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Properties and restrictions of quizzes in myCourses

This article explains all the properties available to create and edit a quiz in myCourses.

General

In the General section you have following options:

  • Name: The name of your quiz is the only requirement for creating a quiz.

  • Grade out of: If the quiz is "Not in Grade Book", Grade out of reflects the total points of the questions. If the quiz is "In Grade Book", Grade out of is the maximum points of the associated grade item in the Grades tool.

  • Due date: Select a specific date and time by which the quiz should be submitted. 

  • Description: This message will appear to the students before they start the quiz. 

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Questions

In the Questions section you have following options:

  • Add existing: This option allows you to Upload a file from your computer containing the questions you want to include in the quiz or Browse question library within your course in myCourses for questions previously added.

  • Create new: Create a new Section, Question pool or New question.

    • Section: This helps separate the quiz by topic or types of questions. The only mandatory field is the Section title, which can be hidden by selecting the checkbox Hide section title from learners. Some optional properties are Section text, which can also be hidden with the checkbox Hide section text from learners. It is also possible to shuffle the questions in the section by selecting the checkbox Shuffle questions in this section. 

    • Question pool: Allow instructors to give students a set number of questions randomly selected from a larger pool of question.

      • Question pool title: Define a name for the question pool.

      • Number of questions to select: Define the total number of questions that will confirm the question pool.

      • Points per question: Define the value of the questions relative to the quiz.

      • Browse question library: Access the previously created questions in myCourses to select the relevant ones and create the question pool.

    • New question: Select a type of question from the available menu and fill the required information. To add optional information to the questions, click Options and choose one or more of the following: Add feedbackAdd hintAdd short description, and Add enumeration (See below Edit a question for more information about these options.)

  • Preview: Click here to see a preview of your quiz and detect any error or required edits.

  • Edit a question: Click a question to edit Question text, Answers and Points. Additionally, on the Options button, you can add feedback, hints, short description, and enumeration. 

    • Question text: The text that is displayed to the students as the question.

    • Answer: The correct answer that will sum up points for the final score.

    • Points:  The amount of points a question is worth.

    • Feedback (optional): Question-level feedback that students see after they submit their quiz.

    • Hints (optional): Text that can be useful to the student at the moment of answering the question, the text will be displayed in the final quiz.

    • Short description (optional): Used to differentiate quiz questions in the Question library. The Short description field is only accessible to instructors from the Question library. Learners cannot see this field when taking a quiz

    • Enumeration (optional): This option enables the enumeration in the possible answers of the question with lower case letter (a), b), c), d)…)

  • Move or rearrange questions: To move a question hover to the left corner of the question box until six dots appear. Drag and drop the questions in the desired order.

  • Move to/More actions: To activate these options, first select the checkbox of the questions you want to edit.

    • Move to: Choose between Top of the quiz, Bottom of the quiz, or Section.

      • Top of the quiz: The selected questions will be moved to the top of the quiz.

      • Bottom of the quiz: The selected questions will be moved to the bottom of the quiz.

      • Section: Create a new section in the quiz with the set of selected questions.

    • More actions: These can be helpful for bulk editing. Allows you to Delete the selected questions, Toggle bonus, Toggle mandatory, and Set points. 

      • Toggle bonus: Define a question that will give additional points to the final score of the quiz. The question will be marked as bonus for the student when taking the quiz.

      • Toggle mandatory: Define a question as mandatory, this means that it should be answered to successfully complete the quiz. 

      • Set points: Change the value of the questions. 

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Availability dates & conditions

Under Availability dates & conditions, you have following options:

  • Start date/End date: Select a date or date range that your quiz will be open to students. You can check the box next to

    • Add availability dates to calendar to add the quiz to the calendar of your course. Start date and end date are displayed in the Calendar tool as separate events.

  • Release conditions: Students will not be able to access or view the quiz unless they meet the release conditions. Click on Add release condition to Create new or Add existing.

  • Special access: Allows you to give specific students a different set of quiz availability dates, timing, and late submission options.

    • Allow selected users special access to this quiz: Selecting this option allows you to set special access rights or restrictions for chosen users. All other users will be able to see the quiz and will be governed by the normal restrictions you have set up in the Restrictions tab for the quiz.

    • Allow only users with special access to see this quiz: Selecting this option will only allow the selected users to see the quiz. No one else will be able to see the quiz. This option is useful for make-up quizzes.

    • For both cases follow the below steps: 

      • Click Add users to special access.

      • On the Add special access to quiz page, select the Date availabilitytiming, and Attempts options you want the selected student(s) to have. Select No changes to keep timing options the same as for all other students.

      • Select the checkbox beside the name of each student you want to give special access to.

      • Click Save.

  • Password: Enter a password that students must enter to access the quiz.

