Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Rhett Daniel -
Number of replies: 11

I created a ticket on Moodle Tracker (http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-28388) for this, however, have not seen any responses and hoped that someone might have some thoughts on how to get embedded questions (from the Bank) over into Lessons.

I have tried exporting/importing using Moodle XML, exporting Moodle XML and importing Embedded and neither work.  GIFT format apparently does not support Embedded/Cloze questions, so I did not try that one.  

Of course, the ideal solution here would be to expose the Question Bank in Lessons - it sounds like this was on the drawing board several years ago, so it is a bummer that this is not available in 2.x.  

Just seeking a good workaround for the time being - have created a number of embedded/cloze questions in the bank for quizzes and our needs have evolved beyond the capabilties of the Quiz module - we need Lessons.  

 

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Rhett Daniel

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi Daniel,

I agree that it might be useful to be able to access the Quiz Questions bank from within the Lesson module activity. This has been on the Moodle Roadmap for years, but, as pointed out recently by Ralf Hilgenstock, unfortunately the Lesson module does not currently have an active maintainer, unlike the Quiz module.

However, as I keep saying in this forum, although on the surface Moodle's Lesson and Quiz activities may seem similar, they are fundamentally different.

A Quiz is "just" a collection of questions, which may be related to each other or not (as e.g. when using random questions).

A Lesson, on the other hand, consists of a flow of related pages, which may feature a question OR a text OR both. With this point in mind, I seriously doubt that it would be useful to use Questions from the question bank in a Lesson.

Now for the case of the Embedded/Cloze question type. That "question" can be viewed as a complete "quiz" in itself, consisting of a collection of (related) sub-questions of various types (MCQ, T/F, SHORTANSWER, etc. I cannot see how such a question would work inside a Lesson question page. It certainly would need a lot of programing time to make it work.

I can understand the frustration of moodlers who cannot do the things they want to do with the Moodle modules & activities as they are. I am not saying that your expectations are absurd. It is always interesting to hear about real users' needs and wishes. But you must realize that the realization of wishes can range anywhere from easy to very difficult and, above all, may require an awful lot of programing resources (i.e. time and/or money).

Joseph

Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Joseph Rézeau

This forum post has been removed

The content of this forum post has been removed and can no longer be accessed.
In reply to Deleted user

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Itamar Tzadok -

Just adding to the discussion ...

Both the quiz and the lesson consist of a flow of related pages which may feature a question or a text or both. The only difference between them in this respect is that the quiz is limited to a linear flow whereas the lesson allows for a non-linear (of sort) flow. Whether this is a fundamental difference may be just a matter of terminology.

The more important issue IMO is that there seems to be no good reason for the strong binding between the question and the quiz. A question is just another type of resource/media and should have its "player" and that player should be embedable in any page, be it a quiz page or a lesson page or a side block, just like mp3, mp4 etc.

The multiple questions structure of Cloze renders them useless in the Lesson structure and or philosophy only if one cannot find anything useful to do with them. Similarly, the short-answer structure of short answer questions may seem to render them useless as question-less quiz questions. And yet I found them very useful for adding (in a rather quirky way) random variations (by datasets) to other quiz questions including other short-answer questions.

Things get interesting where structures begin to bend. The philosophies of the new structures are invented much later.

smile

Average of ratings:Useful (3)
In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Elisabeth Bergnes -

Hi everybody


I suggest a new course type : chained activities.

So that a piece of lesson can be followed by a piece of Quiz allowing all questions types.


In my opinion it's the less expansive way of implementing Cloze-Question in lesson.


What d'you think of that ?


Elisabeth

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Rhett Daniel

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Charlotte Lewis -

Hello,

I'm with Rhett,

I would like the questions in the question bank to be available for lessons. Here's why.  I have moodle set up for a pre-service training area for an agency. I want then to proceed through asking questions along the way. As a proficiency test, I would like to  use the same questions.  I think that it would be very very beneficial. 

I might add that I love the embedded/cloze questions.  I have use it to instruct how to fill out forms and such.  It is very helpful.

Take Care

Charle

Average of ratings:Useful (2)
In reply to Charlotte Lewis

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Monica Long -

I have just come across this same issue and would love for cloze questions to be available in lessons.

