WebRespond: Master File
The master file contains information about the behavior of the quiz or
survey as a whole. You may control who has access to your quiz, the questions
that appear on the quiz, the colors and font used to display the quiz questions,
and the amount of feedback allowed to the student.
The master file uses a tagged information format similar to HTML. Each piece
of information must be enclosed within a recognizable tag. If any text lies
outside a recognizable tag, it will be ignored. This allows you to make
comments within your master file without affecting the readability of the file
by WebRespond.
The acceptable format for a tag consists of three parts
- Opening - This consists of a left angle bracket, a tag name and a
right angle bracket. If you wanted to open a tag called "Title", you
would have a tag opening of <Title>.
- Message - This consists of a string of text. Depending on the tag,
this text may have to conform to a specific value.
- Closing - This consists of a left angle bracket, a forward slash, a
tag name and a right angle bracket. If you wanted to close a tag called "Title",
you would have a tag closing of </Title>.
Putting these three parts together we could set the quiz title to "Sample
Quiz #1" by using the tag <Title>Sample Quiz #1</Title>.
Notice that the name of the tag's opening must match the name of the tag's
closing. Embedding of tags within other tags is not supported at this time.
Case is not important when naming a tag (i.e. Title, title, TITLE, ... );
however, the tag's opening and closing names must match exactly (including
case).
Tags used by the Master File
The easiest way to set up a master file is to modify the provided
template file. The following tags are recognizable
in the master file and are listed in order of importance. You may get by with just the <Question>
tag, but you will have better control over your quiz if you use some of the
other tags.
- <Question>question file name</Question> - This tag adds
a question to the quiz. The text string between the tag's opening and closing
must be the name of a question file. When writing
the name of a question file, do not use any whitespace between characters. If
your question files are not in the same directory as the quiz
web page, you must use the address of the quiz file (both directory and file
name) relative to the quiz web page. Currently a maximum of 50 question entries
are accepted. Any extra entries are ignored.
- <Mode>operation mode</Mode> - This tag determines the
level of accessibility the student has in taking the quiz. The text string
between the tag's opening and closing must be either review, quiz,
or once. If the mode tag is not present, WebRespond will use the review
mode.
- <Mode>review</Mode> - This mode allows the student to
move both forward and backward between the questions of the quiz. Once the quiz
is finished and the results emailed to the contact person, the student is
allowed to see their final score, review the questions, and see what the correct
answers are. This is the default mode of WebRespond.
- <Mode>quiz</Mode> - This mode allows the student to
move both forward and backward between the questions of the quiz. Once the quiz
is finished and the results emailed to the contact person, WebRespond goes to
its final screen. There is no opportunity for the student to see their score
nor for them to review their answers.
- <Mode>once</Mode> - This mode allows the student to
only move forward through the quiz. There is no opportunity to return to
skipped questions. This mode should only be used if a later question could give
away the answer to previous questions. If you use this mode, the student is at
risk of not answer a question if it fails to load correctly over the network.
Currently there is no way for the instructor to distinguish between a misloaded
question and an unanswered question.
- <ReportAddress>email address</ReportAddress> - This tag
sets the email destination for the quiz. When a student completes the quiz, an
email message is sent to the address specified in the text string. The 'From'
portion of the message will include the address of the sending account. The
subject line of the message will include the name of the master file, the
student name (if passwords are used), the total number of questions and the
total number of correct answers chosen by the student. The body of the message
will specify which answers were given for each of the questions of the quiz. If
this tag is not used, no email will be sent at the end of the quiz.
- <Student>name, password</Student> - This tag adds an
entry to the list of students allowed to take the quiz. The first part of the
text string between the tag's opening and closing is the student's name followed
by a comma. A space is left between the comma and the students password.
Neither the student's name nor password should have any white space in it. If
this tag is not used, no password will be required to start up this quiz. Also
when reporting results to the instructor, no student name will be present in the
subject line. Currently a maximum of 50 student password entries are accepted.
Any extra entries are ignored. A password must consist of at least one
character.
- <Title>text of the title</Title> - This tag gives the
quiz or survey a name. This name appears in the upper left hand corner of
WebRespond while the quiz is being taken. The text string between the tag's
opening and closing may consist of any character; however, it is recommended
that you stay away from the use of '&', '<', and '>'. If this tag is
called multiple times, only the last call to this tag is used by WebRespond.
- <QuestionFile>question file listing</QuestionFile> -
This tag operates in a similar fashion to the <Question> tag except it
gets question file names from a list. This list is contained in a separate file
which is specified by the text string between the tag's opening and closing. As
with the <Question> tag, each entry in the list will be added to the quiz
up to a maximum of 50 quiz questions. When generating a file containing the
list, place the name of each question file on a separate line in the file. Each
entry in the file listing should follow the same rules as specified in the <Question>
tag.
