The Quiz activity is a core AsULearn module that allows the Teacher to design and build quizzes consisting of a large variety of question types, including but not limited to multiple choice, true-false, short answer, essay, and matching questions. These questions are kept in the course's Question Bank and can be added in different quizzes. See also Quiz: Add Questions

There are three major steps to creating a quiz: 

  1. Creating a question bank
  2. Creating the Quiz activity and specifying name, timing, grading, and other details (see separate topic)
  3. Adding questions to the quiz (see separate topic) 

This video walks through the steps for creating quiz categories and quiz questions.

Step-by-step guide

Questions saved in the Question Bank are available to be used in any Quiz activity in the course.

  1. From the course home page, select the More tab in the Course Menu along to top. Then click Question bank in the dropdown menu.

    Use the course menu and select more then question bank from the dropdown menu

  2. On the Question bank page, use the Questions dropdown menu at the top left section and click Categories.

    From the questions pulldown at the top left select categories

Create/Edit categories

You can imagine a question category as a folder on your desktop computer. Questions are stored in these categories in a similar way as your files are stored in a file system.

Each category must have a name and you can include a short description of the category. Create the category hierarchy by specifying a Parent category for each category or the Top for Course as the parent for a category at the top level, that is, it has no parent. If a colleague has shared a course with you, or if you've imported a test bank from a publisher, your course may already have many categories in the Question bank.


TIP

Creating question categories and subcategories is a good practice. It is better than keeping all your questions in one big, unmanageable list in the quiz module. Categories and subcategories are very powerful when creating a quiz with random questions that can be selected either from one category or from a category or any of its subcategories. Tags can also be used to create selective pools of questions for random selection. Some faculty organize questions by learning objective, some by unit or topic, some by individual exam, some by question type, and some by other strategies. Early on, think about the strategy that would work best for you. Tags can also be used to create selective pools of questions for random selection.

The default category does not have to be added: it exists as Default for [Course Short Name]

  1. From the Question categories page, click the Add category button.
  2. Select the Parent category for the new category. Your first category will be under the current Default or at the Top category level (same level as Default).
  3. Enter a Name for the new category and optional Category info.
  4. Click the Add category button.
  • To continue adding categories, click the Add category button again, and select the same Parent category for categories at the same hierarchical level, or choose a subcategory that you've added to create a subcategory of that one.
  • Use the icon buttons (see image below) by the categories you've added to move them to different levels (arrows), edit the settings (gear), or remove the category (trash). 
  • The number in parentheses shows the number of questions currently in the category.

use arrow icons to move categories, gear icon to edit, and trash icon to delete

Create questions in a category

  1. From the top left dropdown menu, select Questions; or click a category name on the Categories page. Either will take you to the page where you can create a new question:

    question screen allows the creation of new questions. click create a new question to begin.

    • If you clicked the category name to get there, it will already be selected(as above).
    • If there are questions already in the category, they will be listed.
    • To show only questions in the selected category (and not its subcategories), uncheck the option Also show questions from subcategories under Search options.
    • In the list with each question in the Action column is an Edit dropdown menu with options to Edit, Duplicate, Preview, and Delete that question.
    • Use the check boxes on the left to select one or more questions.Then, With selected: Click the Delete option to delete them completely from the question bank. Or, select Move to... and select another category to recategorize them.
    • At the bottom right of the screen is a link for Moodle Docs (help) for this page where you can find details for the question bank.

      Use question mark icon at bottom right to access moodle docs for the page

  2. Click the Create a new question... button.
  3. Choose a question type to add from the list on the left by clicking it. There are many choices and when you click on the question type, the description of the question type is displayed. 

    From the choose a question type to add panel select the desired type from the list

  4. Click Add to create a question of the type selected.


AsULearn will remember the settings you select when you save a question and use those setting as the defaults when you make the next question of the same type. 

General

The particular options available depend on the question type selected. Click the blue question marks (question) on the screen for more help with the settings. Most question types will have these settings:

  • Select the Category for the question (defaults to the category selected on the previous screen).
  • Question name is the short identifier for the question. This name is used in lists of available questions. It should distinguish the question from others.
  • Question text is displayed to students for them to respond.
  • Default points is the score assigned to the question when answered correctly; the default is 1, and we recommend keeping that value unless the questions should be worth additional points.

Tags

At the bottom of the Editing a question screen is the Tags section. Tags can be helpful for filtering questions to find them regardless of their category.

Manage tags in the Tag section of the page

  • In the Search field start typing a tag name.
  • If one or more tags exist that matches, they will display. Use the down arrow key to highlight the tag and press Enter to add it, or click on it. 
  • Once you have tags created, click on the arrow in the Search field to display the list of tags and click to select one.
  • If there is no matching tag, press Enter to create one with the text you've typed.
  • Tags appear above the Search field. 
  • Questions can have more than one tag.
  • Click the × on a tag to remove it from the question.

Using tags to filter questions

  • On the Question bank screen Select a category for the questions you want to look through. Select a high-level category or Top for [Course] for all questions.
  • Select Also show questions for subcategories to include questions below the selected category.
  • In the Filter by tags... field type a tag name and press Enter, or click the arrow to select one from the list.
  • Questions with the selected tags will be listed. 
  • To clear a filter, click the × on the tag to remove it.

Tips for multiple choice

For multiple choice questions also consider the following:

  • Will the correct answer be One answer only (radio buttons) or Multiple answers allowed (check boxes)?

  • Do you want to Shuffle the choices? If so, the response options will be presented in a different random order for each student and for each attempt a student takes the quiz. TIP: Watch our for "All of the above" and "A & C only" if you shuffle the choices!

    Shuffling response options within a multiple choice question is controlled by two independent settings: one in the quiz settings and one in the question settings. If a quiz is set to shuffle choices (Question behavior > Shuffle within questions > Yes), but a particular question is set to not shuffle (option not checked), that particular question does not shuffle. If you select Shuffle the choices in the question setting (option is checked), that means the question is eligible to be shuffled, but the quiz must have Shuffle within questions set to Yes for shuffling to occur.

  • How will you assign the percentage of points for a correct answer? For questions with One answer only, 1 answer = 100%. For a question with Multiple answers allowed, the percentages for all correct responses should add up to 100%; incorrect responses can be 0% or a negative score; for example: a. 50%  b. –50% c. 50%  d. –50%, where selecting a and c is the complete correct response, and selecting b or d takes half a point off, so a student who selects all the check boxes will score zero; whereas if b and d are 0%, selecting all the check boxes would score 1, the same as selecting only a and c.

Tips for essay

For essay questions, AsULearn offers a Response template. Any text entered there will be displayed in the response input box when a new attempt at the question starts. Note that you can also allow attachments to be uploaded to an essay question if you need to collect a file from students in the course of an online quiz.

An essay question can also be created as an Online text assignment. 

There is a minimum and maximum word count option for essay, however it does not display the requirements to the student until they try to submit.  Please make sure you include the minimum and maximum word count requirements in your question text so that students will be aware. 

Tips for matching

  • Enter some instructions in the Question text field to tell the students what they are matching.
  • Check the Shuffle option if you want the answers to be shuffled. NOTE: The quiz Question behavior > Shuffle within questions setting must also be enabled for this to work.
  • For the first matching item, enter the question and a matching answer.
  • Fill in at least two questions and three answers. Click Blanks for 3 more questions to add more. You can enter as many as 10 items. You can provide extra wrong answers by giving an answer with a blank question.


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