Quizzing in Courseware

This article is for any instructor who wants to edit or create quizzes in VB Courseware. It describes the two quizzing options, and how to select, edit, or create quizzes.

Courseware includes two types of quizzes: 

• Brief quizzes linked to premade assignments that appear as part of a series of activities and assess if students are mastering the content as they move through an assignment
• Quizzes in the Quiz Bank that are their own assignments, or appear before or after other assignments. These quizzes can be brief, more extensive on the topic in the assignment, or cumulative and assess mastery after a series of assignments.

Select a quiz type

This overview helps select the quiz type that fits a course goal. 

Format 1: Quizzes that are part of premade assignments

These quizzes appear within a series of assignment activities and assesses the understanding of concepts from the immediately preceding activities. They are not part of the Quiz bank; instead they appear in the assignment builder.

In the example below, a 5-question quiz is assigned 10 points and gives students an unlimited number of attempts. It appears within an assignment. Since students are given unlimited attempts, they can return to the activities that came before the quiz and work through the material as many times as they need until they are able to master the quiz and continue forward in the assignment. 

Select this quiz type if:

• You are using the premade assignments and need only to assess how students are doing with those assignments
• Prefer minimal editing (Name, description, number of points, number of attempts allowed)
• You do not need individual student accommodations

Format 2: Quizzes from the classic quiz builder

These quizzes are all in the Courseware Quiz Bank under Visible Body in the Author filter. They assess identification of structures and understanding of functions, and are aligned to popular course objectives.

The example below shows the main screen that appears when the Quiz Bank is selected from the left-most column menu in an instructor or administrator account. There are over 600 premade quizzes in the bank. These quizzes have robust settings and editing features.

 

Select this quiz type if you:

• Want more comprehensive quizzing
• Are interested in robust editing features. In addition to changing the name, description, number of points, and number of attempts allowed, you can also:
  • Edit questions and answers in a quiz
  • Add new questions by creating them yourself or adding premade questions from the VB question bank
  • Assign different points to questions
  • Pool quiz questions and randomize quiz question order
  • Add time limits to quizzing
  • Assign short answer quizzes
  • Make quiz attempt and time accommodations for individual students

Edit a quiz

Format 1: Quizzes that are part of premade assignments

The recommended way of previewing the questions in a quiz that is part of assignments is to:

• Select the assignment
• Select Preview
• Navigate to the quiz

To edit a quiz that is part of a premade assignment:

• Select the assignment
• Select Edit Assignment
• Find the quiz and select the setting wheel icon

The pop up menu that appears will display options for editing the quiz name, description, points, and number of attempts.

 

To preview the entire premade assignment bank of quizzes:

• From a course page, select Create Assignment
• Use the filter for Type and select Quiz
• Use Search or the Topic, Subtopic, Region filters to narrow the search results
• Add the quiz to an assignment and then select Preview Assignment

 

Format 2: Quizzes from the classic Quiz Bank

The Courseware Quiz Bank includes hundreds of premade quizzes that can be added to any course. The quizzes can be edited and there are multiple settings features. 

To preview VB premade quizzes in the Courseware Quiz Bank:

• From the main Courseware dashboard (for instructors and admins) select Quiz Bank
  
  
  
  
• Set the Author filter to Visible Body
• Use Search or the Topic and Subtopic drop downs to narrow the search results for content
• Further filter by the type of questions in the quiz (Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Dissection) and the level of difficulty (Bloom's 1-6)

Multiple choice and dissection quizzes are automatically graded, and their scores report to the Gradebook. Short Answer quizzes require instructor grading.

To select a quiz and add it to a course:

• Go to course
• Select create Classic Assignment
• Select Visible Body Content Graded Quiz Bank
• Use the filters and search to find, preview, and select a quiz
• Select Continue
  
  
  
  
• Complete all the available options for settings
  
  

Individual student accommodations for time limits are set in the Class Roster for the duration of the course and for quiz attempts in the Gradebook for each quiz.

 

Edit questions in a quiz

The questions in any Visible Body premade quiz in the Quiz Bank can be edited. Editing options include:

• Delete or add a question to the quiz 
• Change quiz questions and answers
• Pool or randomize quiz order

There are three steps to editing a Quiz Bank quiz:

1. Create a clone of the quiz
2. Make your desired edits
3. Add the edited quiz to an assignment

To add, remove, change the value of a question, or to randomize or pool question order in a Quiz Bank quiz:

• Enter the Quiz Bank and use search to locate the the desired quiz
• Select Clone. This adds a copy of the quiz to your personal quiz bank in your VB account
• Name and save that cloned copy
• Select Edit next to that clone
• Make desired edits: (1) Add or remove questions (2) Pool or randomize questions in a quiz (3) Assign point values to individual questions in a quiz
  
  
• Save the quiz.

