In Oncourse Tests & Surveys, what types of questions are available for assessments?

Note: To complete these procedures, you must be assigned a role having the necessary permissions. To determine your role, follow the directions in Participant roles. To view a list of permissions associated with a given role, see Permissions, roles, and tools. For a basic understanding of roles and permissions, see Permissions and roles: Overview.

You have a great deal of flexibility in creating content for assessments. You can use the question types listed below in any combination within an assessment. For instructions on creating each type of question, see Creating questions for an assessment.

Following is an overview of the question types available:

• Multiple Choice: Presents users with a question followed by a list of possible answers. You can choose to have either one or several correct answers.
  
  
• Survey: Designed for collecting survey data; presents users with a question or statement to which they respond using the rating scale of your choice:
  
  
  • Dichotomous: Choose from "Yes, No" or "Disagree, Agree".
  • Likert scales: Choose from semantic or numeric differentials (e.g., Strongly disagree-Strongly agree, 1-5).
  
  
• Short Answer/Essay: Presents users with a question followed by a text box in which they enter the answer
  
  
• Fill in the Blank: Presents users with a question followed by a text box in which they enter the answer; each user's answer is compared to a list of allowed answers
  
  
• Numeric Response: Presents users with a question followed by a text box in which they enter a numeric answer; each user's answer is compared to a list of allowed answers
  
  
• Matching: Presents users with a series of choices and possible matches
  
  
• True/False: Presents users with a statement that they must identify as being either true or false
  
  
• Audio Recording: Presents users with a question that they must answer audibly; recording applet opens and allows user to record the answer using a microphone
  
  
• File Upload: Presents a question or assignment that requires the user to upload a file
  
  
• Copy from Question Pool: Allows you to import questions from an existing question pool that you created. For more, see Adding, editing, moving, copying, or removing a question pool or subpool.

You can set an answer point value for each question. Survey questions are automatically worth 0 (zero) points, but if you want, you can assign points to a survey question. Also, each of the above is scored automatically, except for the short answer/essay, audio recording, and file upload questions.

Note: Oncourse sessions end automatically (i.e., time out) after three hours without certain actions. To keep the application from disconnecting during an assessment, participants must click to save or submit their work within that time; typing in a text box or clicking to select an answer is not enough to reset the timer. To help prevent participants from losing their work in this manner, configure your assessment so that it displays each question on a separate web page. For more, see Can I lose my work if Oncourse times out?