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Plugin Questions
Plugin Questions might be the most significant new feature in Question Writer 4. Plugin Questions allow you to ask any type of question, with any type of layout or display, and any type of scoring logic. A Plugin Question only has to be programmed once and can then be used in many ways in Question Writer by using parameters and options.
Three sample Plugin Questions are provided with Question Writer. Check in the samples directory to open the 'PluginQuestions.qwz' file in Question Writer. View the quiz here, to see how the questions integrate seamlessly into a quiz.
Plugin Questions are created as .swf files - this file contains all the layout code and scoring logic. Question Writer then provides the file with the parameters and options of the question. Take the Horizontal Slider Plugin Question provided with Question Writer for example. The parameters are used to tell it the maximum and minimum values that the slider can take and whether to display the slider's current value. The first option is used to provide a background graphic, and the second option is used to provide the slider button. In this way, the Plugin Question is programmed once, but virtually any type of slider can be created with it using the parameters and options.
To create your own Plugin Question, you'll need the services of a Flash programmer. The interface is described in the Quesiton Writer Manual, and you can also download the source code (.fla) to a sample Plugin Question (The Cycle Plugin Question) as a basis to work from. If this sounds a bit daunting - contact sales@questionwriter.com for a quote on creating a new Plugin Question type for you as a custom development.
Posted by Alexander on May 22, 2010 | Plugin Questions| TrackBack
Multiple Scores
Question Writer 3 only allowed you to keep track of one score for each quiz. Question Writer 4 now lets you define multiple scores. You can use different scores for different topics in a quiz, or keep track of different factors in a Myers-Briggs type questionnairre.
Right click on a question (any except Explanation or Essay) to add one or more scores to a question and give the score a name in the properties box. Question Writer will still track the overall score across the quiz, but you'll also be able to reference defined scores by name when evaluating whether to show feedback, or just to display the scores on screen.
For example, imagine you have a geography quiz with questions about two countries, Italy and France. You want to give the quiz taker a breakdown how well they scored on each of the countries. Simply add a score node to each question, giving the name 'France' or 'Italy' depending on the country of the question. On the final page, add two 'Display Score' node with 'France' and 'Italy' as the refences to display the scores back to the user.
Scores can also be examined by the evaluation, and different feedback can be shown according the values of different scores.
Posted by Alexander on May 21, 2010 | Multiple Scores| TrackBack
You've Got Options
The next big feature in Question Writer 4 is Question Options.
You can add Options to the Partial Credit, Matching, Sequencing and Plugin question types. Options allow you to offer alternative types of content as answer options. For example, you could ask a user to sequence a list of images, or match images to names, or use animations or sounds as options for answers.
Right click on a question and choose the 'Add->Option' menu choice. Then you can add text, images, sounds, animations to the option. Here's a short quiz on British Design Classics made using Options. Source
Question Writer still uses the text answers you have defined in the question but adds the options. For matching questions, each match follows the choice. The plugin questions can be programmed to use the options' content in any way. For example the Horizontal Slider Plugin Question uses the first option as the slider background, and the second option as the slider button. More details on Plugin Questions soon!
Posted by Alexander on May 20, 2010 | You've Got Options| TrackBack
Pages
Pages are a new feature of Question Writer 4 (Professional) that allows you to put multiple questions on the same page. You can add pages directly to the quiz and inside sections too. To add a page, right click on the Quiz, or on a Section, and choose 'Add -> Page'. You can also add a page from the 'Add a Question' menu.
From there, you can add questions to the page (or drag and drop in existing questions.) Here's what the Italy quiz looks like in the editor, as a two page quiz, with 5 questions on each page. View the Quiz Source
One other thing about using pages - the image zoom functionality will be removed and images will be displayed inline as it can be confusing to have multiple zooming images. You can also take advantage of this when you want some questions to have zooming images, and other not - just put the questions inside pages when you don't want the images to zoom.
Posted by Alexander on May 18, 2010 | Pages| TrackBack
Question Writer 4 Pricing and Discounts
Question Writer 4 Pricing is now available on the main website. As the product is still in its beta testing stage, we're offering two things to users who purchase during this time. One is a price discount, the other is a license to Question Writer 3. You can use either QW3 or the QW4 Beta, or switch between the two. Of course, when the final QW4 is released, you'll be able to use that too.
Posted by Alexander on May 16, 2010 | Question Writer 4 Pricing and Discounts| TrackBack
Question Writer 4 Beta
Question Writer 4 is now available in beta form. 'Beta' means that it now has all of its features but it is not well tested yet and some of the translations aren't ready yet. Don't use it for anything critical just yet, but do check out the new features!
I'll be blogging the new features in detail over the coming weeks, but here's a summary of what's new.
Major New Features
Pages - Pages allow multiple questions to be placed on the same page
Multiple Scores - You can now specify a score variable to be associated with each question - this allows you to maintain multiple scores in the same test.
Feedback - You can now define feedback pages with content to be displayed based on the answers or scores achieved in previous questions.
Branching - Branching allows skipping questions, or jumping to previous questions based on the answers or scores achieved in previous questions.
Plugin Question Type - Plugin Questions allow any question type to be seamlessly integrated into Question Writer. The beta includes 3 sample Plugin Question types. This allows you to write your own question types.
Content Model- Text, images and Flash can now be used together both in question content and answer options. This allows matching images to text/sound for example, or multiple images in the question content.
Minor New Features
PDF Export - Export your Flash quiz inside a PDF document to allow easy e-mailing of quizzes.
Text Colors Override - Override the body, title and feedback colors.
Cross/Ticks - Override the crosses/ticks used in the theme.
Small Fonts - Specify small fonts for easy to read text on small screens and mobile devices.
MP3 Audio - Add audio direct from MP3 files as part of your question.
Respect Newlines - Use HTML text formatting, but respect newlines in the text
Exact Positioning - Choose exact co-ordiantes for images/text to appear on screen.
You can install it side-by-side with your existing Question Writer 3 installation.
Any licenses purchased on or after March 1st, 2010 are eligible for a free upgrade to Question Writer 4 - contact support@questionwriter.com for your updated license.
Posted by Alexander on May 11, 2010 | Question Writer 4 Beta| TrackBack