Respondus

Respondus is an application used to create and manage exams and question banks. Exams created in Respondus can be printed to paper or published directly to a learning management system (LMS), including eLearning. Exams can be created offline or moved from one LMS (i.e. WebCT) to another (i.e. eLearning).

UT Dallas has a site license for Respondus. To obtain a copy, login to http://netid.utdallas.edu, and download the program from the Secure Downloads area. Email elearning@utdallas.edu for the licensing information.

Why Use Respondus?

Respondus easily creates exams, self-tests, and surveys for online course management systems such as eLearning. The tool saves the user time with tasks such as setting up and uploading assessments and retrieving exams and reports.

Respondus can publish directly into eLearning and supports several different question types. The user can develop the question bank directly in Respondus or develop offline in a word processor such as Word and import into Respondus. Responds enables the user to embed graphics, tables, multimedia objects and web links. Users can also take advantage of the Respondus Equation Editor to create mathematical and scientific symbols.

There are two ways to set up questions. You can either use Respondus to set up each question, or you can use the Import feature that enables the user to develop offline in a word processor using a special format.

Opening Respondus

The Start tab is the first screen seen when opening Respondus and allows the user to open a Respondus file, create a new Respondus file, use the Respondus Exam Wizard, import questions for a text file, or use the Archive Wizard.

Before choosing any of these options, the user must select the “Current Personality”, which tells Respondus what LMS the user will publish to. From the dropdown list, choose “WebCT 6-8 / Vista 4-8”.

Creating a New Respondus File

Click the [Create] button to create a new Respondus file.

Give the file a name, write a brief description if needed, then choose whether this will be an exam file or a survey file.

Click [OK].

You are now in the “Edit” tab, where you can add questions to your quiz.

Creating Questions

Multiple Choice Question

To create a Multiple Choice question:

1. Click the “Multiple Choice” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording.

4. Type in your answer options.

a. Notice that you can choose to Randomize your answer options.

b. You can also choose to Enable Feedback, which allows you to insert feedback that is specific to the answer chosen by the student or general feedback that is presented regardless of which answer option the student chooses.

5. Select the Correct Answer.

6. Assign a Point Value.

7. Preview, if needed.

8. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.


Feedback Enabled

True False Question

To create a True False question:

1. Click the “True False” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording.

4. Select whether the answer is True or False.

a. Enable Feedback enables the user to insert feedback that is specific to the answer chosen by the student or general feedback that is presented regardless of which answer option the student chooses.

5. Assign a Point Value.

6. Preview, if needed.

7. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.



Feedback Enabled

Paragraph Question

To create a Paragraph question:

1. Click the “Paragraph” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording.

4. Choose the size of the answer window.

5. Click the [Pre-fill answerbox] button to have test appear in the box before students type their response.

6. Add feedback, if needed.

7. Assign a Point Value.

8. Preview, if needed.

9. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.

Matching Question

To create a Matching question:

1. Click the “Matching” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording.

4. Enter your matching pairs.

5. Assign a Point Value.

6. Determine the grading scheme you wish to use:

a. Proportional to # Correct – All answers have equal value.

b. All Points or None – Student must complete all matches correctly to receive full value for the question.

c. Right Less Wrong – Total value is derived from number of correct matches minus number of incorrect matches.

7. Preview, if needed.

8. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.

Short Answer

To create a Short Answer question:

1. Click the “Short Answer” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording.

4. Enter the correct answers the students are to answer.

5. Assign a Point Value.

6. Determine the grading scheme you wish to use:

a. Equals (exact match) – Students must match answer exactly.

b. Contains – Student answer must contain the letters that were asked for.

c. Regular Expression - Use PERL coding to evaluate student answers. For example, if you have ".*" as your answer and select Regular Expression, eLearning will accept any answer to be correct. You can also select this option for prefix/suffix deviation.

7. Preview, if needed.

8. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.

Multiple Response

To create a Multiple Response question:

1. Click the “Multiple Response” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording.

4. Type in your answer options, then put an ‘X’ beside each correct answer.

5. Assign a Point Value.

6. Determine the grading scheme you wish to use:

a. Cumulative

b. All Points or None

7. Preview, if needed.

8. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.

Fill in the Blank Question

To create a Fill in the Blank question:

1. Click the “Fill in the Blank” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording. Put the wording you want the student to answer in [brackets].

4. Assign a Point Value.

5. Determine the grading scheme you wish to use:

a. Equals (exact match) – Students must match answer exactly.

b. Contains – Student answer must contain the letters that were asked for.

c. Regular Expression - Use PERL coding to evaluate student answers. For example, if you have ".*" as your answer and select Regular Expression, eLearning will accept any answer to be correct. You can also select this option for prefix/suffix deviation.

6. Preview, if needed.

7. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.

Jumbled Sentence Question

To create a Jumbled Sentence question:

1. Click the “Jumbled Sentence” tab on the left side of the screen.

2. Type your question title.

3. Type your question wording. Put the wording you want the student to answer in [brackets].

4. Assign a Point Value.

5. Preview, if needed.

6. Choose to either add the question to the end of the list or insert it into a specified area within your list.

Importing Questions

Instead of creating the questions in Respondus, the user can instead create the set of questions using a word processor such as Microsoft Word, Notepad, or WordPad. The user must follow the format specified in the Respondus Formatting Guide. Once the question set is created, the user can then import directly into Respondus.

1. Click on the Start tab, then click the [Import Questions] button.

2. In the Import Questions window that appears…

a. Type of file - Select the file type (i.e. Plain Text or Microsoft Word).

b. File Name - Click the [Browse] button to select the file to be imported.

c. Image Folder – Click the [Browse] button to select the folder in which any images used in the quiz are located.

d. Choose whether to append the imported questions to the current document or create a new one. If the option to create a new document is chosen, the user then types in the name.

e. If the user wants the questions automatically numbered, the “Use ‘stem’ checkbox is selected, and the stem is specified.

f. Press [Preview] to ensure that all questions are imported correctly. (An error message will appear if there are any issues that need to be addressed.)

g. Click [Finish].

