Exam Files
The software reads most common exam formats without modification. Just make sure your students fill in their student id.
With rare exception, providing the software the exam output file will 'just work.' In all cases, you need to provide the exam results in CSV format - which is the default in most cases. The following describes how the software determines the exam format.
Scantron Format
The software assumes Scantron formatted exam files have the following characteristics:
The first row is the answer key
The second column is the student id
The third column of the first row specifies the number of questions
The fourth column and higher are the student answers
The software will compare the answer key (first row) to each student's answer thereby determining if the student correctly answered the question.
Canvas Format
If the file is in Canvas Student Analysis format (under Quiz Statistics), the program assumes it has the following characteristics.
The first row of the file specifies the column names.
There is a column named 'attempt'.
The column 'id' or 'sis_id' contain the student ids. If both exist, 'sis_id' will be used.
Students receive some positive number of points when they answer correct. If they receive fewer than these points, the software will assume they answered incorrect.
ZipGrade, Quick Key, Moodle, and Akindi Format
If the exam files are ZipGrade/Quick Key/Moodle/Akindi formatted, the software assumes the files have the following characteristics:
The first row of the file specifies the column names
There is a column named 'id', 'student id', 'external id', 'id number', or 'zipgrade id' specifying a unique id number for each student
Each exam question column is named 'Q' followed by the question number (e.g. 'Q67' for question 67). Additional information in the column name is ignored.
In each question column cell, a positive number indicates the student answered it correct and {'0', ' ', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'} indicates the student got the question wrong. Both ZipGrade and Quick Key place a '1' in any cell where the student correctly answered the question. ZipGrade places a '0' in any cell where the student got it wrong while Quick Key puts the (incorrect) student response ({' ', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'}). Akindi's columns are the same but the values differ.
If the column 'Grade' exists in the input file, the program will assume the 'Q' columns are in Akindi's format. Each cell containing {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'} will be marked correct while all other values will be counted as incorrect. Akindi places the response in each cell of the column; if the response is incorrect, the response is wrapped in parentheses.
Note that ZipGrade's standard output format complies with characteristics above. ZipGrade's full output format does not and is incompatible with the program.
Google Forms Quizzes
Google Forms quizzes are slightly different than the other formats highlighted here as Forms do not have question numbers and student ids aren't automatically collected. This results in two important points to keep in mind:
The instructor must place a student id question on the quiz. This column can be named 'id', 'student id', 'external id', or 'id number'. The question doesn't need to be worth a positive number of points.
The question number is implied by the order of the questions on the Form.
The responses can be downloaded from the responses tab, more section (three dots), or download responses (.csv). The software will assume any question worth a positive number of points is a quiz question. Other questions will be ignored.
Blackboard Format
In some Blackboard installs, the instructor can download comma separated by question and user. This support is considered experimental as the format seems to vary by institution. The program assumes the following:
There are columns named 'Question ID', 'Possible Points', 'Auto Score', and 'Manual Score'.
Either a column for id ('id', 'student id', 'external id', or 'id number') or username ('username') appears in the file.
The values in the 'Question ID' column end with a numerical value representing the question number (e.g. 'Question ID 14').
Custom Format
If your exam software is not currently supported, you can create a custom exam spreadsheet with a column for student id followed by columns for each question. An example spreadsheet might look like the following:
id
Q1
Q2
Q3
10001
1
0
1
10002
0
1
0
10003
1
1
1
Where "1" indicates the student answered the question correct and "0" indicates the student did not answer the question correct.
Last updated