Frequently Asked Questions
Installation
- What password should I enter when installing?
- Why am I unable to install the software?
- Why am I getting a security error when I run Questionmark for the first time?
Using Authoring Manager
- What is the address that I need to connect to the repositories?
- Why does my assessment look strange, with broken images, when I preview it in authoring manager?
- Can I use multimedia resources in my questions?
Scheduling and delivery
- Even though I have set up my assessment to allow multiple attempts, why does it only allow my students to have one?
- Why can't I see my assessment when I try to schedule it?
- Can participants who are not members of Leeds University access my assessments?
- My students are being told by the system that they have no more attempts, but say they have not yet submitted their assessment.
Blackboard
Installation
You should enter 'perception4' (all lower case) when installing Questionmark Authoring Manager or Service Packs.
It may be that you do not have the necessary permissions on your PC to install the software. In this case, you will need to contact your local IT support to assist you, as the Questionmark support team are unable to alter security permissions on the network.
This error sometimes appears if you do not have full permissions to the C:\Program Files\... folder. Contact your local IT support team, who should be able to configure the permissions correctly for you.
Using Authoring Manager
The address of the staging server is tcp://www.qmstaging.leeds.ac.uk:7800 and the address of the live server is tcp://www.qmlive.leeds.ac.uk:7800.
Previewing assessments within Authoring Manager does not always give a true representation of how your assessment will look to your students. Resources such as images and templates do not always load properly. The best way to get a real idea of the look of your assessment is to use the 'Tryout' facility within Enterprise Manager, or connect to the assessment directly (although remember that if you run the assessment on the live server as a test, you may have to filter out any test results when you request reports after the assessment has completed.Yes, within an assessment you can use images, video, audio, flash and drag and drop etc.
Scheduling and delivery
- Even though I have set up my assessment to allow multiple attempts, why does it only allow my students to have one?
One common reason for this is that the Schedule has the 'Limit days between attempts' option checked. When creating a new assessment, this defaults to checked, with a value of 1, which means that students will have to wait one day before they attempt an assessment for a second time. To avoid this, ensure that the 'Limit days between attempts' option is not checked.
Another potential reason is that the schedule may have been created for an entire group, rather than for each participant within a group. When one schedule is created for the whole group (i.e. the 'Create schedule for each participant' checkbox is not checked when creating the schedule), the number of attempts allowed is applied to all participants i.e. if the number of attempts is limited to 3, then only three students will be able to attempt the assessment.
The most common reason for this is that the assessment has not been transferred onto the live server. Ensure that the assessment is on the live server before continuing.
Yes, although a standard student Questionmark username is the same as the individual's ISS username, a Questionmark account can be created for participants who do not have an ISS account. As assessments are delivered via the internet there is no restriction on the physical location of the participant. Please contact the Questionmark support team if you would like us to create Questionmark accounts for non-Leeds University participants.
- My students are being told by the system that they have no more attempts, but say they have not yet submitted their assessment.
Within Questionmark, each time a participant views an assessment this is counted as an attempt, even if no submission takes place. Therefore, if you set up
your assessment to have limited attempts, it is possible that your students may use up all their attempts by viewing the assessment a number of times, without
realising that the number of remaining attempts is being reduced. This is particularly likely to cause confusion when scheduling within Blackboard, as
students will not have to log in separately to access the assessment, and may click on the assessment link without meaning to.
To avoid confusion, we would recommend that you make use of one of the following
strategies when scheduling:
- Set up your assessment to have unlimited attempts (or at least a large number), but clearly inform your students that only their first X attempts will be counted. These separate attempts will be discernable within any report that you request from the Questionmark support team, and will also be visible within Gradebook. Within the Blackboard scheduling screen, you can choose whether you would like the first, last, best, worst or average result to be displayed within Gradebook. If none of these are appropriate to you, you may wish to ensure that the Gradebook grades for this assessment are not available to the students via 'My Grades', to avoid the potential for confusion.
- Limit the attempts, but clearly inform your students of the number of attempts
that they have, and that as soon as they click on the assessment link
this will count as an attempt. When adding your Questionmark Assessment
to a Blackboard module, we recommend that you add the text below to 'Additional
Comments'
in 'Options' (this field appears after you have selected your Questionark
Assessment):
"Please note that each time you view the assessment this will count as an attempt, even if no submission takes place."
Please note that we would always recommend that you allow participants at least two attempts at your assessments, in case of technical problems.
Page owner: help@vles.leeds.ac.uk