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Tests are sets of questions that students answer

directly in LMS. Quizzes are self-grading, and can be

set up to provide automatic feedback.

Why use a quiz in LMS? Quizzes work best as a way for you and your students

to ‘check in’.

For students, they’re a good way to check in on their

own learning and make sure they’re staying on top of

the course content.

For teaching staff, they’re a good way to check in on

where the class is at, identify difficult topics or

struggling students early, and provide feedback

efficiently.

Good quizzes are…

Short Keep your questions short so they’re straightforward

to understand and answer. Keep your quiz short so

students stay engaged and complete it all at once.

Concrete Quizzes work best for topics with a clear right and

wrong answer. While it’s possible to accept and

manually mark subjective answers, long-form or

reflective activities may be better suited to an

[assignment submission] or a [blog or journal].

Low stakes Quizzes take place outside of class, without

supervision. They work best as a chance to check in

and get feedback, rather than as a major assessment.

Varied Maximising your coverage of content and difficulty

will make your quiz a more effective learning tool for

students and a more effective diagnostic tool for staff.

That means using a mix of question types, a mix of

difficulty levels, and a mix of question topics.

Useful feedback LMS quizzes are self-grading, and can also be set up

to provide feedback on specific problem areas

automatically.

Setting up a quiz Each step is covered in more detail in the linked fact

sheet.

1. Plan your questions

Make sure you’re covering a range of content

and difficulty levels.

2. Set up a quiz

You can find quiz tools under Tests, Surveys

and Pools in the UWA LMS.

3. Release it to students

Remember to set both an opening and closing

date for submissions.

4. Complete any manual marking

You can view responses in the quiz’s column

in the Grade Centre.

5. Analyse student responses

Some analysis is possible in Grade Centre, but

you can also download responses as a

spreadsheet.

Quizzes and assessment at UWA Consider how your quiz fits into the assessment for

your unit.

Quizzes can be used to provide formative

assessment – assessment for learning, providing

feedback and suggestions for improvement. At UWA,

students must receive formative feedback within the

first 5 weeks of semester.

They can also be used as part of summative

assessment – assessment of learning, to feed into

students’ final mark. Remember to consider how a

quiz might fit into your limit of 2-3 assessment items

under the Assessment Policy.

For more help using quizzes for good assessment

and feedback, contact your Faculty EEU team:

Arts, Business, Law & Education

eeu-able@uwa.edu.au

Engineering & Mathematical Sciences eeu-ems@uwa.edu.au

Health & Medical Sciences

eeu-hms@uwa.edu.au

Science

eeu-sci@uwa.edu.au

Page 1 of 2

This fact sheet aims to help you make your questions

as useful to you and your students as possible, while

still taking advantage of efficient automatic marking

and feedback.

The best way to do this is to plan your questions in

advance, before even opening your LMS page.

Consistency is important… Before you start writing questions, think about how

you want to use quizzes in your unit:

□ Will you be allocating marks for your quiz?

If so, how many marks? It is difficult to enforce

strict rules around online quizzes, so it’s best to

think of them as open-book assessments.

□ How many quizzes?

When will they be due? Whether this is weekly or

per-topic, make sure the due date and time is the

same each time.

□ How many questions per quiz?

Shorter quizzes are easier for students to

complete, but longer quizzes allow you to cover

more content. Whatever you choose, make sure

the marks allocated reflect the effort required.

□ How much time per quiz?

A good rule of thumb allow one minute for an

automatically marked question (multiple choice

or similar) and five minutes for a text answer.

□ How will you be marking your quiz?

Most questions can be marked automatically, but

if you mark manually (e.g. for text-based short

answers) you’ll need a marking key to keep your

marking consistent.

For each of these considerations, we recommend

making your quizzes as consistent as possible. This

makes it easier for both you and your students to stay

up to date with the unit.

…But so is variety. Quizzes need to cover a range of ideas in order to be a

useful learning tool for students and a reliable

diagnostic tool for you.

□ Are you covering every topic or learning

outcome?

□ Are you covering topics at a variety of levels?

Your questions should reflect various levels of

understanding of your key concepts, to help you

and your students know what they need to learn

next. Strategies to help with this include:

o Using common misconceptions as the

‘distractors’ (incorrect answers) to your

questions

o Asking follow-up questions where

students can explain their reasoning for a

previous answer.

□ Are you covering a variety of activity types?

