Quiz

DESCRIPTION

GIFT

The GIFT format is a quick, easy to use method for teachers writing questions as a text file. It supports true-false, short answer and multiple-choice questions, as well as insertion of a blank line for the missing word format. Below are examples of the following question types: multiple choice, missing word, true-false and short-answer.

     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{~Grant ~Jefferson =no one}
     
     Grant is {~buried =entombed ~living} in Grant's tomb.
     
     Grant is buried in Grant's tomb.{=FALSE}
     
     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{no one/nobody}

Various question-types can be mixed in a sigle text file, and the format also supports question names, feedback comments and percentage-weight grades. GIFT stands for "General Import Format Template."

DOCUMENTATION

The GIFT format is a quick, easy to use method for teachers writing questions as a text file. This import filter inserts three basic question types recognized by Moodle: Multiple Choice, True-False and Short Answer. Various question-types can be mixed in a sigle text file, and the format also supports question names, feedback comments and percentage-weight grades. GIFT stands for "General Import Format Template." Curly brackets are used to indicate answers in the GIFT format.

QUESTION TYPES

Multiple Choice:
For multiple choice questions, each answer is separated with a tilde (~), and the correct answer is prefixed with an equal sign (=).

     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{~Grant ~Jefferson =no one}

Missing Word is a subset of the multiple choice question that automatically inserts a fill-in-the-blank line (like this _____) in the middle of the sentence. To make this kind of question, place the answers where you want the line to appear in the sentence.

     Grant is {~buried =entombed ~living} in Grant's tomb.

There must be a blank line (double carriage return) seperating questions. For clarity, the answers can be written on seperate lines. For example:

     Japanese characters originally came from what country? {
     ~India
     =China
     ~Korea}

     The American holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated on the {
     ~second
     ~third
     =fourth
     } Thursday of November.

Short Answer:
Short answer questions must not contain a tilde, and are seperated by a slash (/). They can also be written as a missing word statement.

     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{no one/nobody}

     Two plus two equals {four/4}.

Note that if the answers come before the closing punctuation mark, a fill-in-the-blank line will be inserted.

True-False:
In this question-type the answer indicates whether the statement is true or false. The answer may be written as {=TRUE} or [=FALSE}, or abbreviated to {=T} or {=F}.

     Grant is buried in Grant's tomb.{=F}

     The sun rises in the east.{=T}

OPTIONS

In addition to these basic question types, this filter offers the following options: question name, feedback and percentage answer weight.

Question Name:
A question name can be specified by placing it first and enclosing it within double colons.

     ::Kanji Origins::Japanese characters originally
     came from what countr?{=China}

     ::Thanksgiving Date::The American holiday of Thanksgiving is 
     celebrated on the {~second ~third =fourth} Thursday of November.

If no question name is specified, the entire question will be used as the name by default.

Feedback Comments:
Feedback can be included for each answer by following the comment with a hash mark(#) and the comment.

     What's the answer to this multiple-choice question?{
     ~wrong answer#comment on the wrong answer
     ~another wrong answer#comment on this wrong answer
     =right answer#Very good!}
     
     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{no one#excellent answer!}
     
     Grant is buried in Grant's tomb.{=FALSE#No one is buried in Grant's tomb.}

For Multiple Choice questions, feedback is displayed only for the answer the student selected. For short answer, feedback is shown only when students input the corresponding correct answer. For true-false questions, the imported feedback is saved so that it will display if the student marked the question incorrectly. So, in the last example above, the student would see the comment only if they selected TRUE as their answer.

Percentage Answer Weights:
For multiple choice questions, percentage answer weights can be included by following the tilde with the desired percent enclosed within percent signs (e.g., %50%). This option can all be combined with feedback comments.

     Difficult question.{~wrong answer ~%50%half credit answer =full credit answer}
     
     ::Jesus' home town::Jesus Christ was from {
     ~Jerusalem#This was an important city, but the wrong answer.
     ~%33%Bethlehem#He was born here, but not raised here.
     ~%50%Galilee#You need to be more specific.
     =Nazareth#Yes! That's right!}.

