Exam Questions
Exam items include the questions, prompts, etc. that are included on an exam. Items can be created through the Questions tab, while creating an exam, or can be imported. To allow other users (e.g., faculty:director, staff:pcoor) to access questions to edit them or use them on exams, you must add permissions to the question labels or questions.
A reminder that by default in Elentra all faculty have read access to exam questions.
The types of questions supported by Elentra
Elentra currently supports a variety of question types: Multiple Choice (vertical and horizontal – use ‘multiple responses’ to allow for multiple correct answers), short answer, essay, matching, text, and fill in the blank. Different question types have different templates for their layout.
Notes on question type use:
A text question can be used to provide instructions.
Questions presented in horizontal view to learners will not have the strikethrough feature available when learners take an exam.
Currently essay questions and short answer questions are treated slightly differently in the Learner Feedback Report (available after an exam is completed). Essay questions will show the complete response, while short answer questions will be cut off. We are working on addressing this for our next release.
How to Create Questions
Question Type: Select the required question type. (Note: use ‘multiple responses’ questions if you want to have multiple correct answers.)
Question Description: Add a descriptive title.
Rationale: Add a question rationale. Rationale is shown to learners when they get feedback on their exam and can explain a question answer or provide additional detail.
Correct Text: This option will display only when creating essay and short answer questions. It is a space to provide sample answers or list what should be included in an answer. This text is not visible to learners and is intended to provide information to graders. When a grader corrects a free response question, they will see the correct text on the screen to help them grade the response. If you use this question type and have faculty provide narrative feedback when they grade the questions, you must set the exam to release feedback for ALL questions for learners to be able to see the narrative comments from the grader.
Question Code: This optional code field can be completed according to the guidelines set by your institution.
Label: labels already created will appear in the 'Associated Labels' section.
Question Answers:
To add more answer options, click the green 'Add Answer' button. To reduce answer options, click the large checkbox beside the correct response, crossed arrow and lock icons, then click the red 'Delete' button on the left.
Click the existing red checkmark beside a response to turn it green and indicate a correct answer; depending on your question type you can have multiple correct answers for one question.
You can create Rationale for each answer option by clicking on the eye icon beside the Add Answer button. This will open a free text rationale space below each answer option. This does not currently display to learners so is just for information storage at present.
Reorder answer options by clicking on the crossed arrows and dragging and dropping the response item in the appropriate place.
If you intend to later randomize the answer response options for all questions on an exam post and want to lock an answer in place, move it to the appropriate location and click on the lock icon to close it and turn it red. An example for using this might be a multiple choice question where an answer option is "All of the above" and you always want this option to appear last in the list of answer options. (A reminder that you will set up randomization of questions and/or response options when you create an exam post.)
Curriculum Tags: You can add curriculum tags to any question based on the tag sets configured through Admin>Manage Curriculum. Click 'Add Curriculum Tag', click on tag set names to drill down to the tag you require, click on it and it will appear in the list on the right. Some of the exam reporting tools rely on curriculum tags so in addition to mapping your curriculum and assessments, this can be useful to do for reporting on assessment results. Note that you can apply curriculum tags to multiple questions at once using the Actions options after questions have been created.
For certain question types, additional fields and information may be required:
Fill in the Blank Questions: When creating the item text for a fill in the blank question, create a blank by inserting underscore, question mark, underscore. You must have the same number of question answers as you do blanks (you can have multiple correct answers in each question answer if needed). Please note that fill in the blank answers are case sensitive. You may wish to include two answers (e.g. cardiac arrest and Cardiac Arrest) to ensure learners are properly credited for their answers.
Matching Questions
When you create matching questions, please note that the place to provide the correct answer is at the top of each Item Stem option.
When the learner sees the question, they'll get a list of stems and then each stem will have the same dropdown options that they can match to the stem.
Only users with admin roles can create grouped questions through the Manage Exams Question menu. Other users will be able to create grouped questions when creating an exam.