I am using lessons to provide some information and also test the knowledge of my learners. The cloze question allows me to write a more targeted question that gets the learner to know exactly what I'm seeking with their answer.

I have a situation where I've been trying to rework a particular question after 3 different groups have not answered it correctly. I have been using the essay type question in order to give the learners freedom to express their analysis of the data provided, but they seem to only answer the first part of the question and miss the second part.

I feel that by using a cloze question, I can get to the specific information I'm seeking in a much quicker way.

My cloze question doesn't exist in a quiz question bank, I would be creating it from scratch in this instance. I would just like to see lessons increase in flexibility.

Cheers,

Monica

Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Monica Long

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Monica "[I] would love for cloze questions to be available in lessons."

Sorry, but you should not count on it. As I have said many times, the Lesson and the Quiz activities are two totally separate activities. The Cloze question type is a very complex question type, which is difficult to maintain in the Quiz questions bank as it is and there is no way it would become available to the Lesson activity one day.

Joseph

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Luca Policastro -

Bonjour Joseph, hi everybody.

Just a quick question about that...

Cloze questions are not supported in Lesson module, as Joseph pointed out very clearly. But when you first create a lesson activity, Moodle (2.3) let you "import questions" from about 10 different format files. Among them, there is an "embedded questions (cloze)".

So what does/did it refer to?

Thanks a lot

Luca

Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Luca Policastro

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Ciao Luca,

You are right, this is a bug. The Embedded (Cloze) questions format should not be listed on the Lesson import questions page. I have posted bug report MDL-39655 for which you may vote.

Joseph

Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Tom Dindorf -

Hi everyone!

I wish the above (CLOZE in Lessons) was not considered a 'bug'.

There are situations where a number of sub-questions reference the same situation (e.g. x-y  coordinates of a vector/point, individual and sum displacements during superposition of waves, displacement and average velocity from a velocity-time graph, etc. etc...), where asking 'one question at a time' creates an unnatural situation:

a. it forces the author to repeat the details of the set-up (to which the sub-questions refer) over and over again, which in turn 

b. confuses/wastes time of the learner: "do I need to re-analyse the details of the situation, or is it the same as in the last question?"

Expecting questions of the Multi-Input type ( http://www.open.edu/openlearnworks/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=52747&section=2.4 ) to be available in Lessons may be too much at present, but CLOZE questions can serve as a functional substitute for the time being.

Thank you (readers) for taking the time to consider this, regardless of the outcome.

P.S. It strikes me, from reading this and other related discussions, that some folks do, others do not subscribe to the notion that 'assessment' and 'learning' are separate events, requiring separate structures and functions.  I belong to the latter, and am using Quizzes to simultaneously promote learning ('problem-based' learning: randomized questions, multiple attempts, fractional penalties) and to assess.  The only drawbacks of Quizzes at present (in my case, 2.5) imho are their (a) linear structure and (b) independence, whereas Lessons offer jumps and pre-conditions.  That is why I'd like to see either Lessons expand their repertoire of question types, or for Quizzes to incorporate branches/pre-conditions i.e. a melding of both.  ('Descriptive' questions in Quizzes, after all, can already easily duplicate the 'lecturing' parts of Lessons and Books.)

Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Tom Dindorf

Re: Embedded (Cloze) Question Export from Quiz/Question Bank and Import into Lessons

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

Hello Tom,

What Joseph was saying is that the fact that

  1. multianswer (CLOZE) questions can't be used in lesson
  2. but when you look at the choices offered when you import questions in lesson there is a multianswer format in the list
  3. and if you select it no question are imported
And I think everybody can agree this is a bug
Will CLOZE questions be available in lessons one day ? I hope so, but it is very unlikely this will be in a near future. You may ask why I say that :
  • because this is a difficult problem as the lesson's question engine is a lot less sophisticated than the question bank engine so supporting CLOZE question is a difficult task
  • an elegant solution to that problem would be to make the lesson activity use the question bank engine (so all questions types from the question bank would be available in lessons, not just CLOZE questions), but unfortunately this is also a difficult task (an I can add that migrating existing lesson would certainly be a nightmare so most likely it would have to be a new activity not an upgrade of the existing lesson activity)
  • there have been discussions about doing that (making lesson use the question bank engine) since several years, but to my best knowledge we are still at the discussion stage
Average of ratings: -