Instructor-created questions are custom items designed by instructors for use on their exams. Given the nature of self-created content, errors or missed steps can occasionally occur. The troubleshooting guide below is designed to assist you with any issues that may arise when adding custom questions to an exam.
Contents:
A. Edit Question:
In order to troubleshoot your question, you will first need to edit the question through Manage Questions.
1. Log in and select your Instructor role for Testing. To review your questions, click the Manage Questions link in your red toolbar.
2. Locate your question and click edit. From your Question Search page, you can either utilize the search field or click through your pages to locate the questions that you are having issues pulling onto a test.
A color-coding system is available for the questions to help identify potential hang-ups.
- Yellow: Questions that appear in yellow have the status of either Pilot, Approved, or Draft. Questions with this status cannot be pulled onto a new test.
- Red: Questions that appear in red have the status of Disabled. Questions with this status cannot be pulled onto a new test.
- Green: Questions that appear in green have the status of Active. Questions with this status can be pulled onto a new test.
B. Troubleshooting:
Question Status: Make sure your question is marked as active. If it has a disabled status, you can change it by going to the Properties tab and selecting Active from the Status dropdown.
Correct Provider Level: If the wrong provider level is selected in the curriculum, the question will not show up in an exam of the desired provider level.
Keyword: If you are trying to use a keyword to pull questions onto your exam, check that your keyword is spelled correctly (capitalization matters) and that there are no invisible spaces at the start or end of the word. If you're unsure, you can always add additional keywords to the question.
- Example: As shown below, 2 keywords have been added to the same question. One is "airway1", all lowercase, no space between the word and the number. The second is "Airway 1", capital A and a space between the word and the number. The system is looking for an exact match, so these small differences will affect whether the question is pulled onto an exam.
Question Reference ID: These are assigned to questions to help differentiate them, and questions can also be searched by these references. If you are trying to locate a question(s) by this method, please check to make sure the ID is exact as you are entering it when searching in the exam. The search box is case sensitive and counts all spaces as characters.
You will want to check that there are no invisible spaces before or after the ID and that the keyword you are entering in the test is exactly the same as what is in the reference ID box. The system is looking for an exact match, so any difference will affect whether the question is pulled onto an exam.
Check Exam Search Criteria: If all the settings listed above are set up correctly, your question should be available to pull into a test. If you are still experiencing problems, it may be due to your test settings or search criteria.
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Provider Level: The provider level of the test you are creating must match the provider level you assigned to your questions.
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When you choose the provider level of a test on the Test Settings tab, the program is already sorting the potential questions to include only questions appropriate for that level. If you assigned a different level to your question, it will not be a potential option for this test.
- e.g.: EMT questions cannot be added to an AEMT exam.
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When you choose the provider level of a test on the Test Settings tab, the program is already sorting the potential questions to include only questions appropriate for that level. If you assigned a different level to your question, it will not be a potential option for this test.
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Question Bank: Make sure you are choosing the appropriate bank.
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When you are selecting your search criteria, whether you are utilizing Pull Questions By Curriculum or Pull Questions By Text, Keyword, or ID, make sure you are changing the Question Bank drop-down to either My questions or My Schools Questions. In the program, we keep your questions and our questions in separate banks. If you do not choose the appropriate bank, the system will be unable to locate your question.
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When you are selecting your search criteria, whether you are utilizing Pull Questions By Curriculum or Pull Questions By Text, Keyword, or ID, make sure you are changing the Question Bank drop-down to either My questions or My Schools Questions. In the program, we keep your questions and our questions in separate banks. If you do not choose the appropriate bank, the system will be unable to locate your question.