No Plans for a Mac Version
One of the questions we get occasionally is 'Will you be releasing a version of Question Writer for Mac?'. Unfortunately the answer is that there are no current plans to do this. Question Writer runs on the .NET platform which generally means it needs to run on Windows. Mac users who want to author quizzes on their hardware do have the option of running Question Writer using something called Parallels which allows Windows to run on the Mac hardware.
The Flash quizzes can be run on Macs with full internet capabilities - however they may not run on some of the newer partial internet devices (iPhone, iPad).
Posted by Alexander at 5:45 AM, February 1, 2010 | No Plans for a Mac Version| TrackBack (0)
Crosses and Ticks
Question Writer uses the same set of crosses and ticks in feedback for all the themes. If you'd like to use a different set, it's a little bit difficult, but you can do this by overwriting the .swf files in the
"C:\Program Files\Question Writer 3\Publishing\quizresources"
directory with your own Flash files.
However, if you haven't got your own set of Flash file, here's an alternative set of icons you can use. To use them, just unzip the file into the directory above, making sure that the older files are overwritten with the new ones.
Posted by Alexander at 12:16 AM, January 10, 2010 | Crosses and Ticks| TrackBack (0)
Use Tokens as Passwords
You'll notice today that a small Excel icon has appeared beside the tokens for each quiz.
You'll find that it is helpful to download your tokens (with links, ip addresses and start times) if you need to sort them or export them into another system.
You can also issue tokens to students rather than giving them the web link - the student can then enter the quiz number and token to log on to the quiz. This is helpful if you have a large number of students taking a quiz at the same time - you can direct them all to the same login page, and just give a different token to each student to use as a login password.
Here's the quiz login page address.
http://www.questionwritertracker.com/quiz/.
Posted by Alexander at 2:45 PM, December 17, 2009 | Use Tokens as Passwords| TrackBack (0)
Windows 7 Compatible
Just in case you were wondering - Question Writer is fully Windows 7 compatible. Indeed Question Writer runs faster under Windows 7 - try previewing or publishing under the new operating system, the compiler runs a much faster pace.
Posted by Alexander at 1:57 PM, November 26, 2009 | Windows 7 Compatible| TrackBack (0)
Collator 1.3
Here's an update for the Collator software. Collator 1.3.
You'll remember Collator is a PHP application that uses MySQL to store results collected from quizzes in your own database, on your own server. It can be run on its own, or in combination with the backup server to ensure that results are collected even if the server suffers failure.
Here's a changelog of what's new in Collator 1.3 -
* 1.3
* Changed Error Logging to remove uninteresting errors
*
* 1.2
* Added additional identifiers to the email where they are not blank
* Added change IP recorded when resultset comes from backup server
* Added additional Candidate fields written into userdata db fields
* Added fix to XML parsing to allow for special XML characters in ID, also remove spaces after special XML characters
* Added facility to check if e-mail is not provided directly, but referenced by an id
*
* 1.1.1
* Put all the Resultsets into a single SQL query to reduce processing time
* Added ReplyTo header to help with spam rating
* Added MIME header for e-mail to avoid MIME_HEADER_CTYPE_ONLY rating
* Added newline in table for each line - email was being rejected for having lines that were too long
* Externalized e-mail call
* Added duplicate result checking in LogXML function
* Set LogXML to false as a default
* Check PassFail value for PASS/FAIL value - set to pass if value not recognized
* Check for empty name/value pairs generated by old QW quizzes
Posted by Alexander at 2:34 PM, October 30, 2009 | Collator 1.3| TrackBack (0)
Pop-up Quiz Window
Question Writer Tracker now generates HTML code to create a pop-up window for your quiz. It's usually a good idea to use a pop-up window when linking to a quiz, as it will create maximum space, and removes the URL bar and the navigation buttons which can interfere with the quiz's own navigation.
Just visit the quiz page, and the HTML code is in the box at the bottom of the page. You can copy and paste the HTML code directly into your own webpage.
Posted by Alexander at 3:08 PM, October 14, 2009 | Pop-up Quiz Window| TrackBack (0)
Custom Error URLs
You can now set your own Custom Error URLs at Question Writer Tracker.
So if a user turns up too early, or too late, or from the wrong IP address, or with an Expired token, you can forward the user to a custom page on your own website with instructions on what to do next.
Leave the fields blank to use Question Writer Tracker's default error pages. Usually you'll want to leave the last field, the Backup Results Server blank to use the default Backup Results Server.
Posted by Alexander at 1:37 AM, September 3, 2009 | Custom Error URLs| TrackBack (0)
Backup Server
Here's a small PHP application that allows you to run your own Question Writer backup server. A Question Writer backup server comes into play when a quiz can't access the main server to send its results. Instead it will send them to a backup server, which will then forward the results on to the main server later on. We run a backup server for Question Writer Tracker, so it is something most users don't need to worry about.
But there are two situations where you might want to run your own backup server.
1. If you're running the Collator software to gather results on your own server, you can run the backup server so if your main server is unreachable for a time, you'll still get the results forwarded through the backup server.
2. If you have a lot of users at the same site, you can run the backup server at the site so that if the internet connection goes down during an exam, the results will be sent to your local backup server, and transferred to the main Question Writer Tracker server when the connection comes back up again.
There's a setting on the Question Writer Tracker Quiz Details page that allows you to set your own backup server location.
Posted by Alexander at 1:20 AM, September 3, 2009 | Backup Server| TrackBack (0)
Question Response Chart
Question Writer Tracker now allows you to visualize the data from your questions. You can view the volume of responses as a pie chart and the scores achieved as a bar chart. This visualization gives you an easy way to see how people are responding and scoring on any given question.
Posted by Alexander at 2:27 PM, August 17, 2009 | Question Response Chart| TrackBack (0)
Allowing for Spelling Errors
Question Writer 3.5 (Professional) can allow leeway for incorrect spellings in Fill-In-The-Blank answers.
Try this quiz, Stuff You Probably Know But Can't Spell - it's a real test of knowledge - If you know the answers, but can't spell them, you'll still get most of the marks. If you don't know the answers you won't.
This can be a fairer way to assess knowledge than a Multiple Choice question - where the student does not know the answer, but can easily pick it out of a list.
Here's some more details on exactly how the scoring works.
Posted by Alexander at 12:18 PM, July 28, 2009 | Allowing for Spelling Errors| TrackBack (0)
