Create Quiz guide

1. Turn Edit mode on.
2. Open the section where you want the Quiz to display.
3. Select Add an activity or resource. From the Recommended tab, select Quiz.

1. Give the Quiz a meaningful Name.
2. In the Description, explain clearly what the students have to do, any pre-quiz requirements and so on. Note you can use the Editor to add links and images if necessary. Select the checkbox to Display description on module page.
3. You then need to choose a number of settings as described below and select Save and display to then add questions to your Quiz.

For academic year 2024/25, examinations of a qualitative nature should take place in a four to six-hour fixed assessment window on Moodle, with the indicative length being timed from the point at which the examination is started by the individual student. The fixed assessment window should ideally take place between 8am – 6pm UK time to ensure students receive technical support.

For academic year 2024/25, examinations of a quantitative nature should have an additional half hour allowed over and above the indicative length to support technological access.

Open and Close the Quiz

If you want students to complete the Quiz during a particular time period, tick the Enable box alongside the Open and Close the quiz date fields and set the relevant dates and times. This dates display on the module page for students.

Set a time limit

Set a Time limit for the Quiz if required. Ensure you tick the Enable box first. 

The Quiz close time takes priority over the timer. This means that if you have set your Quiz to be open for an hour between 10-11am and apply a 60 minute timer, that students won't have a full 60 minutes to complete the Quiz as they will lose some time opening the Quiz and accepting the timer confirmation.

When time expires

This setting controls what happens if the student fails to submit their quiz attempt before the time limit expires. This setting defaults to Open attempts are submitted automatically. This ensures that students' attempts are not stuck in a never-submitted state and left ungraded. If you are rolling over Quiz activities, please ensure that you select the setting Open attempts are submitted automatically for timed quizzes.

Other options within this setting are:

•  Attempts must be submitted before time expires, or they are not counted. This setting means that if students do not select the Submit button prior to the timer running out that their Quiz will remain in a never-submitted state and cannot be graded
• There is a grace period when open attempts can be submitted, but not more questions answered. This enables the student to go to the summary page and select the submit button. If they submit within the grace period, their attempt is counted. If a grace period is given, you need to set how long will be provided from the under Submission grace period setting.

Grade category

If grade categories have been set up within the Grades area in the module, you can choose which category the Quiz should appear in using the Grade category option. For example, you might have a Formative category with a weight of 0 (so that it does not contribute to the Course total) and you can add all diagnostic and formative quizzes to this category.

Grade to pass

This setting allows the minimum grade required to pass to be added. The value is used in activity and course completion, and in the gradebook, where pass grades are highlighted in green and fail grades in red.

Attempts allowed

Choose how many attempts at the Quiz students are allowed with the Attempts allowed option.

Grading method

If the student is allowed more than one attempt, you need to choose how the attempt will be graded with the Grading options setting. You can choose to use the highest grade, the average grade, first attempt or last attempt.

New page

For longer quizzes, it makes sense to break the Quiz over several pages by selecting a new page for every question or  a new page for every 2 or 3 questions.  Moving between pages also forces the Quiz to save progress. When adding questions to the Quiz, page breaks will automatically be inserted according to this setting. However, page breaks may later be moved manually on the quiz editing page.

Navigation method

Select Show more to display the Navigation method option. This can be set either to Free or Sequential. Free navigation allows the student to skip forwards and backwards in the Quiz. Sequential forces them to attempt the questions sequentially without being able to go back to a previous question or skip to a later one.

Shuffle within questions

This setting allows the response options to be randomly shuffled each time a student attempts the Quiz, provided the option is also enabled in the question settings. This setting only applies to questions that have multiple parts, such as multiple choice or matching questions.

How questions behave

The three most commonly used options for this setting are:

• Deferred feedback: Students enter an answer to each question and then submit the entire Quiz before anything is graded or they get any feedback.
• Interactive with multiple tries: Allows students to submit each question as they go along to get immediate feedback, and if they do not get it right immediately, have another try for fewer marks.
• CBM (Certainty Based Marking or Confidence Based Marking): Students do not only answer the question, but they also indicate how sure they are that they have got the question right. The grading is adjusted by the choice certainty, so that students have to reflect honestly on their own level of knowledge in order to get the best mark. For example, if a student answers a question they also have to state how sure they are of the answer: not very (less than 67%); fairly (more than 67%) or very (more than 80%). Their grading is then adjusted according to how certain they are, which means that for example if they answered correctly but were only guessing, their mark is adjusted from 1 to 0.33.

Each attempt builds on the last

Select Show more to see this option. If multiple attempts are allowed and this setting is enabled, each new Quiz attempt will contain the results of the previous attempt. This allows a Quiz to be completed over several attempts.

This setting controls what information students can see at different stages of the Quiz process when they review a Quiz attempt or look at the Quiz reports.

• During the attempt: These options are only relevant for some behaviours, like 'interactive with multiple tries,' which may display feedback during the attempt.
• Immediately after the attempt: These options apply within 2 minutes after Submit all and finish is selected by a student.
• Later, while the quiz is still open: These options apply after 2 minutes has passed since Quiz submission, but before the close date (if the quiz does not have a close date, this phase never ends).
• After the quiz is closed - settings apply after the quiz close date has passed. If the quiz does not have a close date, this state is never reached.

Turnitin can be enabled for essay style questions within a Quiz. If used, do not select to display similarity to students as this does not work, and do not attempt to use Feedback Studio for marking as marks will not be returned to the Quiz activity.

You cannot enable this setting after the quiz has been attempted.

Turnitin report generation speed options

This setting controls how quickly and how often Similarity Reports are generated.

• Generate reports immediately. Submissions will be added to the repository immediately (if repository is set). Note: Students cannot resubmit.
• Generate reports immediately. Submissions will be added to the repository on the due date (if repository is set). Note: Students can resubmit. After three resubmissions, reports will generate after 24 hours.
• Generate reports on due date. Submissions will be added to the repository on the due date (if repository is set). Note: Students can resubmit until the due date.

Appearance

These options enable you to choose whether to show the users' picture during an attempt, how many decimal places should be displayed for grades available for questions, and whether selected blocks can be shown to the student during a quiz attempt.

Safe Exam Browser

We do not currently recommend the use of the Safe Exam Browser.  It can restrict access to keyboard shortcuts and assistive technology software that students need to use to access the Quiz. 

Extra restrictions on attempts

These options allow you to set restrictions on how students access the Quiz. They are not generally used.

Overall feedback

Overall feedback is shown to a student after they have completed an attempt at the quiz. The feedback that is displayed can depend on the grade the student got. 

For example, if you enter:

Grade boundary: 100%

Feedback: Well done

Grade boundary: 40%

Feedback: Please study this week's work again

Grade boundary: 0%

Then students who score between 100% and 40% will see the Well done feedback, and those who score between 39.99% and 0% will see Please study this week's work again. 

Common module settings

These settings relate to visibility of the Quiz activity.

You can use the Restrict access settings to control the availability of content and activities based on one or more conditions, including date and group. 

Activity completion allows you to set completion criteria for a specific activity or resource.

Activities or resources with a completion criteria display a circle next to them in the Module index. The circle turns green (and is filled in) when the student meet the criteria. On the main module page, a tick and the word "done" appears against the item when the student meets the criteria. This helps students manage their progress on a module and staff can easily review student engagement and progress against key activities.

You can combine Restrict access and Activity completion to provide structured pathways through your module.

Apply the settings

1. Open the activity or resource.
2. Select Settings from the contextual navigation menu above the module name. This opens the activity settings.
3. Change the settings required.
4. Select Save and return to module to save any changes made.

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