Entering Questions Into the Quiz Database

WebCT quizzes are built by selecting a series of questions from the database into a quiz shell. So the first step in creating any quiz is making sure the questions you are going to use are in the database.

  1. Click on the link you've created to get into the Quizzes/Surveys tool.
  2. The first screen will always be a list of the quizzes in the course. However, we want to go to the Questions Database. Click the link at the top of the page to the Questions Database.
    Screenshot of the quiz screen with the link to the database at the top
  3. Since it's a database, you could just begin entering questions using the "Create Question" link in the middle of the controls, but it might be easier to organize your questions by category. Your categories may be chapters of your book, units of instruction, or based on question content. That's up to you and what's going to make it easiest to find the questions you want later as you build quizzes.
    Screenshot of database, highlighting button for Create Category
  4. For this example, click the "Create Category" button.
  5. Type in your category title, then click the "Create" button. Your category title should reflect the organizational structure you choose for your questions. "Quiz 1" will be used for this example since the questions going into Quiz 1 are already known and that way the quiz and the database category of the same name will hold the same questions.
    Form for giving the new category a title
  6. Since a category has been created, another option appears at the top of the controls for navigating to different categories of questions. If you are already in the category to which you want to add questions, you can just select the type of question you wish to add from the drop down list, then click "Go".
    Screenshot of the controls to create new questions and picking the question type
  7. In this example, a multiple choice question is being created. The question creation screen has multiple sections we'll cover one at a time. In the first section, you'll need to give the question a title. Later, when the quiz is created, you can choose to have the titles display to students or not. Typically it's best to give a title that reflects the purpose or main point of the question.

    The next input is for the text of the question itself that students will see. Included in this area are the options to enter equations (for those teaching sciences or statistics) and images (if you were giving an art history test, for example, you might have students identify a piece of art).

    The format option of HTML or text is generally unimportant and can be left as is.
    The first part of the form for creating a new multiple choice question
  8. In the next section, you will need to choose how students will see the question on the screen and how it will be scored.

    For multiple choice questions, you can choose to have just one correct answer or multiple correct answers. If it's just one answer, then students will see radio button next to the answer choices. If you choose multiple answers, students will see checkboxes next to the answer choices and will need to choose all correct answers for the highest score on the question.

    If there are multiple answers, you could select that the question be worth all or nothing.

    Also, if you selected to have multiple answers, you might choose to have the incorrect choices be worth negative values.

    You can choose whether the answers are presented vertically or horizontally, and if the choices are noted with numbers of letters.

    You can also have the answer choices appear in random order each time the question is viewed, which may help prevent students' sharing answers.
    Second section of settings for the new multiple choice question
  9. The next section involves entering the answer choices for your question. You can enter as many choices as you like, but five answer fields are provided initially. You can choose to enter feedback specific to each answer choice and/or you can add feedback for the question as a whole at the bottom of the page.

    If there is only one right answer, then checking the box for "Correct answer" is the easiest. If there are multiple correct answers, then you can just give each a percentage of the points for that question each correct choice is worth.
    Fields for selecting correct answer, answer choice text, and answer choice feedback
  10. The final section of the question creation screen provides an option for leaving feedback for the question in general (again, in addition to or instead of feedback specific to each answer choice). Here you'll also find the "More answers" button, which will add 2 more answer choices at a time for as many times as you click it.

    Most importantly, you'll find the "Save" button here, which is what will allow you to store your question in the questions database.
    Screenshot of the final fields and the save, more answers, and cancel buttons
  11. After the question's been saved, it will appear in a list for the current question category. To preview the question as students will see it, you can click on the magnifying glass button. You can also see in the columns in which category the question is located and in the "Used By" column you would see any quizzes using the question.
    Back on the question database page we can try out the question
  12. At this point, if you have more questions to add, you begin the process of creating a new question again.
  13. After you've entered all the questions you need, the next step is to create a quiz shell.