Multiple Choice Vertical and Horizontal and Fill in the Blank (multiple responses): Grading Scheme
For these question types you can set the grading scheme as partial, all or none, or partial with penalty. Partial: This will give partial credit for every correct reaction (e.g. selecting a correct answer AND not selecting an uncorrect answer). It divides the total point value across the number of response options and awards credit for each response option which is correctly responded to (selected if correct, not selected if not correct). All or none: A learner must answer all correct answers correctly. If they miss an answer (whether they select an incorrect answer or miss selecting a correct answer), the learner will get 0 points. Partial with penalty: This will give partial credit for every correct reaction and will penalize a learner for an incorrect answer. The system divides the total point value across the number of response options and awards credit for each response option which is correctly responded to (selected if correct, not selected if not correct) and deducts credit for an incorrect answer.
Click 'Save' to save your question.
To add permissions to individual questions, navigate to a list of questions and click the pencil icon beside the question title.
Click the greyed out Question Information heading to open it.
In the Question Permissions section, select the user type (individual, organisation or course), begin to type in a name and click on the name you want. The selected user will appear on a list below. To remove a permission click the red x beside a name.
How to Create Grouped Questions
Only users with admin roles can create grouped questions through the Manage Exams Question menu. Other users will be able to create grouped questions when creating an exam.
The function of a grouped question is to bind a number of items together and have them appear together on an exam. Grouped questions will be stored in the Grouped Q’s tab.
Navigate to Admin>Manage Exams and click 'Questions' from the left sidebar.
Click the Grouped Q's tab just above the Questions heading.
Click ‘Add Group’.
Provide an appropriate group title and then add an optional description if desired. This will display in the list of Grouped Q's.
Add permissions to allow another user to edit this group if applicable. A user must have permission to a question to add it to an exam at a later date.
Click Attach Questions to search for and add existing questions.
Click the checkbox beside each desired question (or select all by clicking the checkbox beside the 'Actions' dropdown menu above the list of items). Click ‘Attach Selected’ in the top right.
Click the down arrow beside Attach Questions to create a new question in the question bank and add it to your grouped item at the same time.
Create a question and click ‘Save’ when done. You will return to the Edit Grouped Question page and can add another question.
After attaching the required questions, reorder them as desired by clicking the crossed arrows and dragging and dropping the questions, and then click the blue ‘Save’ button.
You will see a green success message on the screen and then can navigate to a new location.
To edit an existing grouped question, click on the question title to reopen it. To delete questions from a grouped question, open the question, click the checkbox above the question ID number and click 'Delete Questions'.
To delete entire grouped questions, from the Grouped Q's list click the checkbox beside the grouped Q title and click 'Delete Group'.
You can also group questions from an exam. For more detail on that process, see the Exams>Create help section.
How to delete, move, and bulk tag questions
Select questions by clicking on the checkbox beside their title (or select all by clicking the checkbox beside the 'Action' dropdown menu).
To delete a question, click the checkbox beside the question, from the Action dropdown menu select Delete. Confirm your choice by clicking 'Delete'. The question will be removed from the list.
To change the curriculum tags applied to multiple questions, click the checkboxes beside the questions, from the Action dropdown menu select Tag Questions, choose how you want to change the question tags, click on tag set names to drill down to the tag you require, click on it and it will appear in the list on the right, and then click 'Apply'.
How question versioning works
Any time you make a change to a question, a new version will be recorded. A new version will be created for any change—correcting a typo, linking the question to additional curriculum tags, altering a response option, etc.
When creating exams, you can add a question with multiple versions and choose to select an older version if desired. Do this by clicking on the forward/back arrow icon. If a question has changed since you created an exam, you will be given a notification for that and can update your exam to reflect the newest version of that question; however, you can still elect to use the old version of the question if you prefer. If the forward back arrow icon is blue, you’re not using the most recent version of a question on an exam.
How to search for questions
A - Question Bank - select the Question Bank on the left-hand navigation bar to display Question Bank.
B - Search - use keywords in the search box to refine your search.
C - Filter - use the filter to refine the search by; author, course, group, label etc.
D - Columns - add additional columns to the Question Bank to see more question information including; author, date, languages etc.
Last updated