Note that it is possible to specify percentage answer weights that are NOT available through the browser interface. Such answer-weights will calculate correctly (according to the value assigned when imported), and will appear normal to students taking the test. But such answer-weights will not display correctly to teachers when editing them through Moodle's Edit Question interface. The pull-down menu only allows certain fixed values, and if the answer-weight does not exactly match one of those predetermined values, then it will not display correctly. If you edit such a question through the browser interface, the answer weight will change to that displayed.

Other Options:
Other options are avalable through editing the import filter gift.php.

The answers to Short Answer questions can be made case sensitive by changing "0" to "1" in the following line:
$question->usecase = 0; // Ignore case

It is also possible to enable multiple answers, by uncommenting the appropriate code. Search for "enable multiple answers" to find the lines.

CREDITS

This filter was written through the collaboration of numerous members of the Moodle community. It was originally based on the simple missingword format. In July 2003, Thomas Robb wrote the original code for the percentage answer weight parser and comment insertion . Paul Tsuchido Shew rewrote the filter in December 2003 incorporating community suggestions for a more robust question format, and adding the question name parser and additional question types.

GIFT documentation, version 1.0. Paul Tsuchido Shew, 11 Dec. 2003.

DESCRIPTION

GIFT

GIFT is a versitile import filter that provides a quick and easy method for teachers to write Moodle quiz questions as a text file. It supports true-false, short answer and multiple-choice questions, as well as insertion of a blank line for the missing word format. Below are examples of the following question types: multiple choice, missing word, true-false and short-answer.

     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{~Grant ~Jefferson =no one}
     
     Grant is {~buried =entombed ~living} in Grant's tomb.
     
     Grant is buried in Grant's tomb.{FALSE}
     
     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{=noxxxnobody}

Various question-types can be mixed in a sigle text file, and the format also supports question names, feedback comments and percentage-weight grades. GIFT stands for "General Import Format Template."

DOCUMENTATION

GIFT is a versitile import filter that provides a quick and easy method for teachers to write Moodle quiz questions as a text file. GIFT can process three basic question types recognized by Moodle: Multiple Choice, True-False and Short Answer. Various question-types can be mixed in a sigle text file, and the format also supports question names, feedback comments and percentage-weight grades. GIFT stands for "General Import Format Template." Curly brackets are used to indicate answers in the GIFT format.

QUESTION TYPES

Multiple Choice:
For multiple choice questions, each answer is separated with a tilde (~), and the correct answer is prefixed with an equal sign (=).

     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{~Grant ~Jefferson =no one}

Missing Word is a subset of the multiple choice question that automatically inserts a fill-in-the-blank line (like this _____) in the middle of the sentence. To make this kind of question, place the answers where you want the line to appear in the sentence.

     Grant is {~buried =entombed ~living} in Grant's tomb.

There must be a blank line (double carriage return) seperating questions. For clarity, the answers can be written on seperate lines and even indented. For example:

     The American holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated on the {
     ~second
     ~third
     =fourth
     } Thursday of November.
     
     Japanese characters originally came from what country? {
          ~India
          =China
          ~Korea
          ~Egypt}

Short Answer:
Short answer questions are seperated by an equal sign (=), indicating that they are all correct answers. Short answer questions must not contain a tilde. They can also be written as a missing word statement.

     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{=noxxxnobody}

     Two plus two equals {=four =4}.

Note that if the answers come before the closing punctuation mark, a fill-in-the-blank line will be inserted.

If there is only one correct Short Answer, it may be written without the equal sign prefix, providing it cannot be confused as True-False.

True-False:
In this question-type the answer indicates whether the statement is true or false. The answer should be written as {TRUE} or [FALSE}, or abbreviated to {T} or {F}.

     Grant is buried in Grant's tomb.{F}

     The sun rises in the east.{T}

OPTIONS

In addition to these basic question types, this filter offers the following options: question name, feedback and percentage answer weight.

Question Name:
A question name can be specified by placing it first and enclosing it within double colons.

     ::Kanji Origins::Japanese characters originally
     came from what country? {=China}

     ::Thanksgiving Date::The American holiday of Thanksgiving is 
     celebrated on the {~second ~third =fourth} Thursday of November.

If no question name is specified, the entire question will be used as the name by default.

Feedback Comments:
Feedback can be included for each answer by following the comment with a hash mark(#) and the comment.

