the test tool will implement the new editor. They are discussing it.
No, there is no way to stop students from printing exams. Yes, students have full access after submitting.
For high-stakes exam, you should set your settings to "no feedback." The problem with this is that it is not the best for learning, as it doesn't allow students to learn from their mistakes and their successes. But, no matter what, if you allow feedback to show after a certain date, even screen-by-screen, there is no stopping students from printing it in their home computers and sharing it with others. Yes, a combo of drawing from a large bank and randomization is the best alternative to proctored exams.
Until you have a larger test bank, set high-stakes exams to 'no feedback.'
First, let me clarify/confirm the following:
There is a big problem with the last item above.... (a bug). The grader's comments are not visible to students, even if you check the box under "feedback." This should be fixed in the end of March release.
Once a test has been published, it can't be modified.
Yes - I put the request to Stanford about a month ago and they have incorporated a fix for it (a warning to faculty). It will be in our production code in the next major upgrade (early April).
I have also asked that they consider giving faculty flexibility in changing their mind about the feedback settings after publication and deactivation of an assessment. I just asked for this recently, so I am sure it won't be in the next release.
No, you are not blind. The "Assessment Information" textbox is not available in the template. However, you can put the instructions for students in the "Template Information" >> "Description/Intro" box of your template, and before you publish a test, under settings, you can copy/paste your default instructions from the "Template Information" box to the "Assessment Information" box just below it. It's a quick workaround. At least you don't have to search for the information.
P.S. I've passed this on as a feature request to Stanford U.
3/16/06