Setting Up Quizzes In Moodle

Aside from minimizing the time I spend on checking my students' test papers, being able to set up and administer online quizzes brings other benefits. For one, it will quickly provide me and my students summary data of their overall performance, as well as performance in specific items. Taking online quizzes also exposes them to other modes of teaching/learning.

As a teacher setting up the online quizzes, I am introduced to new technologies and it allows me to encounter and solve real-world problems related to the use of technology in teaching.

Here are some things I already know and things I have just recently found out regarding quizzes in Moodle:

• I know that there are several types I can choose from when creating questions. I have used Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Matching, True/False, and Numerical before and am quite familiar with how each works. Questions can be grouped by categories for better organization.
  
• I also know that the questions are assembled to form quizzes. There are settings for each question as well as for the quiz. I can, for example shuffle answers within each question or shuffle questions within the quiz. The intention in both is to make it a little harder for students to copy from each other.
• I also know how to include graphics as well as Math elements in my questions. The latter needs knowledge of some basic TeX commands. The quadratic formula, for example, is rendered by typing $$x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$$.
  
• You can import questions from files and export questions to files. Being able to import is useful if you want to create your questions outside Moodle or if you have old questions created with other learning management systems. Supported formats include GIFT, WebCT, and to a limited extent, Blackboard. I use the export feature to preserve copies of my (precious) questions, in case something happens to the College's Moodle installation.
  
• I have recently confirmed that I have to turn off questions shuffling if I have information to be shared by several questions (for example, "For Items 13-18, please refer to the following table."). By the way, this is implemented through the use of a Description "question". This type is not a real question type but can be used to provide some information to be used by a following group of questions. However, when you activate questions shuffling, the Description item gets shuffled as well, discarding the desired grouping. Hence, if you want something like this, turn questions shuffling off, turn answers shuffling on and, as added precaution, walk around the room as your students take the test.