I am a new Moodle user and I teach a College Trigonometry Class. I would love to be able to import the test bank questions that came with my textbook into Moodle so that I can create weekly quizzes for my students to take. So far, I have been unsuccessful in getting this done.
I am using Moodle version 2.2 and Examview Pro version 6.2.1.
If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate it very much.
Hello Melissa,
If you can't install a plugin on your Moodle website then Gary Blackburn MoodleXMLBuilder is an excellent solution and works wonderfully. It's a 2 stages process : first you use MoodleXMLBuilder to convert your Examview question to Moodle XML format, then you import the xml format using the import utility included in Moodle.
If you or your administrator can install a plugin on your Moodle server then you can also use one of the examview third party import format plugin that you can found here :
You can use either
my own version posted July 19th 2011 (examview_bb6plus.zip)
or
the version posted by Gerry Jenkins on July 22th 2011 (examview_blackboard_6.zip)
Both are question import formats that need to be installed into question/format folder of your Moodle server.
But if you are not familiar with installing a Moodle plugin I think using MoodleXMLBuilderwould be easier.
Indeed, MoodleXMLBuilder is an excellent and simple converter. One problem we have run into in math is that all "short answer" questions in math are converted to "essay" when they are exported from Examview in the Blackboard format. This format, of course is not at all what we want. We want them to be "numerical" in most cases. I haven't found a way to convert them other than copying and pasting content, once it is in moodle. That's a long process.
I posted this in another query in this forum but haven't heard any solutions yet.
Jean-Michel, do you know if using the plugin would allow from better question type conversions? I used the MoodleXMLBuilder because it was so easy but I run my own server so I could install the plugin. I am running Moodle 2.2
Hello Paul,
Unfortunately, I think both versions of the plugin suffer from the same problem.
I must admit that despite having coded one of them I am certainly not an Examview specialist (I don't use it myself, I am just interested in formats conversion and helping other teachers) but as I undeerstand it Examview "short answers" question exported in Blackboard files don't contain any model response so they can't be converted to Moodle short answers or numerical questions that are automatically graded, so the only solution is to convert them to essay questions.
But after all maybe I am wrong so if you post a (small) example file with some questions you want to be converted into numerical ones, I can have a look. But if there is no right answer in each question I don't see what I can do to make them numerical.
I have attached a BB exported from Examview that contains a sample essay and short answer question. As you will see they are exported as BB essay questions. So there is really no way to distinguish the difference between essay and short answer as exported from Examview. This leaves the conversion with a dilema. You can either convert all BB exports as essay or convert all BB exports as short answer with one answer reponse. With MoodleXMLBuilder I chose to convert to essay and I placed the answer text in the Moodle graderinfo for the essay question. The Examview numeric question type is exported as BB fill-in-the-blank. The BB fill-in-the-blank does not contain enough information to convert to Moodle numerical. MoodleXMLBuilder converts Examview numeric to Moodle short answer.
I'm not sure which option is best for the BB exported essay question type, but in either case one question type loses out. As far as MoodleXMLBuilder is concerned I am open to suggestions and can either leave the program as is or change it to convert BB essay to short answer.
Unfortanately this conversion from Examview to BB to Moodle loses in the translation. Hopefully the publishers will see the light and resolve this by providing a Moodle export. At least Wimba's Diploma test generator does proved a Moodle 1.9 export option. Maybe the others will follow suit.
Thank you so much for the advice. I used the MoodleXLMBuilder and was able to import my test banks. I'm going to pass your response along to our IT person and see if they can install the plugin on the Moodle server to make importing easier.
Hi Melissa
I had a similar problem importing quiz questions from TestGen, but I found a solution that works for me. I think it may work for you as well.
There is a program called Moodle XML Builder, that takes TestGen exports in Blackboard format and converts them to Moodle.xml files that can be ready by Moodle 2.1. The images are imported as well. The program was written by people at Nash Community College, and runs under Windows.
The link for the download is included below.
http://www.nashcc.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=657
Thanks for this thread! I have examview 8, and exporting to Blackboard 6 was able to convert to moodle xml and upload to moodle 2.3 no problem, pictures and all! Thanks for making a 3 day job a 3 hour job... way to go NashCC!
I quite agree that MoodleXMLBuilder is an excellent solution.
If you are using Moodle 2.2.5 or 2.3.2 you can also import your Examview 8 Pro files directly into Moodle without any prior conversion to XML. Just go to Question Bank -> import and choose "Blackboard V6+" file format, images will be imported too.
This will, I hope, make your 3 hours work even faster .
