Moodle quizzes (LMO at XJTLU) have been widely used already for practice, self-study, and online exams. However, they can also be used for targeted reviews or in-class tasks. The question banks option outlined here can mitigate the exam security issues of students taking in-class tests at different times for summative assessment; it can also simplify the setup and administration of formative assessments. Furthermore, the auto randomisation function can reduce tutor workload once the initial setup has been done, and improve exam security.
We want to demonstrate how to utilize the existing tools for assessing knowledge without the need to do any grading. We will demonstrate how to create an assessment quiz for students’ understanding of the Academic Integrity Policy in Year 2. This type of quiz has proven to be effective in an AY2023-24 Year 2 EAP course as a summative assessment tool for over 900 students.

The aim of the activity is to review or assess students’ knowledge in exam conditions and for students to gain insight into how well they understood the concepts and knowledge presented in class with instant feedback. This makes it an effective tool for in-class tasks.

Set-ups: 

Step 1: Create the questions.

Draft your questions and answers in a Word document, and group them into different categories. Ensure that you do not create any open-ended questions that may require manual grading, such as providing longer answers.

It is advised not to use any numbering or bullet points so they do not transfer to LMO and create additional spaces when transferring questions.

Step 2: Create a question bank and transfer questions to LMO.

Choose question bank from the drop-down menu on your course page. (Image 1) Choose Categories from the drop-down menu. (Image 2)

Add a new category, (Image 3) but make sure you add it to your own module’s question bank. (Image 4) The purpose of this is that your questions are only available on your module page and, therefore, cannot be viewed by anyone else.

Once when the new Assessment category is created (in this case, In-class Test: Academic Integrity) (Image 5), you can add different subcategories. (Image 6) The purpose of this is to be able to select a number of randomised questions from each subgroup for the assessment quiz. This way, the students are less likely to have the same questions in their tests.

It is also advisable to add the titles to each category so the students know the question focus and/or a theme, for example, whether it is citations (subcategory 1), referencing (subcategory 2), etc. (Image 7)

Now, you need to click on the relevant category to add the questions. Start with the titles if you plan to use them. The question type you need for the titles is ‘Description’.

When done with the titles, do the same with the remaining subcategories. Transfer all questions to their corresponding subcategories. Now your question bank is ready. (Image 8)

Step 4: Adding questions from the question bank.

Now that your question bank is done and the quiz is set up, you must add the questions.

Click on the quiz and click on the Add question option. (Image 11) Choose ‘Add from a question bank’. (Image 12) In the categories tab, open the category where you put the titles. Select the title you wish to add and add it to the quiz. (Image 13)

The next step is to add a random selection of questions from each category. Click on ‘Add’ but this time, choose the “+random question” option. (Image 14) Open the subcategory you wish to choose the questions from and choose the number of questions you would like to appear in the quiz, for example 5/14. Click “Add random question”. (Image 15) Now each student will have a selection of 5 random questions selected from that subcategory. Repeat the process with the remaining titles and questions. Your quiz is now ready.

Procedure:

Administering the assessment:

Share the password with the students a few minutes before the test and let them get started. There are a few things to be aware of to improve the academic integrity and reliability of the tests:

• Students will use their own devices to take the test while physically present in the examination room. It is technically possible for students to share the password with offsite friends who could then take the test remotely, so it is important to observe correct exam procedures to reduce the risk of this (check attendance, make sure phones are turned off and WeChat etc. are not open on the students’ devices, etc.)
• When generating passwords, be careful of characters which may be ambiguous, for example, numeral one/capital “i”/lower case “L” etc. The confusion these may cause can waste valuable minutes during the assessment time.

The procedures outlined above have no provision for feedback to students because the tests are assumed to be summative. For formative assessments, instantaneous feedback can be provided if desired. This can be accomplished by changing the quiz settings in ‘Review options.’

Grades can be retrieved from the Moodle quiz section by clicking on the “Reports” button and downloading as an XML or Excel