Generating Pools And Quizzes From Text Files

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Generating Pools And Quizzes From Text Files
Right click text_to_question_pools.ppt to save
this file to your S\ drive
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The Text File Format

• Quizzes in Blackboard
• In order to create a quiz within Blackboard it
  requires many steps, but we have found a way to
  reduce these steps and make it easier to create
  question pools and quizzes.
• What is a question pool?
• A question pool is used to generate quizzes
  within Blackboard by having a bank of questions
  to choose from.

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How is this done?

• The first thing that must be done is to generate
  a text file full of the questions in the
  specified format.
• The best way to make this text file is in TextPad
  or NotePad, not an advanced Word Processor such
  as Microsoft Word because the features, such as
  bold, italics, and underlining will not work.
  Once this file is created it will be imported
  into Blackboard as a question pool.
• Here is what a pool from TextPad or NotePad would
  look like

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Example Pool

• 1. What is the square root of 4?
• a. 62
• b. 1.15
• c. 2
• d. -4
• 2. The moon is made of cheese
• False
• 3. Where was the War of the Roses fought and why?

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Multiple Choice Question

• 1. What is the square root of 4?
• a. 62
• b. 1.15
• c. 2
• d. -4
• --An asterisk must be placed next to the correct
  answer.

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Fill in the Blank

• BL 5. There are _____ days in a leap year
• a. 365
• b. three hundred and sixty five
• c. three-hundred and sixty-five
• --Each of these answers are correct, they are all
  possibilities in this case so they all must be
  accounted for. Bl must be put in front of the
  question to identify it as a fill in the blank
  question.

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True/False

• 2. The moon is made of cheese
• False--Simply type in True or False on the line
  below the question to indicate the correct
  response

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Essay

• ESS 3. Where was the War of the Roses fought and
  why? Essays require only the question and must
  be graded manually.

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Ordering

• ORD 4. Rank the prefixes from high to lowa.
  megab. kiloc. centid. milie. nanoord must
  be typed in front of the question to indicate an
  ordered question

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Matching

• MAT 6. Match the candidate with their running
  matea. George Bush (senior) / Dan Quayleb.
  George W. Bush / Dick Cheneyc. Al Gore / Joe
  Liebermand. Bill Clinton / Al Goree. Michael
  Dukakis / Lloyd Bentsenf. / Teddy KennedyMAT
  must be typed in front of the question followed
  by the answers with slashes in between them. If
  one does not have a match, type the slash first
  and then the extra answer.

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Creating the Question Pool

• Save the text file to the S drive as quiz.txt.
• Next go to http//www.shsu.edu/blackboard/fileuplo
  ad
• Enter your username (ex mth_abc)
• Then Click the Browse button and a Windows box
  will come up, find the quiz.txt file and click
  open.

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The Question Pool

• Download this file to the hard drive it contains
  the question pool.
• The file is a zip file, do not unzip it however,
  Blackboard will take care of it internally.

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Downloading the File

• Right click the Link to download the file
• It will be a .zip file that can be uploaded into
  Blackboard.

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Importing The Pool

• First open Blackboard and go to the Control Panel
  of the Class the pool is to be imported into.
• Then go to the Pool Manager and find the Import
  Pool button.

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• In Blackboard click the Browse button and find
  the zip file that was created from the quiz
  generation tool and it will import the pool into
  blackboard.

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Making a Quiz From the Imported Pool

• When the pool has been imported a quiz can be
  generated by clicking the Assessment manager link
  in the Control Panel and the Add Quiz/Exam
  button.
• On the drop-down list that asks what type of
  question should be used, click the last option
  that reads "From Question Pool or Assessment".
  Then you can select specific questions from the
  new pool, or select a random block of questions.

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Choosing the Pool

• Choose the pool to make the quiz from.
• The one(s) from the zip file will always be
  called Imported Question Pool.

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The Questions

• Next you can search for questions by topic, but
  it is usually better to view them all.
• Then by clicking submit a new screen will come up
  allowing the specific questions to be selected
  from the pool, by clicking the check boxes next
  to each question, or selecting them all. After
  this is finished the new assessment will be
  created.