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Help with gateway quiz setting

Help with gateway quiz setting

by Siman Wong -
Number of replies: 6

I've used webwork many times for homework, but this is the first time I use it for exam (as a timed gateway quiz), and I would like to confirm my understanding of some of the settings/options.

Goal:  Let students take a 60 minutes exam within a time block; no reduced scoring enabled/no hint allowed.

My current settings:

  • hide hints from students:  YES
  • reduced scoring enabled: NO
  • Test Time limit: 60
  • Cap Test Time at Set Close Date:  YES  (students who start late will NO get extra time)
The following settings are the ones where I'm not quite sure about:

  1. Number of Graded Submission per Test:  1
  2. Time interval for New Test Versions:  0
  3. Number of Tests per Time Interval:  1
Q#1: I want students to take the test just ONCE during the time block -- I believe that (2-3) above together accomplish that?

Q#2: Based on some of the posts I have read, if a student is allowed to submit answers for the same version of the test multiple times, for each problem the student will earn the highest score among all attempts.  If so that I need to set the number of graded submission to 1 (as in (1) above).  Right?   BUT: 

Q#3:  I want to encourage them to periodically submit answers in case e.g. their internet/power goes down etc.  Would that not be in conflict with Q#2?  What's an alternative way to help ensure that students submit/record partial work?  And just to be sure:  Clicking "Grade Quiz" is the ONLY way to "submit" answers, right?  What's the difference between that and "Preview Answer"?

Q#4:  According to

https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/GatewayQuiz_Technical_Information_and_Philosophy

even if a student does not hit "submit", the system will still save all work done and can be retrieved under "Show past answer"?

Q#4':  Right now I display all problems on one page.  If I display one problem per page, as a student goes from one page to the next would the answer be "saved" before moving on?  (if so that would eliminate a lot of my concerns)

Q#5:  When the time is up and the grace period starts, is there a way to get webwork to display a message saying "it's time to submit your answer"?

On a related note:  How do I check if I'm using the default 120 seconds grade period?  (I don't have admin access to the server)

Q#6:  Is there a way for me to tell if a student log out and then log back in (and record the time for doing so)?

Many thanks for your help and clarification.



In reply to Siman Wong

Re: Help with gateway quiz setting

by Glenn Rice -

Q#1: Setting number of tests per time interval to 1 makes it so the student can have 1 complete attempt at the gateway quiz.  Setting number of graded submissions to one, makes it so the student can click "Grade test" only once.  After that the quiz is graded and the student can no longer submit answers.

Q#2:  That is correct.

Q#3:  If students want to have their answers saved, clicking "Preview Answer" will accomplish that.  That doesn't count as a submission and the quiz is not graded, but it does save the answers.

Q#4:  Changing pages of the quiz also saves answers, if there is more than one page to the quiz.

Note that if the student never hits "Preview Answers", and never changes the page (assuming multiple pages), and never hits "Grade test", no answers will ever be saved and no answers will appear in the "Past answers".

Q#5:  Not at this point.  I am sure that will be implemented soon, as there have been a lot of people asking for something like that.  However, there are several dialogs that pop up shortly before time is up notifying the student to submit the quiz soon, and a dialog when time runs out that says, "You are out of time.  Press grade now."

If you don't have admin access to the server, I don't think you can see the $gatewayGracePeriod setting.  The default setting is in the file /opt/webwork/webwork2/conf/defaults.config and would be overridden in the file /opt/webwork/webwork2/conf/site.conf or /opt/webwork/webwork2/conf/localOverrides.conf.  You can also change the setting in the file /opt/webwork/courses/courseId/course.conf for your courses.  You have to have admin access to directly edit that file (from the file manager) also, but there are ways to edit the file without admin access.

Q#6:  You would have to look at the file /opt/webwork/courses/courseId/logs/login.log.  You can access that file from the file manager for your courses.

Note courseId is the actual name of your course above.



In reply to Glenn Rice

Re: Help with gateway quiz setting

by Siman Wong -
Many thanks for detailed reply! I have one follow-up question:

One of the exam question is an 'essay problem' --- students need to type a couple of short sentences into a text box. What is the best way to access the students answers, and what is the best way for me to grade them --- assign grade + enter my comments?

THANKS!
In reply to Siman Wong

Re: Help with gateway quiz setting

by Glenn Rice -

Essay problems don't work very well in gateway quizzes, as the grader isn't available for gateway quizzes.  So you will have to view the answers each student gives by acting as the student.  Then you will have to set the score for the problem in the settings for that students versioned set.  To get to that go to the "Classlist Editor" and click on the row for the student in the "Assigned Sets" column, and then find that particular version of the gateway quiz.  I don't think there is a way to enter comments, or for the students to see those comments if you could.

In reply to Glenn Rice

Re: Help with gateway quiz setting

by Siman Wong -
Thanks! And I'm glad you brought to my attention the business of assigning grades for essay problems; I have not even thought of that.

Another question just pop into my mind: What if a student accidentally click "Grade Test" before the student completes the test? I will be "proctoring" the test in real time via zoom, but it's not clear what if anything I can do (I did add multiple warnings about not clicking "Grade Test" until the very end).

Thanks for your advice!
In reply to Siman Wong

Re: Help with gateway quiz setting

by Glenn Rice -

If your students do this, then you could tell them they have the option of accepting the test as they just submitted, or that you can delete the attempt and they can start over.

Another thing you could do is go to the settings for that version of that students quiz, and increase the number of submissions by one.  I would tell them at that point that if it happens again they will have to accept the exam as submitted at that point.

In reply to Glenn Rice

Re: Help with gateway quiz setting

by Danny Glin -

One correction:

If you want to change a setting that is set in defaults.config, you should put it in localOverrides.conf to change for the whole server, or in the respective course.conf if you want to change it for a single course.  Putting these settings in site.conf will not override the values in defaults.config because defaults.config is parsed after site.conf.