Building a Questions and Answers Database
In order to create an assessment, one needs a database of questions with their answers - which can be used to compile the assessment. The same question may be used in more than one assessment, and if it is changed, the change will be visible in all assessments which contain the question. To build up the database, one can create answer groups which can be re-used, questions and answers for each question in the database.
Populating the Answer Groups Database
This step is optional but could help to considerably speed up the building of assessments. Many questions have similar answer structures e.g.:
- Excellent / Good / Poor
- Yes / No / I don't know
- True / False
- Not applicable / I strongly disagree / I disagree / I neither agree or disagree / I agree / I strongly agree
- Not Applicable / Poor / Fair / Average / Good / Excellent
If these can be placed into an answers database, they can be reused where appropriate. To see the Assessment Builder menus, from the main menu select Modules | e-Learning | Learning Management | Assessment Builder. To add standard answers, select Answer Groups from the Assessment Builder menu.
List of Answer Groups Screen
The main screen which opens for answer groups displays a list of all existing standard Answer Groups in the system database.
- To create a new Answer Group click the Add Group button.
- To view or edit the list of standard answers per Answer Group, click View/Edit next to the group which you would like to view or edit.
- To delete an Answer Group, click the checkbox in the Delete column and then click the Delete button.
Adding/Editing an Answer Group
When adding a new group, viewing or editing an existing group, please note the following:
- Provide a descriptive name for the group. We like to include the number of answers in the answer group description.
- When creating a new group, click Save Answer Group Details to create the group before adding all the possible answers to the group. Then the button with which to add answers to the group becomes available.
- Click Add Answer for each possible answer which must be added to the group.
- To edit a specific answer, click on the Answer.
- To delete a specific answer, select the checkbox in the Delete column and then click Delete Answer(s)
Adding/Editing Standard Answers in an Answer Group
When adding a new answer to the answer group or editing an answer in an answer group, please note the following:
- Complete the required fields on the Answer Detail screen and click Save to submit the answer details and still display the answer details on the screen after saving.
- Alternatively you can click Save Add New to save the answer details and open another blank screen where the next answer in the group can be provided - this helps to save time when adding multiple answers.
- Continue adding the answers until the group is done, after which you can click on Back to go back to the list of answer groups.
Properties which can be captured per answer:
- Answer: The potential answer which must be displayed
- Standard Feedback: Automatic feedback which the system provides directly after the question has been answered, if this answer was chosen, regardless of whether the question was answered correctly or not.
- Correct Answer Feedback: Automatic feedback which the system provides directly after the question has ben answered, if this answer was chosen and the question was answered correctly.
- Incorrect Answer Feedback: Automatic feedback which the system provides directly after the question has ben answered, if this answer was chosen and the question was answered incorrectly.
- Score: The score to be allocated to the answer if chosen by the user when completing the question.
- Display Order: The order in which the possible answer will be displayed to the user when completing the question - if all answers have the same order (e.g. zero), the answers are displayed in random order for each completion of the question per user.
Please note that all of the above properties are also available per question after adding them to a question in the database and can easily be edited per question, once added to the question.
Populating the Questions Database
To simplify the creation of an assessment, it is advised to start with populating the questions database (once all possible standard answer groups have been captured) so that, when the assessment is created later on, there are questions available to choose from.
- To see the Assessment Builder menus, from the main menu select Modules | e-Learning | Learning Management | Assessment Builder.
- To add questions and question categories, select Question List from the Assessment Builder menu.
Question Management Screen (Question Database Tree View)
On the Question Management screen you will be able to add new question categories, edit existing question categories and add/edit questions. The questions are organized in a tree view which can be expanded per category/branch (by clicking on the "+" to the left of the category) to display all the items contained in the category. Each category can contain other sub-categories and/or questions. The buttons on the screen will become available per node within the tree structure which is currently selected - e.g. with "eAssess Questions" selected, only the Add Category button is available.
Adding a Question Category
Use a Question Category to achieve the following:
- Group similar questions e.g. questions about a specific topic.
