Add a new question: MS Excel

Step-by-step instructions on how to add a new question of the MS Excel type

This article describes how you can add a new question of MS Excel type, to your biz:Examiner authoring environment.

For running this question in an exam, the biz:Guard lockdown client on a MS Windows system with full installed MS Office is required. If you are unsure about the prerequisites of this question type, contact your bizExaminer admin.

Adding a new question is common across all question types. To see how to add a new question, see Add a new question.

Add new MS Excel type question

In the MS Excel type questions, the participants can answer a descriptive type question directly in an instance of MS Excel. The users are prompted to commence the question, which will open an Excel instance within their lockdown browser environment. Participants answer the question in this Excel instance, including complex formulas and calculations. Once they save and close the Excel window, the data will be stored as an answer to their question, and during the marking process this excel file is verified against the expected results for the question asked. This question types supports answering complex questions leveraging multiple tabs in Excel.

To add a new MS Excel type question, follow the steps below.

Select ‘MS Excel’ as the question type. The ‘New question’ dialog box opens that shows the question type as ‘MS Excel’.
In ‘Title’, write the title of this question. This title appears in the list of topics.
In ‘Language’, select a language that you want to use in the question.
In ‘Tags’, write one or more tags for this question. Adding the tags is optional and these tags can be the keywords for this question that you can use to search a question anytime.
Click on ‘Create’ to save this new question. You can click on ‘Back’ to select another type of question to get started.

When a new question is added to the list of topics, a yellow color icon shows in the topic title. It means that the question is not activated.

Complete the question details and advanced settings

The ‘Question text’ tab

The ‘Question text’ tab is selected by default. Write the question text here.

Text editor for formatting

A text editor is available to format the question content for styling options. Please see Common reference to add a new question: Using text editor, for the detailed instructions.

The menu options

The text editor shows a menu bar where a set of menus show you the basic text editor options, and a few additional and advanced actions to set up the right structure of the questions’ text as required. Please see Common reference to add a new question: Using menus, for the detailed instructions.

Instruction

You have an option to add an instruction for this question. Instructions are common for the same question types. If another ‘Coding’ type question already has one or more instructions in any language, these instructions are available in this new coding type question in the same language, for your use.

Click on the ‘Edit’ icon and the ‘Edit instructions’ dialog box opens.
Click on ‘Add instruction’.
In ‘Language’, select a language for the instruction text.
In ‘Instruction text’ write the content for the instruction.
Click on ‘Save’ to save this instruction.

Follow the same steps to add more instructions and you can select any one instruction, anytime when you edit this question.

The ‘MS Excel file’ tab

To use a MS Excel sheet for this question, upload an xlsm file in the ‘Media/Resources’ tab. Please see Add a new question for details on how to use the ‘Media/Resources’ tab.

After you upload the MS Excel file:

Select the ‘MS Excel file’ tab and reload the page.
If you uploaded multiple spreadsheets in the ‘Media/Resources’ tab, select the worksheet that you want to use for this question.

The ‘Answers’ tab

Use this tab to set up the conditions and the answers matching options for the participants.

Click on ‘Insert answer at the beginning’ or ‘Insert answer at the end’ to insert a new answer in the respective question.

In ‘Sheet’, select the spreadsheet from the selected MS Excel file for the corresponding answer.

In ‘Cell reference’, write the cell number in the sheet where the related answer has to be.

Set up answer types

In ‘Answer type’, select an option for the answer type.

Select ‘Text’ when the given answer should be evaluated as text. Click on ‘Add correct answer’ to add the correct text answer against which the participant’s answer is matched. For the text answer, the options to match the answer are:

Select ‘Must match exactly’ to match the exact answer. For example, matching ‘hands’ with ‘hand’ will be considered as an incorrect answer.
Select ‘Must occur’ to match the participants’ response with the correct answer, even partially.
And, select ‘Case sensitive’ if you want to match the actual answer with the participants’ response for the letter case as well.

Click on ‘Add correct answer’ to add another correct answer, and follow the same steps to define custom settings to match the answers.

Select ‘Exact number’ when the given answer should be evaluated as a number. Click on ‘Add correct answer’ to add the correct number answer against which the participant’s answer is matched.

Select ‘Number range’ to evaluate the given answer against a range of numbers. Click on ‘Add correct answer’ to add the two values that set up the range of numbers against which the participant’s answer is matched.

Set up correct answers

Click on ‘Add correct answer’ to add the correct answer for the cell.

When you write the correct answer against which the participants’ response is matched to evaluate their exam, you can define advanced settings for how the response is matched.

In ‘Correct answers’, write the correct answer for this blank space.

Select ‘Must match exactly’ to match the exact answer. For example, matching ‘hands’ with ‘hand’ will be considered as an incorrect answer.
Select ‘Must occur’ to match the participants’ response with the correct answer, even partially.
And, select ‘Case sensitive’ if you want to match the actual answer with the participants’ response for the letter case as well.

Click on ‘Add correct answer’ to add another correct answer, and follow the same steps to define custom settings to match the answers.

If you set up two or more correct answers for the same cell, the participants’ response is matched to any of these answers. For example, you can use this option to give them choices for a correct answer.

Assign points for correct answers

For each cell, select ‘Points if correct’ for the correct response to the corresponding cell.

Add more answer statements

Click on ‘Insert answer at the beginning’ or ‘Insert answer at the end’ to add more answers, as required.

Additional options for each answer statement

For each answer, you have options to:

Edit: Click on the ‘Edit’ icon to change the answer, if required.
Re-order: Click on the up arrow or down arrow icon to change the sequence or order of the answers.
Delete: Click on the ‘Cross’ icon to remove the answer.

There is no preview available for this type of question due to the system requirements.

The ‘Options’ tab

Evaluation settings

The ‘Evaluation settings’ enable you to set up point scoring settings for the question.

Points settings

In ‘Negative points possible’: Select ‘Yes’ if the participants can secure negative points for this question and select ‘No’ if the participants cannot secure negative points for this question.
In ‘Define max points for question’: Select ‘Yes’ to set up a max points that participants can score for this question, and select ‘No’ if there is no max points limit.
In ‘Ignore question in result calculation when not answered’: Select ‘Yes’ if you want that the points scored in this question are not included in the exam result, if the question is not answered. For example, if the exam settings mean that an unanswered question invites some negative score. In that case, this setting here in ‘Ignore question in result calculation when now allowed’ enables you to bypass that exam setting.

General settings

In ‘Show info overlay when jumping to the question’, you can add and use information overlays to add additional messages. For example, a tooltip like help text for the participants when they are in an exam. Please see Common reference to add new question: Using info overlays for more details.

Select ‘Show question text in split panel (not available in preview)’ to show the info overlay in the area that splits different questions.

The other tabs

For the instructions on the ‘Options’ tab, the ‘Feedback’ tab, the ‘Media/Resources’ tab, the ‘Information’ tab, the ‘Topics’ tab, and the ‘Preview’ tab, please see Add a new question for details.

Save options

Click on ‘Save’ to save these details in the question. When you use the ‘Save’ option, the question does not impact the exam if it is added to an exam. In a way, the question is saved as a draft and you can add it to an exam, anytime.
Click on ‘Save and activate’ to save the question, and to activate it. This means that the question is locked now and is ready to be added to an exam. If you make any changes in the question or its settings after you use ‘Save and activate’, the question is saved as the next revision for an exam.