Did you know you can create a quiz question that allows the student to enter text directly into tables or have other information in the answer box for them to use?

The way to do this is relatively simple but there are a few things you need to remember:

* The Written Response question type is the only type that allows you to pre-fill the answer box.

* If you are using tables or other formatting (like lists) you need to also turn on the ‘Use HTML’ option. This will be explained in the setup below.

To create a long answer question with pre-filled answers – click on ‘Assessment’ then ‘Quizzes’ – then go to the ‘Question Library’ tab.

Create new long Written Response question – as shown (or if you have existing question, click on it to edit).

When the question loads, click the ‘Options’ menu just to the top-right. Choose ‘Add Initial Text’.

The answer box is shown below the question text. You can type directly into the pre-fill answer area or you can copy in text. If you are needing a table you’ll need to copy it in from Word or similar. If you are planning to use tables or require the student to use tables you should also turn on the option use HTML Editor.

You can also increase the size of the answer box for students by clicking ‘Options’ & ‘Add Custom Response Box Size’. Ignore the right hand side of the screen. It is not very useful.

Once you’ve saved the question it will then be listed in your Question Library (you can preview from here to get a better idea of how the question will look). To edit just click on it. Once you’re satisfied with the question you can then add it to a quiz.

Remind the students that they can increase the size of the answer box – if necessary – by using the small icon to the lower-right of the answer area for the question, this will help with questions that have quite large tables.

Want to know how to show your Assignment Feedback while hiding the grade? 

It can be done (to some extent, note that if you use a rubric they may still figure out their grade via the rubric even if they can’t see the total).

First you need to hide the grade item in the grades tool (so they can’t see it there).

Then edit your assignment settings (click the assignment and choose ‘edit folder’) on the Properties tab go to the “student view preview” and click the icon to the right of it and choose ‘Edit Settings’.

Override the default settings to un-check the score fields. See screenshot below (you can leave on or turn off any option you want) note that ticked items are the ones that show to students.

Your students will now see their feedback but no score, though as noted above they will still see any rubric you’ve used so if you have a scoring rubric this technique may not work for you – even if the scores don’t show a total the rubric may allow them to ‘work out’ what they got (roughly).

Sometimes you may need to hide an Assignment Submission Folder from students. You may do this whilst editing elements of a folder, or to hide grades and feedback from students temporarily (e.g. if you need to publish results to Grades without students seeing them in the Assignments tool). Note that is is also advisable to hide the associated Grade Item and ensure that certain Progress Tool settings are switched off. Ask your local support team to help you with this before publishing results from Assignments.

Step 1

Go to the Assessments tab and select Assignments from the menu.

Step 2

Locate the Submission Folder for editing. Select the small black arrowhead to the right of the folder name, then choose Hide from Users.

Your Assignment folder will now be hidden – you will see an icon shown circled below to indicate the status of the folder as ‘hidden from users’.

To Reveal the Folder simply click the same icon and choose ‘Make Visible To Users‘ from the options.

(Note that both options are also available in the ‘Restrictions’ tab that is available when editing or creating an assignment submission folder).

Quizzes can help students check their own learning, especially if useful feedback is provided in response to student responses. Quizzes can also help you adapt your teaching according to needs of your students. The statistics provided by the Quizzes tool can help you quickly determine areas students are strong in, and areas where they may benefit from further learning opportunities (e.g. further discussion or a review during a forthcoming class).

How to access the statistics for a Quiz

Select Assessments then Quizzes from the MyLO Toolbar. Select the little black arrowhead to the right of the quiz you wish to obtain statistics for, then select Statistics from the menu.

By default, you will be shown the User Stats for the Quiz. This shows you the overall score distribution, and class average, beneath which you will see the overall result for each student (not shown below).

You can navigate between the Question Stats and Question Details tabs to see more useful information.

Question Details provides the most useful information. Here you will see each question (this has been blurred out in the sample image below), followed by the answer options provided to students. The percentage of students who selected each answer option is presented. The correct answer/s are marked by a small blue arrow.

If you need to keep track of student participation in MyLO Discussion Forum (which may contain several Topics), using the Reports tool will allow you to get a quick overview of who has, or hasn’t, made a contribution.

Step 1

Navigate to your MyLO unit’s Home page (this is the first page you see when you access the unit). You should see a Reports widget to the right hand side of the screen. This contains links to a variety of reports. Select Discussion Access by Forums and Topics.

Step 2

The report will open. You should see a list of all the Discussion Forums and Topics in your unit, presented in a table. Select the Forum that you wish to see results for by clicking on its name (you may need to scroll down to see it). For example, here we will select Discussion Week 2 from the Discussion Monitoring forum.

Step 3

The report you have requested will open in a new window or tab. If you only see some of your students on the page, select 200 from the per page drop down menu, seen to the top right of the table. This will allow you to see the maximum number of results on the one page.

