TOPIC:

Hi All,

I've been using Xerte to develop online content with various quizzes. However, I am trying to do something a bit more complicated and I am stuck!

I would like to create a Xerte Exam that consists of 4 questions. Each question will have 5 parts, that the students will need to submit answers for. The answers need to be mainly free text. To make it more challenging I would like the 4 questions to be randomised.

I have been looking at quizzes, but this only offers me the option of multiple choice answers, not free text answers.

I suspect that it can be achieved by nesting different question types, but I don't know-how.

Any help is appreciated.

Hi
a few questions and comments...
1. Are you looking to track the results of each question? e.g. the questions are judged/scored in some way?
2. When you say free text do you mean open paragraph text that isn't judged (like model answer) or short text entry that is judged and needs to match what you are expecting as the correct answer(s) (like Answer X of Y, or Dialogue, or Gap fill set to text entry?

If you haven't already look at our page types demonstrator (linked from your workspace or from our website) to see what is the closest match to the type of interaction you want.

The kind of judging and tracking you need, if any, is kind of critical as to whether this is doable or not as text entry interactions. You could use the randomisation built in to the quiz page and the ability to add links in the feedback for each option to randomly link to separate text entry interactions so using th random quiz for random navigation rather than a quiz in itself but much depend on the tracking you need. Then again if you need tracking and plan to use this within a VLE there might be easier ways to build this direct in the VLE or that would make it easier because you could use the random quiz to link to separate SCORM objects with each set of questions.

HTH
Ron

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your quick response.

I am not looking at tracking the results in the sense that the answers will be automatically graded. However, I do still want to store the answers and save them to the VLE (Grade centre in Blackboard) so that they can be graded later.

When I say free text I am talking about the open paragraph text as you mentioned.

Thanks,

Pete.

Hi Pete
so it sounds like the model answer page is the best match for the text entry part of what you need. However before you go too far I would try the following:
1. create a simple test LO
2. add a model answer page
3. add a stop tracking page at the end
4. export as scorm and import into blackboard
5. interact with the LO as a student or as preview users and add some text to the model answer page as well as clicking to stop tracking at the end
6. The most important bit - check that you can see the response to the model answer somewhere in Blackboard? From memory I can't remember what options Blackboard provides for seeing the details of SCORM interactions. e.g. in your case it's not just a simple gradebook score you need. As an example Moodle provides a way to see all the details of each page interaction including model answer responses but without checking I'm not sure about Blackboard.

If that doesn't work tne other way you could do this is to include a results page and prompt the students to download that (which will contain all their responses) and then upload that pdf to a separate BB assignment.

Finally there's probably a way to achieve what you want using variables and some custom code but see how you get on with the above tests.

HTH
Ron