     What's the answer to this multiple-choice question?{
     ~wrong answer#comment on the wrong answer
     ~another wrong answer#comment on this wrong answer
     =right answer#Very good!}
     
     Who's buried in Grant's tomb?{
     =no one#excellent answer!
     =nobody#excellent answer!}
     
     Grant is buried in Grant's tomb.{FALSE#No one is buried in Grant's tomb.}

For Multiple Choice questions, feedback is displayed only for the answer the student selected. For short answer, feedback is shown only when students input the corresponding correct answer. For true-false questions, the imported feedback is saved so that it will display if the student marked the question incorrectly. So, in the last example above, the student would see the comment only if they selected TRUE as their answer.

Percentage Answer Weights:
Percentage answer weights are available for both Multiple Choice and Short Answer questions. Percentage answer weights can be included by following the tilde (for Multiple Choice) or equal sign (for Short Answer) with the desired percent enclosed within percent signs (e.g., %50%). This option can be combined with feedback comments.

     Difficult question.{~wrong answer ~%50%half credit answer =full credit answer}
          
     ::Jesus' hometown::Jesus Christ was from {
     ~Jerusalem#This was an important city, but the wrong answer.
     ~%25%Bethlehem#He was born here, but not raised here.
     ~%50%Galilee#You need to be more specific.
     =Nazareth#Yes! That's right!}.
     
     ::Jesus' hometown:: Jesus Christ was from {
     =Nazareth#Yes! That's right!
     =%75%Nazereth#Right, but misspelled.
     =%25%Bethlehem#He was born here, but not raised here.}

Note that the last two examples are essentially the same question, first as multiple choice and then as short answer.

Note that it is possible to specify percentage answer weights that are NOT available through the browser interface. Such answer-weights will calculate correctly (according to the value assigned when imported), and will appear normal to students taking the test. But such answer-weights will not display correctly to teachers when editing them through Moodle's Edit Question interface. The pull-down menu only allows certain fixed values, and if the answer-weight does not exactly match one of those predetermined values, then it will not display correctly. If you edit such a question through the browser interface, the answer weight will change to that displayed.

Other Options:
Other options are avalable through editing the import filter gift.php.

Short Answer questions can be made case sensitive by changing "0" to "1" in the following line:
$question->usecase = 0; // Ignore case

It is also possible to enable multiple answers, by uncommenting the appropriate code. Search for "enable multiple answers" to find the lines.

CREDITS

This filter was written through the collaboration of numerous members of the Moodle community. It was originally based on the simple missingword format. In July 2003, Thomas Robb wrote the original code for the percentage answer weight parser and comment insertion . Paul Tsuchido Shew rewrote the filter in December 2003 incorporating community suggestions for a more robust question format, and adding the question name parser, additional question types and other features.

GIFT documentation, version 1.0. Paul Tsuchido Shew, 12 Dec. 2003.

Dear Paul,

Is there any chance of your including

1) a licence field
2) other non-used invisible fields
in the GIFT format?　(or perhaps they are there already?)

By that I mean to refer to fields that are not and perhaps will never be supported by the quiz module but are included in the GIFT file.

1) A licence field might be included inside "licencelicence The licence goes here licencelince." Then one might be more inclined to offer up GIFT files to the exchange including something like "licencelicence This quiz was made by Timothy Takemoto. If you use it please credit me, ideally with a link to http://www.mydomain.com" licencelicence." Or one might use a link to any of the creative commons licences.

2)  Does GIFT　support the "description" format question? When it comes to sharing things with other people then e.g. in the case of a set of comprehension questions it would be nice to be able to include the text which learners must comprehend, as a link or the text itself. Or alternatively it might be nice to include some instructions on "how to use this quiz."  Even if these were not suppported by the quiz module, it would still be nice to put them in the GIFT　file, as included but un-supported text. eg.

"commentcomment This is a quiz I use for testing X commentcomment"

Perhaps such a field is supported already? I mean if I just write something at the end of a GIFT　file with no {} then perhaps it will be ignored and hence we have the potential to include licences, comprehension texts, and instructions for use already?

Just an idea.

I am enjoying your GIFT.

Tim 

PS how about recommedning a new file format with its own extension e.g. myquiz.gift?