- Group questions that will be used in one assessment (although this makes reusing these questions in other assessments less intuitive)
- Group questions according to their types e.g. multiple choice, true or false etc.
Further:
- Sub categories can be added below a category to group questions even further.
- To add a new category click the Root node of the Question Management tree view (eAssess Questions): The Add Category button becomes active.
- Click Add Category for the Question Category Detail window to display.
- Capture the category name/description and click Save.
- Once a new category has been saved, the Categories and Questions tabs become available.
Adding a Question to a Category
In this section we will proceed to add questions to a question category. Questions are built up via three sections for each question. They are:
- The question itself. (Provided on the Question Detail tab)
- Potential answers for the question. (The Answers tab)
- Feedback to be given to the user when the question is answered. This could take the form of a standard message, a message given only when the answer was correct or a message in case of an incorrect answer. (The Feedback tab)
On the Question Category Detail page click the Questions tab and then the Add button for the Question Detail window to appear, as shown below. On the Question Detail tab fill in all the relevant fields.
Capturing question details
Properties which can be captured per question:
- Introduction: Any introductory message that is to be shown to the user before displaying the question - normally some background information to the question.
- Question: The text stating the actual question to be displayed in the assessment.
- Type: The Type of Question - explained in more detail below.
- Question Score: The total score which can be scored in the question if answered correctly. In the case of a Multiple Select type question, this should be the total of all possible correct answers. If this is set to zero, the system will automatically calculate the total score as the sum of all correct answers.
- Maximum Answers Allowed: Works in conjunction with question Type. If the question Type is set to Multiple Selection, this field specifies the maximum number of answers that can be selected by the user (if set to zero, all possible answers can be selected). For other question types, this value is ignored.
- Show Comments Block: If this checkbox is checked, an additional text box will be displayed directly below the question answer where the user can capture comments (perhaps to explain/motivate an answer).
- Comments Mandatory: If this checkbox is checked, the Comments field becomes mandatory for the question, forcing the user to complete the field for the question.
- Comments Heading: The heading or label to be displayed directly above the Comments field.
The question Type can be one of the following:
- Single Selection: The question has one possible correct answer from which the user can choose using a radio button group - this is the default value and most used in assessment questions.
- Multiple Selection: The question has multiple correct answers which the user can select using checkboxes - e.g. 5 possible answers of which 3 are correct.
- Match Column A with B: The question has a list of values in one column and the same number of correct answers to choose from in a second column.
- Select the missing word: A sentence or paragraph is displayed for the question which contains at least one missing word, each missing word having only one correct answer and can be chosen from 2 or more options.
Once all details for the question as a whole is completed, click Save And Go To Answers: The Answers and Feedback tabs become available and you are taken to the Answers tab to add possible answers to the question. Guidelines per question type are given below, further explaining how the answers to these questions should be added.
Adding Answers to a Question
For every possible answer to a question, click Add Answer to open the Answer Detail screen, where the answer details are captured.
Capturing Answer Details
In the Answer Detail screen capture the details to the answer and click Save. To save time, you can capture the details for an answer and click Save Add New, which saves the answer details and opens a new blank page to add a new possible answer.
Properties which can be captured per answer are the same as for answers in an Answer Group:
- Answer: The potential answer which must be displayed
- Standard Feedback: Automatic feedback which the system provides directly after the question has been answered, if this answer was chosen, regardless of whether the question was answered correctly or not.
- Correct Answer Feedback: Automatic feedback which the system provides directly after the question has ben answered, if this answer was chosen and the question was answered correctly.
- Incorrect Answer Feedback: Automatic feedback which the system provides directly after the question has ben answered, if this answer was chosen and the question was answered incorrectly.
- Score: The score to be allocated to the answer if chosen by the user when completing the question.
- Display Order: The order in which the possible answer will be displayed to the user when completing the question - if all answers have the same order (e.g. zero), the answers are displayed in random order for each completion of the question per user.
Guidelines: Single Select Questions
Guidelines: Multiple Select Question
Guidelines: Match Column A to B
Guidelines: Missing Word
Guidelines: Text only (Manipulated Single Select)
Adding all Answers from an Answer Group to a Question
