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Moodle Help

This guide is designed to assist with Moodle 3.11 questions.

Create Quiz

To create a quiz for a course, do the following:

Note that when you add a quiz to your course, you can choose to add multiple choice, true/false, short answer, essay, and matching questions as well as many other options. For a more detailed explanation of the Quiz activity, see the Moodle.org documentation on this topic. Finally, understand that creating a quiz is a two-step process. After understanding this, do the following: 

  1. In the top right corner of your course, click turn editing on.
  2. Choose the drop-down menu that lists add an activity, and select quiz.
  3. On the adding a new quiz page, give your quiz a name, and add a description. (Note: There is a box to click below the description if you want the description to show in your class.) 
  4. Select other options below the description box. These options include: 
    Timing (ex. when you want the quiz to open and close, if you want the quiz to have a time limit, etc.)
    Grade (ex. how many attempts you will allow, etc.)
    Layout (ex. how many questions you want to display, etc.)
    Question behavior (ex. if you want questions to be shuffled, etc.)
    Review options (ex. when you want students to receive feedback, the correct response, points, etc.)
    Others: AppearanceExtra restrictions on attempts, Overall feedbackCommon module settingsRestrict access
    For more information about each of these options, visit Moodle.org's documantation on Quiz settings
  5. Click save and display at the bottom of the page. 
  6. Next, you can add questions by clicking edit quiz.
  7. You can add the maximum grade, and then click save. You can choose to shuffle questions just below the Maximum grade area. 
  8. Next, click add, which you will find a few lines under the maximum grade area. Choose to add a new question, from question bank, or a random question.
  9. If you are adding a new question, then select the option.
  10. Choose the type of question from the list, and click add.
  11. Follow the steps provided for the question you selected. Click save changes when you are finished with that specific question.
  12. When you are finished adding questions to the quiz, click save changes.

The Moodle Quiz Activity

Tips: Academic Integrity and Online Quizzes

To maintain academic integrity, consider the following: 

In an online environment there is not a real way to prevent students from taking quizzes and finals with open books or open note. Instead of thinking of quizzes as a way to assess student memorization before attempting a quiz, think of it as an activity to reinforce or support lessons from course readings. Some examples of the above are the following:

  1. Apply a concept that was covered in class to an example that wasn't exactly discussed or included in the text book, so that answers can't be found in open notes or open textbooks.
  2. Allow students to retake exams multiple times and let the highest score count.
  3. Ask questions about concepts instead of exact answers.
  4. Give students a list of options that are not an exact thing, but ask them to pick which one is most like the thing. (None of these songs are by Beethoven -- which is the most like Beethoven)
  5. Change from multiple choice questions to open ended responses.
  6. Have students engage in a real-world related skill, such as writing a review, writing a report, etc.


If you do want to keep using traditional quizzes in Moodle, there are a few tweaks that could make it slightly more difficult for students to share answers. Do the following:

  1. Change when correct answers are revealed: Moodle's default setting is to let students see all the complete answers as soon as they finish their quiz attempt. To change this, go to quiz settings, under review options. Uncheck all the options in the first three columns, making it so results and correct answers are not revealed until after the quiz is closed. 
  2. Shuffle the order of questions: Go to the edit quiz page and click shuffle. This will make it so all the questions are asked, but that the order will be different for each student attempting it. 
  3. Question Bank: ​You can set up a bank of questions so that students are asked different questions. This is much more work for the faculty, and can be less fair for students if there is varying difficulty in the questions.
  4. Randomize Answer Order: Answer order can be shuffled within questions, making it harder to share answers (i.e., the correct answer will be A for Student 1 and B for Student 2).

Giving Extra Time to a Student with Accommodations

To give extra time to a student with accommodations, do the following: 

Note that you can give students with accommodations extra time to complete quizzes. After understanding this, do the following:

  1. Click turn editing on in the upper-right corner of the course.
  2. Click the activity you wish to edit.
  3. Go to the gear and click user overrides.
  4. Click add user override.
  5. Search for the name of the user to whom you plan to give more time.
  6. Check enable to make changes with time limits and quiz availability.
  7. When you are satisfied, click save. If you need to make changes for another student, click save and enter another override.
  8. When finished, you will see a list with all of the changes you just made.

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