Quiz Settings

To set the quiz settings in Respondus, click on the “Settings” tab.

Question Sets

In a quiz, questions can be presented in fixed order or in random sets. A “question set” is a group of questions from which a random selection is presented to students during the quiz. For example, the user can create a question set containing ten questions from which two will be selected and presented to students during the quiz.

Before creating question sets in Respondus, the user should have the file organized so that questions being included in a question set are grouped together. For example, if the fifth question in an exam is going to be randomly selected from a question set that contains three questions, these three questions should be grouped together at 5, 6, and 7 in the file.

To set up Question Sets, click on the Question Sets tab on the left side of the page, then click on the [Question Sets] button.

In the Question Sets window, to create a new set:

1. Enter the number of the first question in the list to be used in the set.

2. Enter the number of the last question in the list to be used in the set.

3. Determine how many of the questions you selected are to be presented to the student. (For example – all of the selected or two out of three.)

4. Enter the point value for each question presented to the student.

5. Click [Add New Set].

6. The questions are now marked with a letter to signify sets.

Basic & Availability

To set the Basic and Availability settings in Respondus, click on the “Basic & Availability” tab under the Settings tab. The quiz settings may be determined prior to publishing the file to eLearning. (This step is optional.) When a file is published to eLearning, the “Apply settings” option must be selected in order to implement the quiz settings.

1. Type in the quiz description.

2. Set the item visibility.

3. Determine the question delivery:

a. Deliver all the questions at once.

b. Deliver questions on at a time, where questions can be revisited.

c. One at a time, where students cannot revisit answer or skipped questions.

4. Decide whether or not to show the question titles.

5. Decide whether to display the quiz in the main frame in eLearning or in a new (pop-up) window.

6. Set the quiz duration.

7. Set the number of attempts the students are allowed. Then set amount of time required between each attempt. Then set whether or not to randomize question set questions for each attempt.

8. Set the dates the quiz is open. The user can also create an event in the section calendar for this quiz.

Security & Submissions

To set the Security and Submissions settings in Respondus, click on the “Security & Submissions” tab under Settings.

1. Set the Proctor password, if needed – Requires that the student (or proctor) enter the password before the student can take the quiz.

2. Set the IP address mask – Allows the user to restrict the availability of the quiz to a specific location.

3. Set submission message – This message displays after the student submits the completed quiz.

4. Set the email option – This enables eLearning to send an email to the specified email address each time a student submits a quiz.

5. Set whether to require Respondus LockDown Browser for the quiz. For more information on LockDown Browser, visit the LockDown Browser webpage.

Results

To set the Results settings in Respondus, click on the “Results” tab under Settings.

1. Score release – determine when or if the score will be available to the students.

a. Release the score once the quiz has been submitted.

b. Release once submitted AND all the questions have been graded.

c. Do not release the score.

2. Student Score – If multiple attempts are allowed, determine whether to use the first, latest, highest, or average score.

3. Determine whether to release the quiz statistics to the students.

4. Determine what information will be accessible when the student views the quiz submission results.

5. Email results to – Enables user to have an email with the results sent to a specified email address .

Preview and Publish

To Preview and Publish your Respondus file, click on the “Preview & Publish” tab.

Preview

Before publishing your Respondus file to the server, it is recommended that you Preview the file. To preview the Respondus file, click the “Preview” tab, then click the [Preview the File] button.

The user can then click through the questions and see the question as well as the correct answer and any feedback. If the user needs to edit the question, the [Modify Item] button can be clicked, taking the user back to the Edit tab where any needed changes can be made.

Publish to WebCT

To publish the Respondus file to eLearning, click the “Publish to WebCT” tab, then click the [Publish Wizard] button.

In the Publish Wizard, choose the type of publish – either to a single section or to multiple sections, then choose an existing server from the dropdown list, or if needed set up a new server. To set up a new server, click the dropdown arrow, then select “add a new server”.

Choose the “No, I want to enter the server settings manually” option. Click [Next].

In the WebCT 6 Server Information window:

1. Log into eLearning, then enter any section the user is teaching.

2. Copy the url, then paste it into the WebCT 6 server information window.

3. Press the [Extract] button.

4. Press the [Institutions] button.

a. Click the “choose institution dropdown, and select the appropriate institution (either Academic or Training).

5. Type in a server description.

6. Type in the username and password.

7. Choose whether or not to store the username and password in Respondus.

8. Click [OK].

In the Publish Wizard window, do the following:

1. Select the section (first dropdown) or template (second dropdown) in which to publish the quiz.

2. Choose to either create a new category to store the quiz questions or add the questions to an existing category. (If creating a new category, give the category a name. If using an existing category, choose from the dropdown.)

3. To create the quiz with the settings from Respondus:

a. Check the “Create/replace quiz.

b. Choose whether to create a new quiz (and give it a name), create a self-test (and give it a name), or replace an existing quiz (choose from the dropdown).

c. Check the “Apply question sets to quiz” box.

d. Check the “Apply settings to quiz” box.

e. If the quiz is to be linked to from a learning module, click the last checkbox.

4. Press [Next].

Respondus will then display a window showing the upload status. If there are any issues, an error message will appear in this window; however, if there are not any issues, the user will see a “Completed successfully” message. Click [Finish].

The assessment has been uploaded to eLearning.

Notice that it includes any question sets that were set up in Respondus, and all point value settings have been kept.

If the user looks in the Question Database within the section, he will see that Respondus has set up a category specifically for the quiz.