TIP: If you only wish to see a selection of students, you can filter by group, using the View by options seen above the table of results. For example, you could choose to see only off-campus students by selecting the group, Default Group Study Mode External.  This post provides more information about how to filter results by group.

You will be able to see how many Threads and how many Replies students have contributed to the Discussion Forum overall.

Step 4 (optional)

If you would prefer to have a printable version of the results, ensure that you have the report window selected, then select CTRL + P on your keyboard (for a PC) or Command + Print (for a Mac). This should generate a printable version of the report page. If your students are spread out across several pages, you will need to repeat this process for each page.

Many staff hide Grade Items from students until they have finished marking and moderating results. When a Grade Item is made available to students, they will see the full name of the Grade Item, together with any results you have made available to them, in their view of the Grades tool.

Is my Grade Item hidden?

To determine whether a Grade Item is hidden, go to the Grades tool. Select the Manage Grades tab.

You should now see a list of all the Grade Items included in your unit’s Grades tool. If your Grade Item has a closed-eye symbol to the right of its name, as shown in the example below, it is hidden to students. If you cannot see the closed-eye icon, it means that students can see the Grade Item. 

To Hide or ‘un-hide’ a Grade Item

From the Manage Grades view, select the small black arrowhead to the right of the Grade Item name, then select Edit Grade Item from the menu.

Select the Restrictions tab.

To Hide just choose the option for ‘Hide this grade item’

To unhide select the Grade Item is always visible option.

You can also select the third option to show the grade once a specific date has been reached.

When you’re done click Save and Close (towards the bottom of the screen) to save your change.

If you need to keep track of student participation in MyLO Discussion Topics, using the Reports tool will allow you to get a quick overview of who has, or hasn’t, made a contribution.

Step 1

Navigate to your MyLO unit’s Home page (this is the first page you see when you access the unit). You should see a Reports widget to the right hand side of the screen. This contains links to a variety of reports. Select Discussion Access by Forums and Topics.

Step 2

The report will open. You should see a list of all the Discussion Forums and Topics in your unit, presented in a table. Select the Topic that you wish to see results for by clicking on its name (you may need to scroll down to see it). For example, here we will select Discussion Week 2 from the Discussion Monitoring forum.

Step 3

The report you have requested will open in a new window or tab. If you only see some of your students on the page, select 200 from the per page drop down menu, seen to the top right of the table. This will allow you to see the maximum number of results on the one page.

TIP: If you only wish to see a selection of students, you can filter by group, using the View by options seen above the table of results. For example, you could choose to see only off-campus students by selecting the group, Default Group Study Mode External.  This post provides more information about how to filter results by group.

You will be able to see how many Threads and how many Replies students have contributed to the Discussion Topic.

Step 4 (optional)

If you would prefer to have a printable version of the results, ensure that you have the report window selected, then select CTRL + P on your keyboard (for a PC) or Command + Print (for a Mac). This should generate a printable version of the report page. If your students are spread out across several pages, you will need to repeat this process for each page.

To be effective learning and assessment tools, multiple choice questions must be well-considered and written.

These resources provide very useful tips, approaches and examples to help you write multiple choice questions:

• Writing Good Multiple Choice Test Questions, Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University (opens in new window)
• Multiple Choice Questions – Some key principles, Center for Teaching and Learning, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (opens in new window)

When writing multiple choice questions for assessment, also consider the University of Tasmania’s Guidelines for Good Assessment Practice (opens in new window).

This post assumes that you already have two Grade Items set up in the MyLO Grades tool to record Student Engagement Activity results. If you do not have these Grade Items set up, you should contact your local support team. General information about Student Engagement Activity reporting requirements in available here.

We recommend having your MyLO unit open in two browser tabs. This way, you can view the data you need in one tab, and enter results into the Grades tool in the other tab.

Step 1:

Select the Grades tool from the MyLO toolbar.

Step 2: 

Locate the Grade Item column where you will record the results for the Student Engagement Activity. The column header will most likely SEA in the name. In most cases, you will need to input a score of 1 (for ‘engaged’) or 0 (for ‘not engaged’). If unsure about the name of your Student Engagement Activity Grade Items, or the marking scheme to use, contact your local support team.

There are two ways in which you can record the results. Either:

• Switch to Spreadsheet View: input results directly into the ‘spreadsheet-like’ view of the Grades tool; or
• Grade All: focus on recording results in one Grade Item at a time. Using this method also allows you to add comments/feedback, if you need to.

Option 1: Switch to Spreadsheet View

If you cannot already see fields to enter data into, select the Switch to Spreadsheet View button that appears towards the top right of the spreadsheet.

