Latest revision: 2022-01-24

Auto-corrected tests can be a good way for the students to test their knowledge in a certain area. By conducting a self-test, the students can gain insight for what to learn and what they have missed to learn.

Auto-corrected tests can also be used for grading, but there are limits in what knowledge can be graded. If the distractors (incorrect answer alternatives) are developed in a poor way, it's easy for the students to guess the correct answer. In this case, it's better to use questions that require problem-solving, reasoning answers and variations of examination formats.

When creating an auto-corrected test, you can choose between "Practice Quiz" and "Graded Quiz". The results for graded quizzes will be shown in your Grades so that you easily can see how many points each student received. Pratice quizzes though are not shown in Grades. It's possible to see the students' results student by student, and in addition to this you can also see the quiz statistics about how many students answered correctly to the different questions. In that way, you can easily see what you might need to focus on in your lectures.

Step 1 - Add a quiz

It's possible to add a quiz via "Quiz" in your course menu. Though we recommend you to add it directly into your modules so that the quiz is embedded into your course material.

Add a quiz.

Click on the "+"-button to add material to your module.
Choose "Quiz" and then "Create Quiz"
Choose your Quiz Engine, "Classic Quizzes" or "New Quizzes"
Give your quiz a name.
Click on "Add Item".

Please note: the availability for New Quizzes might be restricted for your institution. For some institutions, you will find the option to activate it in your course settings "Feature options".

Step 2 - Edit the quiz settings

Edit quiz.

Click on the quiz' name to access it, then click on "Edit". Ensure to open the tab "Details". There you can find many settings for your quiz.

Quiz type: Here you can choose between "Graded quiz" and "Practice quiz".

Assignment group: You don't need to choose an assignment group in case you don't use them to weight your results.

Shuffle answers: This setting will shuffle the order in which the answer alternatives are shown. This is useful to minimize the risk for cheating or that students just learn the order of the alternatives when conducting a practice quiz several times.

Time limit: Amount of minutes that a student has for the quiz from the moment he/she has opened it. In case some of your students need extra time, you can adjust this by "Moderate this quiz" (see below).

Allow multiple attempts: This is useful for practice quizzes so that you can ask students to do the quiz several times until they've answered correctly for all questions.

Let students see their quiz responses: This settings allows the student to see his/her answers after submitting the quiz. This can be combined with the setting to see the correct answers.

Show one question at a time: This setting will lead to that the students cannot go back to previous questions after they have answered, which can be an advantage for some quizzes and a disadvantage for other quizzes.

Quiz restrictions: Here you can ask for a quiz code that the students have to know to access the quiz or to allow only certain IP-addresses (for example if the students have to be on campus).

Assign: Here you can assign which students are allowed to conduct the quiz and during what time period. The setting Due is important because this indicates for the students when the quiz has to be submitted, but it's the settings Available from and Until that are the real time settings. If you set a date on Available from, the questions cannot be seen in advance.

Save: Don't forget to save your settings!

Step 3 - Add questions

New question.

Click on "Edit" and select the tab "Questions". Then click on "+ New Question".
Select a question type and add the question and answer alternatives.
IMPORTANT! Click on "Update question" before going to the next question.
Save & publish when all the questions have been added.

Tips! If you activate "Show question details" on top of the page, you can see the correct answers for all your questions.

There are several different question types. Three of them are very useful.

Multiple choice (one correct answer)

Multiple choice - one correct answer.

Question type: Multiple choice.
Adjust how many points this question is worth.
Add your question. You can even add images and films.
Add your answer alternatives. Hover with your mouse over the correct answer and click on the green arrow so that the text changes to "Correct answer".
Click on "Update question" when you are ready with this question.

Multiple answers (several alternatives have to be marked as correct)

Multiple answers.

Question type: Multiple answers.
Adjust how many points this question is worth.
Add your question. You can even add images and films.
Add your answer alternatives. Hover with your mouse over every correct answer and click on the green arrow so that the text changes to "Correct answer".
Click on "Update question" when you are ready with this question.

Fill in the blank

Fill in the blanks.

Question type: Fill in the blank.
Adjust how many points this question is worth.
Add your question. You can even add images and films.
Add the correct answer alternatives. If you for example allow answers in both singular and plural, you have to add both alternatives as correct answers.
Click on "Update question" when you are ready with this question.

Tips! If you want to accept an answer afterwards

In auto-corrected tests it might happen that you as a teacher haven't thought about all situations in advance, e.g. misspellings you want to accept or questions that might be interpreted in several ways. If you need to accept answers that were marked as incorrect by the auto-correct, you can change this in SpeedGrader. You can also add a comment to the student to clarify why you have adjusted the points for this questions.

Please note: if you choose to re-grade your quiz, your manual changes inside SpeedGrader will be lost.

Step 4 - Test your quiz

You can always test your quiz when it's ready to see if it works in the way you expect. There are two different ways to test:

Quick test: Click on preview (that button will be visible after you have saved your quiz).

More realistic test: Click on "Students view" on top of the page. You can test almost as a real student and all parts that are only visible for teachers will be hidden.

Extended time or extra tries

Several students might have the right to have extended time to conduct the quiz. It might also happen that a student had technical problems during a test and can prove it so that you as the teacher decide to give them a new try. These settings are easy to adjust in Canvas.

Moderate quiz.

Click on "Moderate this quiz". You will a list of all the students. Click on the pen next to a student's name to adjust extended time (the minutes will be added to the time limit you have set) or an extra try.