department menu

Set Up a Quiz

Why do this

With the Quiz activity you can create and deliver online exams. There are quite a few options available when creating a Quiz. You can set a certain time frame when the students are able to take the quiz, and a time limit once they click start. You can create a wide variety of question types such as multiple choice, true/false, matching, essay, etc). Questions and/or answer options can be shuffled to make cheating more difficult. You can even create randomized quizzes which randomly pull a certain number of questions from a Question Bank category (or multiple categories). Most question types are automatically graded and the score sent to the gradebook, though essay questions must be manually graded. You can set what results students see and when.

Creating a quiz is done in two parts: 1) create the quiz and set the desired settings and 2) add the questions, either bycreating directly in the quiz or adding from the question bank.

Overview

Create the Quiz

  1. Log onto Cougar Courses and go into your course.
  2. Go to the Topic/Week where you want to add the Quiz.
  3. Click the "Create Learning Activity" link at the bottom of the page.
    create learning activities link
  4. Choose Quiz from the list of Activities.
    select quiz activity

Quiz Settings

  1. Name your quiz. This is what students will see on your course homepage.
  2. In the Description field, type any special quiz instructions.

Note: Information such as the open and close date, time limit and number of attempts are automatically displayed to students.  

quiz setup

Timing

timing

  • Open the quiz: Determines when the quiz will initially be available to students. Click the “Enable” checkbox, then select the dates and times. The time is in hours (military time), then minutes.
  • Close the quiz: When the quiz will close. Click the “Enable” checkbox, then select the dates and times. The time is in hours (military time), then minutes. This is a hard deadline, once the close time is reached the quiz attempt is over, even if a student stills has time from their time limit.
  • Time limit: This determines how long the student has to complete the quiz once they begin their attempt. To set a time limit on the quiz attempt, click the “Enable” checkbox, then set the number of minutes/hours.
  • Be sure the “When time expires” field is set to open attempts are submitted automatically. This means as soon as time expires whatever work the student has completed will be submitted automatically. If this option is not selected, the student must click the submit button, if they do not it will not be submitted for them and they will not receive a grade.

Grade

quiz grade settings

  • If using categories in your gradebook, select the appropriate grade category for the quiz.
  • Select the number of attempts the student will be allowed for the quiz. This can range from 1 to unlimited.
  • Grading method: if allowing multiple attempts, select the method for calculating the final quiz grade.

Question Layout

quiz layout options

  • New Page: This determines the number of questions per page. The default is one.  Limiting the number of questions per page to 5 or less has several advantages:
    • saves the student’s answers each time they advance to the next page, minimizing potential data loss in case of technical problems.
    • reduces the possibility of cheating in the classroom.
    • makes it more difficult for remote users to copy or photograph the questions.
  • Navigation method (click Show more to view): Free (default) allows a student to skip ahead and return to previous pages. Sequential requires the student to progress in order.

Question Behavior

question behavior during quiz

  • Shuffle within questions
    1. Yes - Randomly shuffles the order of the answers within each question. This can help reduce cheating.
    2. No - Answers are shown in the order written. You will want to choose No if you have questions that have answers such as "All of the above," "None of the above," "A & B," etc.
  • How Questions Behave – The default is Deferred feedback, which means students must enter an answer to each question and then submit the entire quiz, before anything is graded or they get any feedback. For other options,  see the Quiz>How Questions Behave document for a thorough explanation of each option. 

Review Options

This section controls what information students will be shown when they review their quiz, and the timeframe during which the review is available.

IMPORTANT: You must select Points in the final section in order for the score to be displayed in the gradebook once the quiz closes. If the quiz doesn’t have a close date, this state is never reached and the score isn’t displayed, so in this instance select Points in the middle two sections.

During the Attempt

Immediately after the attempt

Later, while the quiz is still open

After the quiz is closed

Timing of Review

  • During the attempt is only available when “How questions behave” field above is set to ‘Immediate feedback’, ‘Immediate feedback with CBM’ or ‘Interactive with multiple tries’. If set to one of these options then a ‘Check’ button will appear below the answer and the student can receive immediate feedback after submitting the answer. If using Deferred Feedback, ignore this section.
  • Immediately after the attempt means within 2 minutes after the attempt was submitted.
  • Later, while the quiz is still open means after those first 2 minutes, but before the close date (if the quiz does not have a close date, this phase never ends).
  • After the quiz is closed means what it says (you never get here for quizzes without a close date).

Review Options

The options of information that can be controlled are:

  • The Attempt - Will show the questions and how the student responded to each question. If you do not select this option, you will not be able to select Whether Correct, Specific Feedback, General Feedback, or Right Answer.
  • Whether correct - Displays whether the student’s response to each question is correct or incorrect, but does not identify the correct answer. Must first select The Attempt in order to select this option.
  • Points -Reveals the points/score awarded to the student for the quiz.
  • Specific Feedback - Will show the feedback provided for the answer option the student selected for each question. Must first select The Attempt in order to select this option.
  • General Feedback - Displays the general feedback you wrote for each question. You can use the general feedback to give students some background to what knowledge the question was testing. Must first select The Attempt in order to select this option.
  • Right Answer - Reveals the correct answers. Must first select The Attempt in order to select this option.
  • Overall Feedback - Displays feedback for score for the entire quiz as set in the quiz settings (See Overall Feedback section below).

Extra Restrictions on Attempts

quiz restrictions

  • Require password: Allows you to choose a password students must enter to access the exam.
  • Enforced delay between 1st and 2nd attempts: If you are allowing multiple quiz attempts, enable and use this setting to determine how long students must wait between the time they submit the first attempt and when they start the second attempt.
  • Enforced delay between later attempts: If you are allowing more than two attempts, use this to set the delay before the next, and each successive attempt.
  • Browser security: Respondus Lock Down Browser is installed in the computer labs, and students can install it on their personal computers. For more information, see: Test-Taking Security > Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor (Instructor Guide).

Overall Feedback

Overall Feedback allows you to give feedback to students based on their overall grade on the quiz. Set the desired grade boundaries (in percentages) and Feedback for each of those grades. If you are using Overall Feedback, you must check the box for Overall Feedback in Review Options.

overall feedback for the quiz

Restrict Access

restrict access setup

Activity Completion

For information about these fields, see: Course Management > Tracking Activity Completion.

activity trackinlyticsg settings for ana

Save Quiz Settings

  • Click Save and display button to add questions now.
  • Click Save and return to course to add questions later.

save settings

Adding Questions

If the questions you want to add to your quiz are in a word doc, see:Quiz > Importing Questions through Respondus

If the questions you want to add to your quiz are already in the question bank, see: Quiz > Adding Quiz Questions from the Question Bank.

If you need to create your questions, see: Quiz > Creating Quiz Questions.