You should now see fields that you can enter records into, for example 0 or 1. Remember to select the Save button (bottom of the screen) to save your work. Unfortunately, there is no way to tab between fields – you will have to click inside each field to enter a mark.

Option 2: Grade All

Select the black arrowhead  to the right of the Grade Item, then select Grade All from the menu.

Scroll down until you see a table containing student names. Record grades for each student in the Grade column. You can add feedback/comments by clicking on the speech bubble symbol seen in the Feedback column. If feedback has already been recorded, the symbol will look slightly different. In the image below, Richard has received feedback and Melinda has no feedback.

Select the Save button (bottom of the screen) to save your work as you go. Select the Save and Close button to finish and return to the spreadsheet view of the Grades tool.

Useful tips and tricks

• Remember to select the Save button (bottom of the screen) regularly as there is no auto-save function in the Grades tool. If you are interrupted during marking, or you wish to take a break, press the Save button. That way, if your connection to MyLO times out due to inactivity, you won’t lose your work.
• You can filter your view so you only see students in a particular group, such as a study mode, tutorial group or unit group. This post will show you how.

Do you want to investigate a student quiz attempt? The quiz tool in MyLO records a student’s start time and times for all questions answered. This information can determine whether a quiz has crashed and help you decide whether a student should be given a further attempt.

To access the quiz log and see the student’s attempt at a quiz follow the steps below.

Click into the Quizzes tool from the toolbar, and from the triangle menu to the right of the quiz, choose ‘Grade’ as circled below.

By default you’ll see a list of students who have a successful quiz attempt.

Set the ‘Restrict To’ dropbox to ‘all users’ as circled below, then enter the student’s name into ‘Search For’ (if known) or just leave the field blank to bring up a list of all users in the class. Click the search icon.

In the following example I’m searching for a specific user.

You will see the results of your search below. In this example one user appears – with the attempt listed as ‘in progress’. This means this user didn’t submit the quiz.

To view an attempt even if it has been stuck ‘in progress’, click the ‘attempt’ link as circled. (If your quiz has multiple attempts, each will be listed separately.)

When you click on an attempt to view, the window that loads shows all of the questions they were given in that quiz attempt.

For questions that are marked by the system automatically (i.e. multiple choice questions) a blue arrow indicates the correct answer and you will also see if they have saved their own answer (either with a selected mcq choice or written text). Text under each question indicates whether the student has saved the answer.

A more detailed log is listed in the Quizzes Event Log. The link appears in every ‘attempt’ page at the top.

The link is circled in the example below.

This log contains every event recorded for that quiz attempt.

The example below shows what a successful quiz attempt might look like, with quiz entry, questions saved, and quiz confirmation and completion all recorded.

A log for a ‘problem’ attempt might end abruptly with no ‘Quiz Submission’ screen entry or a ‘Quiz exited’ entry. It might show a long pause/break between questions. Where you see ‘Quiz Re-Entry’ it indicates a quiz has been exited and then re-entered by the user.

The example below shows a quiz log for a quiz that was not exited correctly I have highlighted signs that the quiz attempt was problematic. The log shows the quiz was re-entered and exited without submitting as there is no entry for ‘quiz completion’.

Quizzes might also show entries about when the user has run out of time and where they have gone to new pages in the quiz (where the quiz is on multiple pages).

You can also opt to show the ‘IP Address’ of the log entries. If the numbers differ this indicates the user has switched to another computer.

In the example below the box has been checked to show the IP and the numbers below show where a new computer was used after the quiz was re-entered (usually the last 3-6 digits will be the ones that change, if the student switches computers). In the example below the entry shows where the user has switched to another computer.  It also shows where the user has run out of time, as each ‘out of time’ event is also logged.

In summary the quiz attempt page and the quiz log don’t ‘prove or disprove’ a crash issue however they can indicate a possible problematic quiz attempt.

For example: A user claims to have crashed out of the quiz, then re-entered from a new computer and had problems saving their quiz.

• If the quiz log doesn’t have any ‘quiz re-entry’ event but instead shows the same IP and also that the user has answered questions throughout but run out of time, this indicates where the story does not match the evidence.
• If the log shows that the quiz was re-entered part way through and the IP address is different – this would support the users story.

With this information, you can decide how you want to deal with the issue. It is possible to ‘fake’ a crash, of course, but if your user’s information is very incongruent with the quiz log you may decide not to allow another attempt.

Solutions to Problem Quiz Attempt (choices below)

If the Quiz attempt shows ‘Still in Progress’  and your student has informed you that they can’t go back and submit the attempt, you can submit on their behalf. This choice is useful if they have the answers saved, as they may not need another attempt. Click here for PDF instructions.

If you’ve determined that the student can retake the quiz you can delete the problem attempt to allow them to try again. Click here for PDF instructions.

You can also give a student another attempt while keeping original attempt(s) intact. Click here for PDF instructions.