All forms of added security will make it harder to access something (intended or not); it’s another hoop to jump though and some students may not be able to reliably jump through those hoops.
You’ll need to keep a balance of accessibility and security in mind when adding security measures of any kind.
Make each attempt different so it’s harder for students to discuss an individual question within a quiz. This can discourage cheating but also makes it more difficult to hold course discussions over specific questions.
NOTE: Some of these settings are the default in our Sample High-Stakes Exam that you can import into your own course from the Sample Quiz Container Course in Moodle.
Gives each student the same questions but in a different order throughout the quiz.
Student A sees Example Question as the first question quiz attempt.
Student B sees Example Question as the seventh question in their quiz attempt.
Student A makes a second attempt at the quiz and sees Example Question as the last question asked.
Cannot be used for quizzes that require ANY questions be asked in a particular order
Place the non-ordered questions ONLY as random from a pool (see below)
Pull a set of questions at random from a Question Bank Category for each attempt ensuring a set number of different questions and order on a topic or chapter.
You’ve created a Question bank category for Chapter 1 with 30 questions in it. Within the quiz you add 5 of those questions at random. Each attempt will have 5 questions at random.
May accidentally break the Quiz as you delete questions from a category and, for example, try to pull 10 random questions from a category which now has only 8 questions in it
Always preview a quiz before you ask your students to take it.
See our article for Adding random questions to a quiz
Prevents memorizing letter answers to multiple choice quiz questions
Attempts at remembering that “the question about quails is always ‘C'” no longer reliably works. The correct answer can now be a different letter on each attempt
Will randomly order “all of the above” answers and make “both A and B” answers ineffective.
NOTE: “All of the above” answers are not best practice.
Change Multiple Choice questions to Multiple answers alllowed to require more than one answer to be selected (for full credit)
While this is enabled by default it can be enabled on either a quiz OR a question level.
NOTE: This will override the Quiz level default!
You create multiple versions of the same basic assessment (such as a Quiz or Assignment activity). You may have students choose their own path or assign them at random to a specific group with each ONLY able to see their given path.
Creating three (3) random groups in your course and providing each with a unique starter file that use Restrict access so only members of that group can see (students cannot tell they are in a group at all unless you create a group-choice or use those same groups in a forum)
Consider NOT mentioning A, B, or C in the file name, this can tip students off before they gain access and also be confuse them into thinking there is more than one part that they are expected to accomplish.
Great for practicing a mathematical process to ensure students know their formulas or conversion rates. A Calculated question asks the same basic question with different values called Wildcards that Moodle can help you generate semi-random values for.
A question that asks “Calculate the area of a rectangle with a base of 4 and a height of 19” on one attempt but “Calculate the area of a rectangle with a base of 8 and a height of 9” on another. Where 4 and 19 are one pair of wildcards and 8 and 9 are another pair out of many quickly generated sets.
This is an upfront-heavy setup and there are a lot of moving parts. Ensure you use the Formula variables in the Question text or students won’t be able to see what values they’re working with.
Calculated questions are very reliant on Question bank categories to store datasets/wildcards, be very mindful if you move things around in your question bank.
Be sure to preview your questions multiple times and display the datasets before you call a Calculated question done and ask students to work with them.
For more information see Moodle’s article on Calculated questions.
Essay questions can be used to assess higher-order thinking and problem solving skills, such as critical reflection and analysis. By asking students to make their own judgements on appropriate criteria or demonstrate they can combine concepts students have to give a personalized response.
For some ideas on question starters for quality Essay questions see the higher levels of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy – Question Starters, it demonstrates how Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used to align assessments with identified learning outcomes—with different questions prompting different levels of learning demonstration.
Asking a student to write their response to a question like “What criteria would you use to assess __?” or “How would you generate a plan to ___?” requires the student to provide a response unique to them that is difficult to answer without a real understanding of the content.
Students may not have a camera or scanner on hand for scratch papers DURING the attempt or may not have pre-scanned or photographed their note sheets before going into a timed assessment.
Warn students ahead of time to take a picture of their notes and/or include opportune time (and again, a warning) for a student to take a picture or scan of their document and attach it. An separate assignment activity without a major time restriction may be the best choice for this if you’ve applied a time limit to your quiz attempt.
Collect a picture of a student’s scratch paper, notes, or other working documents as proof of original work.
The final question in a Quiz is an Essay question with a file-upload asking for students to submit an image of their note sheet as taken or a separate Assignment activity offered immediately after the quiz in your course to collect said file.
Students may not have a camera or scanner on hand for scratch papers DURING the attempt or may not have pre-scanned or photographed their note sheets before going into a timed assessment.
Warn students ahead of time to take a picture of their notes and/or include opportune time (and again, a warning) for a student to take a picture or scan of their document and attach it. An separate assignment activity without a major time restriction may be the best choice for this if you’ve applied a time limit to your quiz attempt.
NOTE: every time you try to lock something down… A) the harder some folks may fight to get around it, and B) the bigger a barrier it is for struggling students to cross, even when they are following the rules.
Set a time limit by date and/or session length to reduce the chance of a student looking up answers to questions they should have memorized.
Making a quiz only available on a May 6 from 4-6PM and/or the student will only have a single 20 minute attempt within that window.
Disability accommodations and personal emergencies may require additional or different timing for a few students.
You can apply extra time, attempts, or a new time window on a case-by-case basis by applying a User Override to a quiz.
From the Moodle 3.8 Documentation: Full screen pop-up with some JavaScript security
There is a limit to what the quiz, which runs on a web server, can do to restrict what the student sitting at their computer can do while attempting the quiz. However, this option does what is possible:
Enabling this in a Quiz will make it harder for students to change to other tabs or windows in their web browser as well as harder to copy/paste text.
Depending on what you are asking your students to do, they may NEED to copy and paste materials or reference files like PDFs or upload their own. Do NOT use this setting if you may need these sorts of references and/or consider building key context from a document into the quiz question as plain text.
This is not perfect security and cannot compare to a fully proctored environment, there is a limit on how much a web browser can limit on a personal computer. It will NOT prevent use of other devices like taking pictures with their phone and may not even prevent screenshots from being taken of quiz content
Pair or replace this method with another option to make cheating less worth-while/easy-to-do by Mixing It Up and creating manual variants on a question or using Calculated questions. Do not provide or point students to external files but place the needed information in the question as inline text.
