D2L Question Library, Quizzes, and Quiz Attempts
Definitions
The Question Library is a repository for questions within a D2L course site. The questions may be:
- created in the Question Library,
- copied from the Question Library of another D2L course site, and/or
- imported to the Question Library from a D2L Quiz or by using a product such as Respondus.
A Quiz is an assessment instrument within a D2L course site. In addition to questions, a Quiz contains assessment timing and availability parameters, as well as other properties set by the instructor.
A Quiz Attempt is the specific set of questions, within the parameters and properties delineated by the instructor, which is delivered to a student who clicks on [Start Quiz] in D2L.
Organizing the Question Library
In the Question Library, the instructor can build an archive of questions which are available for use in any number of quizzes within the D2L course site.
An instructor can create “Sections” in the Question Library, which can be thought of as file folders where groups of questions can be stored and organized. For example the instructor might create a section called “multiple choice,” to store all multiple choice questions, or they might create a section to hold all questions related to a specific topic, such as “Theoretical Fundamentals.”
Storing questions in sections within the Question Library can also be useful when the instructor creates a quiz. Instead of hunting through a disorganized list of questions in the Question Library or creating individual quiz questions one at a time, the instructor can import a whole section of questions into a quiz at the same time – or pick and choose from among the questions within a particular section folder.
Although it is possible to create quiz questions directly in a quiz, the instructor gains flexibility and added functionality by creating all questions in the Question Library, and later adding them to the quizzes.
Organizing the Quiz
The instructor can also create “sections” in Quizzes, and use them as folders to organize groups of questions. It is important to note that the Quiz sections are separate and distinct from the sections the instructor created or copied into the Question Library.
Two kinds of sections are available in Quizzes. The first is the standard Section, which behaves like a folder; in fact, the icon in D2L looks like a manila folder. The second, a Random Section, has special characteristics and can be distinguished in D2L by the purple color of the folder icon.
A Random Section enables the instructor to draw upon the Question Library to present a different set of questions (Quiz Attempt) each time a student takes the quiz. For example, the instructor could set up a Random Section to pull in a bank of 50 questions from the Question Library, then present 10 of those questions, randomly selected, for each Quiz Attempt. Note: Random Section questions cannot be created directly within a Quiz; they must be drawn from the Question Library.
Relationships: Question – Question Library – Quiz – Quiz Attempt
To understand the relationship between individual questions, the D2L Question Library, D2L Quizzes, and students’ Quiz Attempts, it is helpful to consider the following sample scenarios.
Scenario One: Quiz with Random Section
1. Questions are stored in Question Library – How did they get there? The instructor may have
a. created them there
b. copied them from a previous course site’s Question Library
c. imported them to the Question Library from an existing quiz or by using a third party product like Respondus
2. Quiz creation – the instructor creates a new quiz in D2L using the Quizzes tool, giving it a name, designating its availability and other parameters for quiz administration. At this point, there are no questions in the quiz.
3. Random section creation – within the blank quiz, the instructor creates a new Random Section.
4. Add questions to Random Section – again within the quiz, the instructor “imports” questions from the Question Library, into the Random Section. This import actually creates a “snapshot” copy of the selected questions; it does not change the location of the original questions, which remain as they were, in the Question Library.
5. Quiz Availability – the instructor makes the quiz available to students.
6. Quiz Attempt – as soon as the student clicks on “Start Quiz” and confirms that they are prepared to take the quiz, D2L fetches the correct number of questions, randomly selected, and puts a “snapshot” copy of those questions into the student’s own Quiz Attempt.
Again, this action changes neither the location of the original questions in the Question Library, nor the location of the first copy of the question set which remains in the Random Section of the Quiz.
Once the student opens a Quiz Attempt, the questions (and their order) will not change, even if the instructor changes the text or scoring of a question in the Question Library or in the Quiz Random Section. (There are other ways to change scoring of a quiz attempt, which are discussed elsewhere.)
Scenario Two: Quiz without Random Section
1. Questions are stored in Question Library – How did they get there? The instructor may have
a. created them there
b. copied them from a previous course site’s Question Library
c. imported them to the Question Library from an existing quiz or by using a third party product like Respondus
2. Quiz creation – the instructor creates a new quiz in D2L using the Quizzes tool, giving it a name, designating its availability and other parameters for quiz administration. At this point, there are no questions in the quiz.
3. Add questions to Quiz – the instructor “imports” questions from the Question Library, into the Add/Edit Questions area of the quiz. This import actually creates a “snapshot” copy of the selected questions; it does not change the location of the original questions, which remain as they were, in the Question Library.
4. Quiz Availability – the instructor makes the quiz available to students.
5. Quiz Attempt – as soon as the student clicks on “Start Quiz” and confirms that they are prepared to take the quiz, D2L puts a “snapshot” copy of the quiz questions into the student’s own Quiz Attempt.
Again, this action changes neither the location of the original questions in the Question Library, nor the location of the first copy of the question set which remains in the Random Section of the Quiz.
Once the student opens a Quiz Attempt, the questions (and their order) will not change, even if the instructor changes the text or scoring of a question in the Question Library or in the Quiz. (There are other ways to change scoring of a quiz attempt, which are discussed elsewhere.)
Scenario Three: Editing a Question
An instructor may need to change a question for any number of reasons, and must be aware of how the change will affect all the different “copies” of that question within the D2L course site. Good news: the instructor doesn’t have to remember whether the question appears in multiple locations, because D2L will tell you!
If the question appears in both a quiz and the Question Library, or if it is used in more than one quiz within the current D2L course site -- whether the instructor changes the question in a specific quiz or in the Question Library -- a D2L page will display, showing a list of the locations (e.g., quizzes, question library sections) where a copy of that question appears. All the instructor needs to do is select all the locations where they wish to apply the change to that question, and click [Save]. NOTE: if the instructor clicks [Cancel], the question will not be changed in ANY of the listed locations.
There is one place where the question will NEVER change: in a student’s Quiz Attempt. That’s because the student’s attempt must accurately reflect the quiz, as it existed at the time the student took it.
Scenario Four: After the Quiz - Changing the Scoring for a Multiple Choice or True/False Question
What if the instructor needs to change the way a question has been scored in a quiz? Here's how an instructor can:
- change scoring on a specific question, after the quiz has been taken
- automatically correct all student grading for that specific question
Important: this procedure works for multiple choice and true/false questions, but NOT with "ordering" questions.
In the Quiz List, click on the name of the quiz your students have already taken.
- Click on the [Grade Quiz] icon (yellow ruler with green checkmark)
- On the next screen, the default tab is [Attempts]. Click on the [Question] tab.
- Each question in the quiz is listed under the [Question] tab.
· Clicking on a question brings you to the question, with a summary of responses.
· Along with the summary is a list of versions of that question -- so, if the question has been changed at all since the quiz was first made available to students, this is where you can see how many people responded to each version of the question.
o Click on the little pencil icon for each version of the question. This is where the instructor can correct the problem with quiz scoring. For example, if the instructor accidentally flagged the wrong answer in the quiz as correct, D2L would have erroneously given points to the students who chose the wrong answer.
o Under each version, you will have the option to "give all attempts ___ points" or "give to selected choices ____ points." The instructor may open the erroneously-marked version of the question, change the scoring to give the wrong answer 0 points, and give full points to the correct answer.
D2L 9.2.1
SP3 – September 2011
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