To edit quiz questions and answers:

• Enter the Question Bank and use search to locate the question
• Select Clone. This adds a copy of the question to your personal question bank in your VB account and opens the quiz question editor.
  
  
  
  
• Make the desired edits and select Save
• You can add the question to a quiz or save it to the bank and add it later
  
  

To author quiz questions:

• Enter the Question Bank and select Create New Question
  
• Follow the prompts to:
  • Select the question type (multiple choice, dissection, short answer)
  • Enter questions prompt and answers, select a visual, and preview
  • You can add the question to the desired quiz or save it to the bank and add it later

Quizzing FAQs

How do I assign a graded quiz to students?

Quizzes are assignments and can be edited from the assignment page of a course. 

How do I delay the release date of a published quiz?

If you change the release date to a future date, and some students have already taken the quiz, the existing grades in the Gradebook will be hidden until the new release date arrives. The grades will be visible to students on the release date.

I made a mistake on a published quiz. How do I edit it?

Unpublish a quiz assignment

If no student has taken the quiz, it can be unpublished at any time.  If one or more students have taken the quiz, it cannot be unpublished. It can be deleted. Deleting a graded quiz assignment from the Quiz Bank removes any existing student grades in the Gradebook for the quiz, removes the quiz from the student view, and removes the quiz from the course.

Change the content of a published quiz
If the quiz is published and one or more students have taken the quiz, it cannot be edited. It can be deleted and a new quiz can be published. If no student has taken the quiz, it can be unpublished, edited, and re-published. 

What types of questions are in the Quiz Bank?

The Courseware Quiz Bank contains hundreds of quizzes created with questions from the Question Bank, which has thousands of multiple choice questions, short answer questions, and dissection questions. These quizzes are ready to be assigned as-is and are great for testing students' general knowledge.

Multiple Choice questions

Multiple Choice questions consist of four to five answers, one of which is the correct answer. You can also upload a picture along with your question to help illustrate your quiz topic.

By writing in your own answers, you can frame questions in many interesting ways—you can go beyond simply asking students to find the one correct answer. Distractors could be all true statements with one false answer, or each answer could be a list of steps in a physiological process with only one being in the correct order.

Short Answer questions

Short answer questions offer a more open-ended format for students to really express everything they know on a topic. You can upload a picture to go along with your questions, just like in multiple choice questions, but students now have a large text box to offer long-form answers.

Note: Because short answer quizzes require manual grading, you may only allow one attempt for this assignment. There are no limits on attempts for multiple choice or dissection quizzes.

Dissection questions

Dissection questions feature a 3D view for students to manipulate and explore in order to find the prompted anatomical structure.

When creating a dissection question, you can select as many or as few correct structures as you like. This allows for a wide range of questions, from big picture system overviews to granular single structure identification. 

Do you have Fill-in-the-blank questions?

Use a combination of the Tag and Flashcard features in VB Suite and the short answer question type to create questions that check student spelling. Here is an example:

How long can a timed quiz last?

The maximum time allowed for a Graded Quiz assignment is 3 hours. The minimum time allowed is 1 minute.

Can students have multiple attempts on a timed quiz?

Yes. When a timed quiz has multiple attempts, an attempt is counted for the student when they start the quiz. If a student leaves or closes the quiz after they start without answering any questions, their grade will be submitted as a zero. If they answer some questions, they will be graded on the questions that they answer.

Can I change a quiz's time limit after it is published?

Yes, you can, but for any students taking the quiz while you make this change, they may lose their scores and attempts for the quiz. This also applies to changing a student's accommodations while they are taking a quiz. We recommend that you change accommodations just once at the beginning of the course and make sure that the time limit is final before you publish your Graded Quiz assignment.

What happens if my student doesn’t finish a timed quiz?

Student runs out of time
If a student runs out of time before the quiz is finished, the student will be notified the time is up and their grade as it stands will be submitted to the Gradebook automatically. If the Partial Credit setting for this assignment is set to No, they will receive a zero, but will still be able to see which questions they got correct in the Gradebook.

Student quiz sessions ends before finishing

If a student is actively taking the quiz, the assignment will be listed as "In Progress" in the Gradebook. If a student closes the quiz window, loses internet, or some other error occurs after they have started the quiz, they will receive a grade for any questions that they completed before this error occurred. This assignment will submit that partial grade to the Gradebook.