Testing whether students remember facts is a

good start, but quizzes can also test higher order

skills.

o Could you ask students to analyse or

evaluate something using what they’ve

learned? Perhaps a video or article?

o Could they apply their skills or create

something, and answer based on their

result? Perhaps solve a puzzle or game?

(Look into [blooms taxonomy] for more on this

concept.)

Using the planner To help plan your quizzes, try the quiz planner on the

other side of this fact sheet.

Fill out the top once, then make as many copies

(digital or physical) as you need. This helps you be

consistent where you need to be while still getting

good coverage and variety.

For help planning or implementing your quizzes,

contact your Faculty EEU team:

Arts, Business, Law & Education

eeu-able@uwa.edu.au

Engineering & Mathematical Sciences

eeu-ems@uwa.edu.au

Health & Medical

Sciences eeu-hms@uwa.edu.au

Science

eeu-sci@uwa.edu.au

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Quiz ___ of ____

Due at the usual date/time of _____ in week _____.

Question Answer Topic/ Outcome

Difficulty level

Activity type

Point value

Time

Total

eeu@uwa.edu.au

M401, Hackett Hall

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Types of Test Questions in Blackboard Choose the type of question that works best for you Blackboard LMS provides a wide variety of types of questions you can build into a test or survey. There are pros and cons to every question type, and you will need to think about what will work best for your content and goals.

For more help, visit: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Tests_Pools_Surveys/Question_Types

Tip: Get creative! You can use question types in novel ways. For example, include photos in multiple choice questions, or ask students to do an online activity and then enter their answer or work into the quiz question.

Legend for table below:

Question type How it works Note Useability

Multiple choice Students select one correct answer from

several choices in response to a question.

This very common type of question is easy to create, and easily marked automatically. You

can also provide automated feedback to students.

Multiple answer Students select more

than one correct answer from several choices in response to a question.

This very common type of question is easy to create, and easily marked automatically. You

can also provide automated feedback to students.

Either/Or (True/False)

Students selects one answer from two options

in response to a statement.

This very common type of question is easy to create, and easily marked automatically. You

can also provide automated feedback to students.

Fill in the blank and

Calculated numerical

Students type the missing word(s) or

numerals into a blank space in a sentence.

You can set a numeric answer in Fill in the Blank or in a Calculated Numerical question

type.

Matching Students pair items in

one column to items in another column using

dropdown menus.

You can even reuse items and have unequal numbers of items in each column.

Ordering Students select the order of a series of items.

This very common type of question is easy to create, and easily marked automatically. You

can also provide automated feedback to students.

Excellent useability for both staff and students.

Use with caution; may be tricky for staff or students.

Use with caution; contact EEU staff for help determining if this is the right tool for you.

eeu@uwa.edu.au

M401, Hackett Hall

Page 2 of 2

Calculated formula

Students type a number into the answer box in response to a question where the numbers are

randomly generated from a range you set.

This type of question can help prevent students from simply sharing the numeric answers and gives them an opportunity to practice or demonstrate their calculation

skills, but may require careful creation.

Jumbled sentence

Students select words or phrases from a

dropdown menu to complete a sentence.

This type of a question works well if each of your words/phrases are unique.

Short answer and

Essay

Students type sentences in response to a

question.

Manual marking! We strongly recommend associating a Blackboard rubric with this

question type for consistent marking.

Fill in multiple blanks

Students type the missing word(s) into

several blank spaces in a sentence.

This type of question can be difficult to code. Consider using other types like Fill in the

Blank or Jumbled Sentence.

Opinion/Likert scale

Students choose

Ideal for surveys of attitudes or opinions. If the question is in a marked test, you must

either select a correct answer or change the point value of the question to zero.

Quiz bowl Students type in the

question in response to an answer.

This question type works like the TV show Jeopardy, which may be unnecessarily

confusing for students. Consider asking the question in a simpler way.

Hot spot

Students click on a particular area of an

image, which corresponds to the

correct answer.

This type of question requires good visibility and images to work. Consider using the

hotspot tool in LCS Echo instead.

File response Students upload a file

from their computers as the answer to the

question.

Manual marking! May not be compliant with Assessment Policy. In most assessment

cases, this type of question would be better answered by using a Turnitin submission box,

which allows for far easier manual marking and feedback.

