Elearning Tutorial:

Question Overview

Creating questions and assigning answers

In this part of the tutorial, we will explore how to use to set up answers for individual questions, assign scores so that we can later use the automatic scoring calculations which Opus Pro provides to display and assess the results.

>Creating A Multiple Choice Question

One of the most common types of question used in elearning is the single-answer multiple choice question. This is a question where several answers are provided only one answer is correct. A variation is the multiple choice question with more than one answer which is covered by the MultiResponse question type. Let's assume that we want to create a multiple choice question which asks "What is the collective noun for a group of owls?"

Create a Multiple Choice Question following the process outlined in the previous tutorial:

  1. Click the arrow alongside the Question tool
  2. Select the Multiple Choice question type from the list which appears
  3. The palette to the right will update with the designs available. Select the preset design you want to use. We are using the one with the following thumbnail
  4. Position to cursor where you want the top left corner to be and click. Note that most designs are full page so we recommend you click close to the top left corner of your page.

Select all of the Question text and replace it by typing our question. Then select the secondary text and replace that with further instructions something like: "Click on the button below which is the correct name for a group of owls." Note that the template already has a piece of text telling the user to choose only one answer but you could delete that and put it here if preferred.

Your page will looks something like this.

Creating the Multiple Choice Answers

In this template the answers are provided as radio buttons (this automatically allows only one selection) and we've used some of the new component graphics supplied with Opus Pro v8 as the graphics. Note that these graphics come in different widths to allow room for the caption to appear to the right (you can tell the intended width from the filename).

Select each answer in turn and edit the caption to reflect the answer you want to offer the user. Although this template already has a correct answer set up we will ignore that for the purpose of this tutorial so put any answer on any button. The correct answer is Parliament, but let's also offer Flock and then some red herrings such as Watch, Wisdom, Charm, Herd.

Now, make sure you have selected the Question frame and then double-click (or right click and select Properties) to bring up the Properties dialog.

You will notice that the first and second entries have already got ticks in the final column indicating that they are to be marked as correct. The first is given a score of one and the second is given a score of two. We want something slightly different than the preset but this is a good place to start. We will want to award 2 points for "Parliament".

Let's make the first answer our correct answer.

Click in the Name box for Answer 1 and type "correct answer". Note that we do not need to put "parliament" here as this is only used internally. The answer the user will choose is already on a button caption. We could use "parliament" if we want, perhaps as an aide memo-ire, or even "best answer - parliament".

Next click in the score box and use the spin buttons to amend the score to 2.00

Edit the name and score against Answer 2 to be "incorrect answer" and change the score to no points.

Finally click on the tick in the end column. The graphic switches to a cross to indicate the answer is now deemed incorrect.

Press Apply to set you changes or press OK to apply your changes and close the dialog.

Now although we have six possible answers in this question only one of them is right. Unless we want to monitor the specific answer the user gave we don't need the six answers set up in the template so let's delete them. Click once in the name panel for Answer 3 and note that the index number drops down to show the answer is selected. In the mini toolbar to the right click on the button with the A and a minus sign and the answer will be removed.

Repeat this for each of the other answers.

Choosing the Answers

Now let's connect the buttons the user will use to make their choice to the answers we've just set up.

Double-click on whichever button you typed the correct caption on and go to the Actions tab. You will note that a set of Actions is already set up to be triggered when the button in question is down. Select the Set User Answer action and the Set User Answer tab will appear. If there were more than one question on our page we would need to use the drop down list to select the question we want to set an answer for but in this case it's already done for us.

When we set the answers in the previous section we chose answer 1 as our correct answer so we need this button to select answer 1. Click on the spin buttons to change the answer index number to "1".

As this question only allows the user to make one choice we need to ensure that when the button is no longer selected (because another choice has been made) Opus Pro does not still think that answer has been set. The Reset User Answer does this. In this case we need to set the Button Up trigger to Reset the User Answer and attach that action to answer 1 by using the spin buttons just as we did to set the answer in the first place.

Now select any button with an incorrect answer and follow the same procedure above but use the spin buttons to set the answer index for both Set user Answer and Reset User Answer to 2 as this was the index we set up for an incorrect answer.

Repeat this process for all the incorrect answers.

Now if you preview the publication you can select and reselect any of the answers. If you then press the Submit button the appropriate feedback will be shown and the answer buttons will be disabled. In the following tutorial we will look at how this is done.

tutorial on using the Opus Pro Question object - introduction