  • IP restrictions: Click Manage IP restrictions. Leave this field blank to allow students to access the quiz from anywhere OR enter the numbers of an IP address in this field to only allow students to access the quiz from a specific location.

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Timing & display

Under Timing & display, you have following options:

  • Timing:

    • No time limit

      • It is the default option when creating new quizzes.

      • No time limit will appear under Time allowed on the Quiz summary page.

To limit time, check the box next to Set time limit. Click on Timer settings to see the available options described below.

  • Quiz start

    • Asynchronous: Timer starts when the student launches the quiz. The default is 120 minutes.

    • Synchronous: Students take their attempts simultaneously. The quiz timer then ends for all students at the same time.

      • You should use add a Start date when setting up a synchronous quiz and leave the End date empty.
      • If no start date and time is set for the synchronous quiz, the No start date set alert appears under the selected option, and you cannot save the quiz. The Due date option is disabled for synchronous quizzes.
      • Under Availability dates & Conditions you can add the availability dates to calendar to ensure the quiz is visible in the students' calendar.
  • When the time limit expires

    • Automatically submit the quiz attempt: This is the default setting and the time limit is initially set for 120 minutes.

    • Flag as "exceeded time limit" and allow the learner to continue working: Students can always submit their quiz, regardless of time limits. If the quiz is submitted after the Time limit no points are deducted.

    • Do nothing: the time limit is not enforced

  • Paging: This will define how many questions will appear on each page of the quiz. On the right menu locate the section Timing & display and select the best option for your quiz from the drop-down menu under Paging

  • Shuffle quiz: Select this checkbox if you want to shuffle questions and sections within the quiz. Note that it does not cascade to sub-sections.

  • Display: Choose what will be displayed during the quiz. Select the checkboxes to enable or disable the options. 

    • Allowing hints: Display a text for all questions that have a hint. A hint is a note that help the students answer the question.

    • Disable email, Instant messages, and Alerts within Brightspace: Prevent students from accessing alerts, emails, and messages if they have a quiz attempt in progress.

  • Header and footer: Where you can enter messages that will appear to students at the top and the bottom of each page. Click Manage header and footer to show the available options, after adding the text, click Add to save the changes.

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Attempts & completion

Under Attempts & completion you will be able to change the amount of attempts student have and the category of the quiz.

  • Attempts:  Click Manage attempts to change the following settings:

    • Attempts allowed: Select the number of times students will be allowed to complete the quiz or select Unlimited from the drop-down list to allow students to complete the quiz as many times as they want.

      • If you select Unlimited, the option Retake incorrect questions only appears, select the checkbox to only allow answer for previously incorrect questions on future attempts.

    • Overall grade calculation: Select which attempt(s) the grade for the quiz will be based on:

      • Highest attempt: Grades the quiz based on the student’s best attempt.

      • Lowest attempt: Grades the quiz based on the student’s worst attempt.

      • Average of all attempts: Grades the quiz based on an average of all the student’s attempts at the quiz.

      • First attempt: Grades the quiz based on the student’s first attempt.

      • Last attempt: Grades the quiz based on the student’s last attempt.

      If you select between 2 and 10 from the Attempts allowed drop-down list, Advanced attempt conditions will appear. These conditions allow you to set a minimum or maximum percentage that a student must achieve on an attempt to be allowed to take another attempt.

  • Category: This helps organize and label quizzes in different groups. Select a category for the quiz or create a new category. 

  • Notification email: Setup a notification email for when a quiz is attempted. Multiple emails must be separated by a comma.

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Evaluation & feedback

Under Evaluation & feedback you have following options:

  • Auto-publish attempt results immediately upon completion: Select this to set attempts as "Published" immediately after the quiz. This allows students to view their evaluated attempt on the Submissions page immediately after they have completed the quiz. Grades will also be automatically sent to the Grades tool, if Synchronize to grade book is also selected.

 Long answer questions will be auto-graded as zero until manually graded.

  • Synchronize to grade book: When a grade item is linked to the quiz you can choose to automatically publish the scores to the grade book by enabling this setting.

  • When published, display to learners:

    • Attempt grade: Show the grade the student earned on the quiz.

    • Choose whether to display No questions, Incorrect questions only, with correct answers, Incorrect questions only, without correct answers, All questions only, with correct answers, and All questions only, without correct answers from the drop-down menu

  • Customize quiz results display: Opens a window which allows you to release quiz answers and/or statistics to students after taking a quiz. See Allowing students to view quiz answers for more information.

  • Learning objectives: Click Manage learning objectives to associate a learning objective with the Quiz.

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While this resource is accessible worldwide, McGill University is on land which has served and continues to serve as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. Teaching and Learning Services acknowledges and thanks the diverse Indigenous peoples whose footsteps mark this territory on which peoples of the world now gather. This land acknowledgment is shared as a starting point to provide context for further learning and action.

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