Tests are an excellent way to provide formative and automatically-marked feedback, but creating good tests requires careful planning. Check out our other fact sheets for more on:

- planning test questions in advance- creating test questions in LMS Blackboard- marking and releasing marks for tests in LMS Blackboard- reusing questions in pools

For more information, contact your Faculty EEU team: Arts, Business, Law &

Education eeu-able@uwa.edu.au

Engineering & Mathematical Sciences eeu-ems@uwa.edu.au

Health & Medical Sciences

eeu-hms@uwa.edu.au

Science eeu-sci@uwa.edu.au

Page 1 of 2

Creating a quiz involves three distinct steps:

1. Creating the quiz

2. Adding questions

3. Deploying the quiz to a page

Creating a quiz To create a quiz, open the Unit Tools panel in the

sidebar and select Tests, Surveys and Pools.

Select Tests, and then the Build Test button at the

top of the page.

Give your test a Name, a concise Description of the

content in it, and any Instructions students will need

to complete the quiz.

The instructions box is the appropriate place to include

a plagiarism declaration (“By taking this quiz, you

agree that…”) if your school or faculty requires one.

When you’re done, hit the button. This

will take you to the Test Canvas. From here, you can

add, edit and reorder questions, and review a test.

Adding questions Create quiz questions one at a time by selecting the

Create Question button at the top of the canvas.

From here, you can choose the question type you’d

like to add, and you’ll be taken to a separate page to

set up your question.These pages differ for each

question type, but will have four features (from top to

bottom):

1. A Question area to write the question itself.

2. An Answers area to add possible answers.

3. Alongside those possible answers, a method of

specifying the Correct Answer.

4. A Feedback area, where you can write automatic

feedback for both correct and incorrect answers.

This is a lot to think about for each question, so we

strongly recommend planning your questions in

advance! For more support on planning and writing

effective quiz questions, see [this fact sheet]

For example, multiple-choice questions look like this:

Question area

Answer area

The Correct Answer is specified by selecting the

bubble next to the correct answer

Feedback area

For more details on the specifics of each question

type, see the Blackboard Help section on test

questions or contact your Faculty EEU team.

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For both correct and incorrect answers, feedback

should be encouraging, specific to the question and

topic at hand, and include links or references to

resources (such as lecture recordings or textbook

chapters) where students can go for more information.

When you finish creating a question, click to

save your work, or to create

another question of the same type.

Once you finish creating questions, click the

button on the Test Canvas to save your

quiz and return to the tests page.

Deploying a quiz Before students can see a quiz, it has to be deployed

to a visible page on your LMS unit.

First go to the page where you’d like your students to

access the quiz – maybe you have a folder for quizzes

in your assessments section. Within that page, open

the Assessments menu, and select the Test item.

Choose the test you’d like to add to the page…

And click to deploy the quiz.

Quizzes can only be deployed to one page at a time. If

you don’t see your quiz, it’s probably already

deployed elsewhere in your LMS unit. You can see

where any given test is deployed in the Tests area of

the Tests, Surveys and Pools tool.

Testing & Troubleshooting If you’re having trouble accessing any of the settings

mentioned here, make sure the edit mode switch on

the top right is set to ‘on’.

You can test your quiz by entering Student Preview

mode – click the icon at the top right of your

screen. Make sure that the correct answer is set as

correct for each question, and that the correct

feedback is displayed for each question.

Quizzes won’t be visible to students (including

student preview) until both the page and the quiz

itself are set as available.

Once you’ve set up and tested your quiz, you can set

availability and decide how you want to release

marks and feedback. However, we recommend

building your quiz with these options disabled and

setting them only after your quiz is complete, so you

can test it using Student Preview.

For more on setting availability and releasing marks, contact your Faculty EEU team.

Contact your Faculty EEU Team

Engineering &

Mathematical Sciences

eeu-ems@uwa.edu.au

Arts, Business, Law &

Education

eeu-able@uwa.edu.au

Science

eeu-sci@uwa.edu.au

Health & Medical Sciences

eeu-hms@uwa.edu.au

Page 1 of 2

Releasing a quiz Once you’ve [created a quiz], you need to make it

available to students. Quizzes aren’t visible until:

1. The quiz has been added to a page:

2. That page is visible to students

3. The quiz itself has been set as ‘Available to

students in the Test Options – more on that in

a moment.

Manually releasing a quiz 1. Open the menu next to your test, and

select ‘Edit the Test Options’.

2. Under the ‘Test Availability section, toggle the

‘Make available to students’ option.

