How to use this procedure
To use "Edit questions" procedure, there are several steps to follow.
First, change Language, Field, Course, Chapter and/or Section, if the course page shown is not the one you want.
Second, either
- select a question and click on "Obtain", or
- click on "Start new question" after selecting the anchor and type of question.
Third, write, edit or translate the text in the TEXTAREA keeping in mind the recommendations
indicated below; verify that the answer shown in the "Answer" box is correct and that the anchor and concept match.
Fourth, save the question. Keep a copy of your work on your computer.
(Note that
if you are translating, Language must be the language into which
you are translating - not English - although the text of the question itself might be initially in English.)
Layout of the screen
The full screen of "Edit questions" procedure is divided in several parts:
- the upper yellow shaded part identifies the material selected and allows to move to another selection;
- buttons
are present in this part to show the corresponding question in English (if the text is a translation
of an English question) or to show the entire questions file instead of the text of the chapter;
- next yellow shadded box is the editing of the selected question, once a question was selected:
-
to see what resources can be used in questions, checkmarks are provide for List audio, case, images, tables,
pdf or othe documents;
- below the yellow shaded area, a pink "Preview question" box presents the text of the questions, the resources
(graph, table, audio or document) used in the question, the correct answer and a button linking a window
with the concept where the questions is explained; the possible answers of multiple choice questions
are reshuffled exactly as they will be in graded automated tests in which the question is used;
- further below the yellow shaded areas and/or "Preview question" box, if the "Show questions" button was clicked,
a pink box presents the entire contents of the test questions file;
- even further below the yellow shaded area, a pink "Preview box" presents the text of the chapter to which the questions pertain,
with the anchors appearing in red and a highlight on the anchor for the question shown; note that the
text appears as it will for students in their browsers, except that the images are missing and the
links do not function;
- a "Work status" schedule shows the ID numbers of those who worked on the different questions files for that course;
a colour scheme in the schedule (see below) indicates the status of all the sections in the course:
- at the very bottom of the screen, these explanations are provided;
- in between these parts, various small messages may appear to indicate the actual name of the file saved
or retrieved, the name of the person to whom the corresponding task is assigned or who last worked on the
material selected, and a list of anchors not matching in the text (if any), as well as the resources that
were selected to be listed.
Test question type, structure and parameters
When writing new test questions, the following few guidelines
should be followed.
Keep in mind that PEOI's test questions are conceived to offer
automated tests that cover all the material in a chapter with a
diverse content and format to be an accurate assessment of
student knowledge of a chapter.
Automated tests must also be a learning experience with an
immediate explanation of a question incorrectly answered
by showing the underlying concept and/or the paragraph in
a course page on which the question is based. It is recommended
that question authors experience taking PEOI's automated testing
in subjects such as accounting, economics or ESL.
Type 1: True/False
True or false questions are processed
as multiple choice questions, but for consistency sake it is
recommended that they start with True/false and the possible
answers be:
Fill-in questions can be written with a missing word marked
by underlined spaces "_" (with a suggestion of using
as many spaces as there are letters in the missing correct word
or words), or it can be written in the form of a question without
any actual space to fill. In both cases the student will have
to type in his/her answer in a separate box. For fill-in questions,
the author should enter 2 in the "Type" box and the correct answer in the "Answer" parameter box.
The other parameters are similar to those in multiple choice
questions.
It is possible to allow more than one correct answer, which then should tyed in the "Answer" box and be separated by commas
with no space after the commas; each answer itself can nevertheless
contain spaces. (Note that the test procedure will count answers
as correct whether written in singular or plural, in capital letters
or not, with or without currency sign, but not with articles
preceding them.)
Calculation questions are processed as either multiple choice
(with A-, B-, C- or D- answers) or fill-in depending on how they
are written. If they are written as multiple choice, the "Answer" parameter
box must contain the capital letter corresponding to the correct
answer. If they are written as fill-in, "Answer" must be a numerical
value of the correct answer. Note that if the answer is a number
that exceeds 1,000 it should be written without commas (e.g. $2,432,611
should be written as 2432611). Currency signs (such as $) are
acceptable, but generally not necessary. The "Type" box must contain
"3".
Graph questions can give the choice of up to four graphs or
images to be offered as possible answers. Following the text of
the question, the possible answers contain nothing but the capital
letters followed by a dash "-" (i.e. A-, B-, C- or D-).
As for multiple choice and true or false questions, the answer
box must have the capital letter of the correct answer. The graph
box must contain the name of the graph or image files names separated
by a commas with no space after the commas. The "Type" box must
have the digit 4. (Note that multiple choice, true or false and
fill-in questions may be based on a graph, image, audio, video
or portion of text which appears in a window in the upper left
corner of the screen when a question is asked, but in this case
these questions are not graph questions.)
Essay questions contain text only and nothing in the answer
box. The "Type" is 5. These questions are not answered by students
in a quiz. They can be present for review purpose.
