Status:
OpenSubmitted byrleddaon06-17-201502:25 AM
It would be useful that when you create a question [item] bank at the account level being able to upload a huge number of questions once by using a word document.Now, the only way to do this is to create them one by one.
PS: Respondus 4.0 software can "batch" publish assessment materials to multiple courses, but it cannot post them at the subaccount or account level in Canvas.
Our course support staff are spending a huge amount of time creating quizzes in Canvas simply because the faculty create (or update) their quizzes in Word and electronically submit them to the staff for implementation. This means that staff are copy and pasting each element in every quiz, sometimes multiple times. Granted some of this is a process flow issue because of the way that faculty choose to work; however, a process in our former LMS was a great solution to this, which allowed staff to work with the existing Word document and insert simple coding that the LMS then could parse into a quiz. It also worked with any publisher test bank, no matter what standard they implemented with their quiz resources. Here is an sample using examples from the system documentation:
As submitted by "faculty"
As marked up by staff:
The amount of time this type of coding would save would be incredible.
Please forget MS Word and go to RTF or RTFD or plain Text (which a word file will covert to easily). Word is slow. Word is now expensive although using Google Docs would work, but an extra couple of steps. Recall that Etudes and I think others use plain Text. I admit I had rather sloppy results with Etudes though - no surprise.
KISS as it were. Word (Microsoft) is doing bad things with annual licensing. I say *&$**# them and keep things as open source as is possible.
Oh, how do I remember the days to struggling to import a tagged RTF or TXT file into a testing platform! Making sure each asterisk and tag was in the proper place... We want to explore this issue and develop a solution that is quick and simple to use while still allowing for the import of test items into the platform. We would likely stick to a universal document type like RTF or TXT. We may also consider an alternative like a spreadsheet (CSV) import with more defined fields--think clear processes to make correct/incorrect, item feedback, item options, and more.
What are your thoughts on RTF/TXT or spreadsheet? I've very curious if the trade-off would be worth the time for a more "clean" import process. What do you all think?
Thanks Deactivated user for your reply to this idea. Rich Path at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has created a wonderful tool that does exactly this for D2L. Using an Adobe AIR application it allows the instructor to copy and paste of text from any application, apply simple formatting (including providing question and answer feedback), and click a button to create a .csv file that can be imported directly into a quiz using the a file structure that D2L already allows:
Since Canvas already accepts test banks in QTI format and the University of Wisconsin's software license grants permission to modify, I hope that the Canvas development team decides to adjust this program to create a QTI file for ready import into Canvas.
RE: RTFT, RTF, TXT, WORD, I say to heck with Word. MSoft is out of hand now. But that's political. Practical is txt and/or rtf is really easy stuff and would not encumber development like Word would (or Pages or whatever).
I too have suffered the slings and arrows of trying to get a txt text to behave in Etudes.
My best guess is that should we go that direction, to be really, really clear on formatting. Really clear. I actually tried to have students use the txt formatting to design their own test questions and it almost worked. Ha!
But you all know we can do this. If Matt Damon can survive two years on Mars... oh, that was fiction. But I remember the Apollo missions.
Some quick thoughts because the really long awesome post I was writing got lost because I forgot to move off the inbox screen when I was typing it:
Separate conversion from import so that it's extensible and additional formats can be added.
Support .docx/.odt. Not because they're good formats, but because they are universal in the sense of wide adoption. Converting .docx to .rtf doesn't get rid of the evil that Word creates, it just masquerades it. There are converters available and it would remove an extra step for the user and therefore simpler.
Limit what you support. Many documents outside of plain text are ugly. People copy/paste from different locations and you end up with different fonts, font sizes, indentations, etc. Most of those would be bad if brought into a quiz.
.csv allows structure and using a spreadsheet allows for functionality you don't get with a word processor. Definitely support it.
Consider integrating this with Google Docs/Sheets. You've already got the ability to submit a file through Google Docs, make it so that an instructor can submit a bank through Google Docs rather than being forced to upload it
Be compatible with Respondus but don't limit yourself to their format.
Be clear on what your purpose is. Is it to provide a free alternative to Respondus? Is it to provide a limited import capability most frequent used question types? Is it to allow a way to get all questions types into Canvas without being forced to reenter them through the web? The last one is the most important to me since Respondus won't do it, but I'll admit that it comes down to putting development dollars where the biggest return will be.
I'm all for simple!! I like the RTF or TXT doc type better than CSV -- the faculty and staff are already used to working in Word and faculty aren't always the easiest to get to do things in different ways when they know the past ways have worked well.