3. Click the button at the bottom of

the page to save your changes. Your quiz is

now available to students.

4. To hide a quiz, follow these steps, but set

‘Make available to students’ to ‘No’.

Consider whether you need to close or hide quizzes –

quizzes can be a useful reflection or revision tool for

students. Similarly, consider whether you can allow

multiple submissions for quizzes – this allows students

to use them as a self-assessment tool.

Automatically releasing a quiz You can set quizzes to open and close automatically.

This is can be useful if you have multiple quizzes, each

due at a regular time.

1. Open the menu next to your test, and

select ‘Edit the Test Options’.

2. Under the ‘Test Availability section, set the

dates and times you’d like your quiz to be

visible to students.

3. Click the button at the bottom of

the page to save your changes. Your quiz will

be released and closed automatically.

Late submissions and exceptions

If your quiz is opened and closed automatically, you

may need to add exceptions for students with special

consideration. You can re-open a quiz to certain

students or groups of students using the ‘Test

availability exceptions’ section of the ‘Test Options’

page. This tool allows you to set separate availability

as required for each student in your unit.

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If you’d like to allow late submissions, you can set a

Due Date for your quiz. Submissions will still be

accepted after the due date, but will be marked as

Late in the Grade center.

Note that this is a separate setting to quiz

availability. If in doubt, leave this option disabled.

Allowing late submissions can be useful for students to

catch up and self-assess on material they may have

missed, but make sure you clearly communicate how

these will be marked. It may be useful to consult the

University Policy on Assessment on late submissions

Releasing marks and feedback Marks and feedback are visible to students in the ‘My

Grades’ section, and to you in the ‘Grade Centre’

accessible from the sidebar.

Consider whether you need to hide your quiz marks at

all – quizzes work best as formative feedback rather

than summative assessment, and feedback is more

useful if students can access it immediately.

If you do decide to hide your quiz marks and

feedback, make sure you let your students know

when you release it.

All marks and feedback are tied to the quiz’s column

in the Grade Centre. If the column is marked as visible

to students there, their final mark and any feedback

(including correct answers and per-question marks)

will be visible in their My Grades section. Note that

Grade Centre columns are visible by default – this

means that quiz marks are also visible by default

as soon as students submit!

Manually releasing marks & feedback Before students take the quiz, hide the column in the

grade centre.

1. Open the Grade Centre from the sidebar

2. Scroll sideways until you find the column

associated with your quiz.

3. Open the menu next to your test column.

4. Select ‘Hide from students’ from the menu.

5. When the column is hidden, a icon will

appear before the quiz title.

6. Following the same steps, unhide the column

in the grade centre when you’re ready to

release marks

Automatically releasing feedback It’s possible to automatically release per-question

marks and feedback (including correct answers) on a

specific date. This does require the column in the

grade centre to be visible, meaning that students’

overall mark for the quiz will be available upon

completion.

Quiz feedback settings

Visible Hidden

Grade Center Column

Visible Marks and selected feedback

Total marks

only

Hidden None None

These settings can be found under the Quiz Options

page.

For assistance with setting up quizzes in your LMS

unit, contact your Faculty EEU team.

Engineering & Mathematical Sciences eeu-ems@uwa.edu.au

Arts, Business, Law & Education

eeu-able@uwa.edu.au

Science

eeu-sci@uwa.edu.au

Health & Medical Sciences

eeu-hms@uwa.edu.au

Page 1 of 1

There are two ways to mark a quiz:

1. Automatically: student responses are marked by

LMS against correct answers you provide.

2. Manually: student responses are marked by a

human marker against a key you provide.

Automatic marking The easiest way to mark your quizzes is to set the

correct answer when you’re creating your questions.

This setting differs by question type, but is always

found in the Answers section of the question page.

For example: for multiple choice and multiple answer

questions, this is a check box on the left hand side of

the answer:

For more information on setting up correct answers

for specific question types, see the Blackboard Help

system or contact your faculty EEU team.

Manual marking We recommend looking [planning your questions] to

take advantage of automatic marking. However,

some question types, like short answers, cannot be

marked automatically and must be marked manually.

The easiest way to mark these questions is to treat

them as you would automatically marked questions –

decide on the correct answer in advance. Note

down the things that you expect students to write to

get full marks, and decide how many marks each of

those is worth.

You can then provide this marking key in the ‘Correct

Answer’ section in the question setup, where it will

be visible to all markers.