In the text area of any of the questions, in addition to the
text of the questions itself, short explanations can be entered
by an author below the question itself and the possible answers,
if any. If the explanations are to appear only after student's
answer, the first character on the first line of the explanation
(i.e. below the text and answers) should be a close square bracket
"]". Then, the explanation will appear in a special
window at the bottom of a student's screen just below the title
of the concept only after the student answers the question. Such
explanation can be most appropriate for giving the solution to
a calculation question. If, on the contrary, the explanation are
necessary to understand the question itself (such as in the case
of definitions of variables in an equation, for instance), then
the explanation need not have the bracket. Note that in that second
case, the explanation will appear to the student in the box together
with the question and its lay out is not HTML but exactly as written. To assist in writing test questions and especially in entering the
correct anchor, a list of anchors is shown and the entire text
of the chapter, section or subsection appears below the question
editing box. The anchor is highlighted in the text with bold and
underlined fonts.
As previously indicated, all the work to be performed is in the TEXTAREA. It is advisable not
to erase or damage the structure of the question. It is possible to copy and paste any portion
of the question in the TEXTAREA. But the material pasted must be in text format with line breaks.
Pasting material copied directly from a word processor in another format than plain text is likely
to result in a corrupted file and an error message.
These questions are test questions which are retrieved randomly when a student takes a test.
They differ significantly from the practice questions in their format (although, naturally,
they cover the same material and may even contain identical wording). Whereas practice question
are plain HTML pages, test questions files are text files with very rigid parameters. The reason
for the rigid structure is that each multiple choice question is restructured each time it is used.
Also, for fill-in type questions and for calculation questions, this permits more than one possible
answer whenever that is necessary. Finally, there are graphic questions that are also rearranged so
that no test looks the same as another, and no student will almost never take an identical test twice.
Because of the rigid structure of the questions file, care must be used to keep lines in the multiple
choice questions in the order and format they first appear. Especially, it is of utmost importance
to have a line break at the end of each line.
Once a question is fully written and its parameters are
correctly entered, the question is then saved in a
temporary question file. The question must then be
reviewed and evaluated by another volunteer. Once
verified by the project team leader, the temporary
file is moved to its permanent folder.
The "Edit questions" procedure is not the only procedure
to create PEOI's test questions. Test questions can also
be seeded from review questions, and review questions are
themselves converted concepts which have been extracted
from course pages. The process creates data banks of
questions and data banks of anwers.
Clicking on the "Notify work completed" button sends out an automated message that alerts the
webmaster and the coordinator who
will decide if the questions need proofreading and editing or be moved to permanent folder. This also changes
the color code for the page in the schedule of work done from grey to blue.
When a page is retrieved, it is initially the latest temporary file. If a different version of
the page is desired, it can be selected in the "temporary file" pull-down menu and the "Get"
button should be clicked. If there is no temporary file, the only available file for the page
is the permanent file. When the "Save" button is clicked, the page in the TEXTAREA is always
saved in a temporary file which bears the numeral of the latest temporary file plus one.
Warning: Please note that the procedure is believed to contain at least one bug. Some
users have reported that a portion or the entire file can be deleted occasionally. This has
occurred when a totally empty question appears on the screen, and the user clicks on "Save".
Normally, no empty question should ever appear. If it does appear, please, report that to
the webmaster immediately indicating with as much detail as possible what steps you took
that led to the appearance of an empty question.
It is believed that the problem was caused by a missing parameter, such as "Answer", and
the problem seems to have been fixed. In any case, report any problem you come across
right away.
To do proofreading, you must first select the task by clicking on
"Choose task #...e" where the letter "e" indicates that it is an evaluation task.
This selection is necessary to record the name of the person who will do
the proofreading, and is only possible if test questions have previously been
saved and placed for editing (when someone else has clicked on "Notify work completed").
When the screen comes back a new set of buttons will appear below the
white TEXTAREA. Next to the "File proofreading evaluation", four menues
have an initial default value of 7 (7 is a passing grade)
for the following four criteria
In the Work status schedule, the background color of a section is
Type 2: Fill-in
Type 3: Calculation
Type 4: Graph
Type 5: Essay question
Additions to text of quesions
Recommendations on how to write questions
What to do
What file is saved and retrieved
Proofreading evaluation
- Reading ease of questions;
- Accuracy of theory, terminology and math as it relates to underlying text;
- Writing quality (grammar, spelling, punctuation),
- Layout (images, audio, video, tables, paragraphs),
Keep in mind that the evaluation of test questions will also serve to
assess the quality of the work of authors and/or translators who
worked on the page. If you give an evaluation of less than 7 for
any criterion, you must enter a short statement of the nature
of the problem in the "Problem" item.
Enter your evaluation, and click on the "File proofreading evaluation" button.
If you make any changes in test questions and click on "Save", you will
not be able to do the proofreading.
Color code in "Work status schedule"
The ID number of the volunteer is shown in a yellow button if he/she is registered as faculty, orange button if he/she is registered as staff, and purple button if it a board member.
The same color code applies for the status of courses, fields (determined most advanced course in field) and tasks: thus
Selection of task
If a task exists for the currently opened section page, this is indicated in a line just above the yellow shaded box at the top of the screen. If the task has not been selected, a button will appear, that allows to select that task. For then on, the button will no longer appear, and the colour in the "Work schedule" will be pink rather than light green. The deadline is initially set to two weeks from the date selected. The deadline can be changed in "My tasts selection" or "My work".