Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Gerry Jenkins -
Number of replies: 16

I have completed a import for Examview that preserves images in both the answers and the feedback. I also expanded the accepted question types to essay types and Yes/No.

Note, this works with Moodle 2.1+

I have attached a zip file that unzips a folder named: examview_blackboard_6 that should be moved into the moodle 2.1 folder  question/format/

There is also a GIT repository located at:

git@github.com:gjenkins/moodle.git (branch: moodle-question-examview-6-import)

https://github.com/gjenkins/moodle/tree/moodle-question-examview-6-import

I hope that this new import can be made a part of the next moodle release. Since Examview seems to be one of the most popular import formats in moodle, and it is not well supported in the core import list.

post any Examview test banks that you have any problems with here or email me: gjenkins@lbcc.edu

-- Gerry Jenkins

Average of ratings: Useful (4)
In reply to Gerry Jenkins

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

Hello Gerry,

Did you have a look at the version I posted just a few days ago in that thread ?

I think you could borrow some ideas from my code (that I borrowed myself from the xml import format for the most part wink)

using a function like getpath (see the code, I use exactly the same code as the xml import format !) rather than doing a lot of trim( $thisquestion["#"]... make the code clearer and permit you to set a default and optionnaly throw an error if the xml element is missing and you can't continue without. I think it's an improvment and make the import format more robust.

Also as Moodle is PHP5 only now, using a DirectoryIterator for temp files suppression function make sure the suppression is effective even on windows servers (permissions problem).

You should add a function like "my" add_blank_combined_feedback (borowed from the gift import format I think) because if you don't give a format for these fields they will revert to "Moodle Auto Format" instead of HTML and people will miss the tinyMCE editor for these fields (they will need to switch to HTML and I think, save the question and re-open).

I hope you will like some of these suggesions and that I can help you along the way to the inclusion in core code. But you should know it's a long way (a small piece of my code, the response quiz report plugin, lived for years as a third party plugin before it was put in core big grin thanks to Tim Hunt).

By the way, your support of yes/no questions is very nice. Isn't there also a NUMERICAL question type in examview ? Do you know anyhting about it's structure ?

Thank a lot for all your work on this format.

I think people using Examview should have a big thank you to both Micheal and you for creating and supporting these import formats.

 

 

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In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Gerry Jenkins -

Thank you for your suggestions (getpath, DirectoryIterator from PHP5, and with feedback format type). I will look at integrating them into the next round.

I looked at including NUMERICAL but examview exports it as a fill in the blank within the blackboard export format. The only clue it is numerical is the answer is a decimal number or a fraction. My guess is that the underlying blackboard 6 format did not have a numeric type.

I thought about detecting the numeric patterns within the answer to detect this, but did no know how to handle the precision setting or if this might break some other kind of fill in the blank false positive on the match. I thought at least the numeric types will be implemented as simple fill in th blank, that would behave correctly for exact matches, was a good compromise.

-- Gerry Jenkins

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In reply to Gerry Jenkins

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Chris Kenniburg -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Thank you Gerry and Jean-Michel both for your hard work on this plugin. 

Much thanks and praise for continued support and development because this is one plugin that is widely used but I think not so well known in the K-12 arena.  Whenever I tell other district tech people about this plugin their eyes pop! 

It is extremely useful and important to my teachers.  I don't think half of my users would use Moodle without this plugin.

Thanks Again,

Chris

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In reply to Gerry Jenkins

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Rob Johnson -

Thank you for posting this Gerry.  I have tested your code with several files and it works well.

I did encounter an issue with the import of matching questions made using Examview 5.  Questions with more than five items do not import correctly.  This is true of the 1.9 plugin and Jean Michel's 2.1 version as well.  Matching items made with Examview 6 are not affected.  I have attached a file for testing.  It has eight matching items, but only five will be shown in the question.  Notice all eight answer choices show in the pull-down.

This is not a big deal as we have been dealing with it for the past two years using the 1.9 plugin, but if it can be corrected, that would be great.

Rob

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In reply to Rob Johnson

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Gerry Jenkins -

Hi, I have been super busy with teaching, curriculum dev, commitees,budget problems.  I finally got back to some replys here.