Having a marking key makes marking easier and

fairer if you have a large numbers of students, or

more than one marker. It also ensures you’re

compliant with the University Policy on Assessment.

For more information on efficient, effective marking

and feedback, contact your faculty EEU team:

Arts, Business, Law & Education

eeu-able@uwa.edu.au

Engineering & Mathematical Sciences

eeu-ems@uwa.edu.au

Health & Medical

Sciences eeu-hms@uwa.edu.au

Science eeu-sci@uwa.edu.au

How to manually mark submissions 1. Access the Grade Centre from the sidebar on the

left hand side of your LMS page.

2. Scroll across until you see the Grade Centre

column for your quiz. Submissions that need

marking will be marked with an icon.

3. Hover over the first unmarked item in the column,

and select the button to open the drop-

down menu.

4. Select the unmarked quiz attempt from the drop-

down menu.

5. You will see the student’s entire response,

including automatically marked questions.

Responses that need manual marking will have a

blank score on the right hand side.

6. Enter a mark for the question in this box. You can

also provide written feedback specific to this

question in the box labelled Response Feedback.

7. Once all manual questions are marked, click

to save your feedback and finish, or

to move on to the next response.

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The LMS allows you to store test questions in groups

called ‘Pools’. Pools allow you to save and reuse

questions, and also set up quizzes that choose

questions randomly.

You can create questions directly within a pool, copy

questions from existing tests or pools, or upload

questions from a spreadsheet.

Creating a pool To create a pool, open Tests, Surveys and Pools in

the Unit Tools section on the left of your LMS unit.

Select the Pools link. From here, you can create and

modify your pools. To create a new pool, click the

Build Pool button towards the top of the page.

Give your pool a name and a description, and click

the button.

It’s possible to build multiple pools with different

subsets or copies of the same questions. This can be

very useful, but it can also get confusing fast.

Tip: Give your pool a descriptive name and a good

description, and consider planning out your questions

before you build your pool.

Creating questions Creating questions for a pool works the same way as

creating a question for a test.

From the Pool Canvas, open the Create Question

menu, and start by choosing your question type.

Enter your question, your answers, and your

feedback, and hit to save your question to

the pool.

For more detailed instructions on designing and

building questions, check out the other fact sheets in

this series.

Consider setting metadata, like topics or difficulty

levels, for your questions. This makes it easier to find

the question you are looking for when building pools.

Importing questions…

…from another quiz or pool To search your existing tests and pools for questions

to add, open the Find Questions tool from the Pool

Canvas area.

From here, you can browse

through existing tests and pools

and sort questions by type or by

topics and keywords.

Select the questions you’d

like to include in this pool, and

click to include them in

your pool.

Page 2 of 2

…from a spreadsheet Rather than creating your questions one by one, you

can write or copy them into a spreadsheet and upload

them in bulk. To access this feature, choose Upload

Questions from the Pool Canvas.

This feature requires your questions to be in a specific

format. You can view examples and download a

template to fill out on the Blackboard help page.

Using questions from a pool…

…as part of a quiz To search your existing tests and pools for questions

to add, open the Reuse Question menu and choose

Find Questions from the Test Canvas area.

From here, you can browse through existing tests and

pools and sort questions by type or by topics and

keywords. (This works the same as the Find Question

tool in the pool canvas.)

Select the questions you’d like to use, and click

to include them in your test.

By default, Find Questions creates copies of your

questions in your test. Any changes to these questions

won’t be reflected in the original pool. You can choose

to link questions instead, meaning edits in one place

will be reflected everywhere. See Blackboard Help for

more on the difference between copying and linking.

…as part of a random block You can also have the LMS choose a number of

questions at random from your pool to ensure each

student sees a different quiz.

From the Test Canvas, open the Reuse Question

menu and choose Random Block.

Choose a pool and (if required) a question type.

Click to create the random block on your

Test Canvas, and then set the points per question and

number of questions to use out of the block.

You can set more specific criteria and choose specific

questions using the Create Question Set tool, but

these cannot be reused between tests as pools can.

Otherwise, the two tools are fairly similar.

For more support, contact your Faculty EEU team:

Arts, Business, Law &

Education

eeu-able@uwa.edu.au

Engineering &

Mathematical Sciences

eeu-ems@uwa.edu.au

Health & Medical Sciences

eeu-hms@uwa.edu.au

Science

eeu-sci@uwa.edu.au