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WebCT > Faculty Resources > WebCT Tools > Formatting and Uploading Questions


Formatting and Uploading Questions
 

After creating the quiz, you now must add questions to the questions database.  The below steps will allow you to format and upload all of your questions at once.  To add the questions individually to the questions database visit Adding Questions Individually.

 

To upload questions into WebCT, they must be formatted as follows:

 

  • The first line of the question must start with a number, followed by a period, a space or tab, and the question text.
  • The next two to twenty-six lines (depending on the number of answer choices you are giving for the question) must start with a lower-case letter, followed by a period, a space or tab, and the answer text.
  • The last line must start with the "at" symbol (@), followed by the lower-case letter signifying the correct answer choice.
  • There should be a blank line before the start of the next question in the file.

 

Formatting Questions
 
After formatting all of the questions, you must save the file as a text file (ending with .txt).  Within Microsoft Word, go to File > Save As.  When the save as dialog box appears select 'Plain Text' or 'Text' from the 'Save as type' drop down menu.

Save as plain text
 
Go to the Standard-To-WebCT File Format Converter page.

Enter a Category Name for the file.  If the questions are for Exam 1, the name of the category can be Exam 1.  Select Browse to locate the text file.  After locating the file, click convert and save the converted file.

Browse for the text file
 
To upload the questions into WebCT, log into your WebCT course, enter the quiz icon and click 'Question Database'.

 

click questions database
 
Below 'Options: Question', click 'Import questions from file'.

import questions from file

Click 'Browse' to upload the text file into your WebCT course.  For directions on uploading files, visit Uploading Files.  After uploading the file, and using the 'Add selected' button, 'Import'.

browse for file
 

The questions contained in the text file are now displayed.  Carefully review the questions, making sure they contain full questions and all answer options.  When reviewing the questions check to see that the question number and sequence number are the same number (in the example below, they are both number 5).  These numbers not being the same is a sign that some questions have not been uploaded.

If there are minor mistakes select 'Continue' (these mistakes can be corrected to each individual question).  If there are several major mistakes, select 'Cancel', open up the text file and correct the problems.

review questions
 

 

The questions are now uploaded into WebCT.  The Category name you specified during the conversion is now the Category name for where the questions are stored.  To modify a question, click on the Question title (i.e., Question #1 (Sequence #: 1)), make the changes and click 'Save'.

 

The next step is to Add the Questions and Release the Quiz.

 

questions uploaded
 


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