I have looked at the structure in your zip file for a matching question that only imports 5 out of 8.  I need you to create this 8 part matching question using the moodle create question editor, and then export it as moodle xml.  I need this, becuase I could not get moodle to duplicate your matching design.  The problem is somehow related to the fact that you have 8 matches and 8 choices but only 5 of the 8 choices are correct choices. I first need to see that moodle can do your example. Then I can look at the structure within the moodle XML export of the sample, and use it for the template for what the output from the code should be from your already provided examview export.

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In reply to Gerry Jenkins

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Rob Johnson -

I will try to recreate the question, but I am very busy too.  I do appreciate you looking at this, but I have thought of this as a bug with Examview 5.  I do not think there is a problem with your code, or Jean Michel's.  My teachers are well aware of the limitation.  Most new textbook adoptions use Examview 6, so this does not even come up much.

That said, do you think you can get the plugin to work with an export that seems flawed from the beginning?

On behalf of the Torrance Unified School District, we are grateful for the code you and Jean Michel have contributed.  We are in the second week of school using our upgraded Moodle 2.1.1 site.  It would not have been possible without an Examview import.

Rob

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In reply to Gerry Jenkins

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Mel Ausman -

Using ExamView 5.1 and Moodle 2.1 I get this from Gerry's and Jean-michel's plugins: Error importing question error with xml structure of examview zip file manifest

The files I am trying to import, imported fine when using the orginal plugin for Moodle 1.9.

I've attached one of the files I tried to import.

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In reply to Mel Ausman

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

hello,

The zip file you posted is exactly 0 octets wide eyes quite hard to import wink maybe it's just the posted file and the file you tried to import was not empty but we can't do any test with the one attached to your previous post.

Please, post the one you tested successfully with Moodle 1.9 plugin.

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In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Mel Ausman -

You are absolutely right.  I used a different file and it worked fine except that the multiplication symbol comes out as a ´.  

Thank you for looking at my file and I appreciate all the hard work and time that you have put into this.

I would like to learn some programming-- could you recommend a book and/or site.  

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In reply to Mel Ausman

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Rob Johnson -

It has been noted in this thread that some math symbols convert to odd characters during import for both the 1.9 and 2.1 versions of the plugin.  It is something to watch for when importing mathmatics files.

Rob

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In reply to Rob Johnson

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

Hello Mel and Rob,

If you know how to tell exactly the code that was in the examview file containing the text of the questions (this is a file with extension .xml inside the zip file that you can open with an editor, the only condition is that this editor must understand utf8) we could add it to the list of "examview stranges characters to recode" and convert it during import. If you look at olders messages in this thread you will see that similar issues with other characters have already been reported and corrected.

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In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Rob Johnson -

Hi Jean Michel,

Where is this list located.  I would not want to report something that has already been fixed.

Rob

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In reply to Rob Johnson

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

Here it is :

’  translated as '
 [  translated as [
“ translated as "
” translated as "
] translated as ]
' translated as '
– translated as -
&# 8212; translated as -

Feel fre to say wich sequences you have found in your files and how you think they should be translated.

Please note I have been forced to put a space after the # sign in some sequences (these sequences are called html entities) because without that space the forum would have translated them but there is no such space in the real entity.

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In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Chris Kenniburg -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hello Jean-Michel,

Where would I add the translated as code?  format.php???

Thanks,

Chris

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In reply to Chris Kenniburg

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

Hello,

Yes in question/format/examview_bb6plus/format.php you should see lines like :

    // clean up common text input problems
    public function cleaninput($str) {
        $html_code_list = array(
            "’" => "'",
            "[" => "[",
            "“" => "\"",
            "”" => "\"",
            "]" => "]",
            "'" => "'",
            "–" => "-",
            "—" => "-" );

            return strtr($str,$html_code_list);
    }

You can add your conversions here (don't forget they are commas separated)

following the pattern

"charsequence" => "replaced",

where charsequence is the characters sequence you want to replace and replaced what you want it replaced by.

All html entities begin with &# and end with ;

Also note that if you want to replace something by a double quote "replaced" must be written "\""

But it would be better if you report on this forum what you have found because I can add this to a future update and it will benefit all math teachers using this format.

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In reply to Gerry Jenkins

Re: Examview (Blackboard) Quiz Plugin

by Doris Johnson -

Is this plugin still necessary for moodle 2.2? I used moodle xml builder and was able to import the questions into my moodle 2.2 but I noticed this plugin and wondered if this was something that I needed.

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