- <StudentFile>student file listing</StudentFile> - This
tag operates in a similar fashion to the <Student> tag except it gets
student's names and passwords from a list. This list is contained in a separate
file which is specified by the text string between the tag's opening and
closing. As with the <Student> tag, each entry in the list will be added
to the quiz up to a maximum of 50 students. When generating a file containing a
list, place on each line a student's name followed by a comma, a space and a
password. Each entry in the file listing should follow the same rules as
specified in the <Student> tag.
- <Font>font style, font size</Font> - This tag specifies
which font is to be used when displaying a question. The font style must be
either Helvetica, TimesRoman, Courier, or Dialog. Immediately after the font
style you need to place a comma, a space and a font size. The font size may be
any integer value; however, it is recommended that you use a size between 10 and
24. The default value for this tag is <Font>Helvetica, 16</Font>
- <Background>R#, G#, B#</Background> - This tag
specifies the background color displayed behind the question. The text string
between the tag's opening and closing consist of three numbers separated by a
comma and a space. The first number ranges between 0 and 255 and it specifies
the amount of red you want in the background. A 0 indicates no red and 255
indicates maximum red. The second number ranges between 0 and 255 and it
specifies the amount of green. The last number specifies the amount of blue.
The default value for this tag is <Background>255, 255, 255</Background>.
Since we are using maximum values for red, green, and blue, the default color
is white.
- <TextColor>R#, G#, B#</TextColor> - This tag specifies
the color of the text for displaying the question. See the <Background>
tag for an explanation of R#, G# and B#. The default value for this tag is <TextColor>0,
0, 0</TextColor>. Since we are using no red, green, or blue, the default
color is black.
The following tags have no immediate use; however, they may be used to
document various aspects of the master file.
- <Name>name of the master file</Name> - This tag
specifies the name of the master file. The text string between the tag's
opening and closing should match the name of the master file exactly. Although,
a consistency check between the value of the <Name> tag and the master
file name is not performed, it may be enforced in future versions of WebRespond.
- <Author>name of the master file's author</Author> -
This tag specifies the author's name for this particular master file. The text
string between the tag's opening and closing may consist of any characters. It
is recommended that you stay away from '&', '<', and '>'. This tag is
provided to designate ownership of this quiz.
- <Date>master file creation date</Date> - This tag
specified the date on which the master file was written. The text string
between the tag's opening and closing may consist of any characters. It is
recommended that you stay away from '&', '<', and '>'. This tag is
provided to document when this file was created.
- <Comment>documentation comments</Comment> - This tag
allows the writer to include comments in a formal fashion. Comments may be
added between tags and not affect the operation of WebRespond; however, comments
sprinkled through the file in this fashion will not be supported by auxillary
programs which may only recognize formal comments. It is recommended that you
stay away from '&', '<', and '>'.
Example: Master File
A sample master file is included so you may become familiar with the look of
the file. Also an image of WebRespond in operation is given so you may see the
connection between the specified tags and the appearance of the quiz.
<comment>A sample quiz for illustrating WebRespond</comment>
<name>sample.q1</name> *** name matches the file name
<title>Sample Quiz #1</title> *** name of the quiz
<author>Steven Gollmer</author> *** name of the author
<date>September 17, 1997</date> *** date the quiz was written
<student>joseph, h219</student> *** first student allowed into the quiz
<student>debbie, x41</student> *** second student allowed into the quiz
<question>history.m1</question> *** begin with a history multiple choice (mc)
<question>literat.t1</question> *** next use a literature true false (tf)
<question>biology.m1</question> *** biology (mc)
<question>commun.t1</question> *** communications (tf)
<question>physed.m1</question> *** physical education (mc)
<question>psych.t1</question> *** psychology (tf)
<question>eengin.m1</question> *** electrical engineering (mc)
<question>busstat.t1</question> *** business statistics (tf)
<question>bibleot.m1</question> *** Old Testament Bible (mc)
<question>nursing.t1</question> *** nursing (tf)
<question>music.m1</question> *** music (mc)
<question>educate.t1</question> *** education (tf)
<mode>review</mode> *** review mode (student can check their score
<comment><reportaddress>gollmers@cedarville.edu</reportaddress></comment>
*** the report address has been commented out
<background>0, 0, 85</background> *** make the background dark blue
<textcolor>255, 255, 85</textcolor> *** make the text pale yellow
<font>TimesRoman, 18</font> *** use a 18 point Times Roman font
The image included below was taken while the master file given above was in
operation. Notice that the title appears in the upper left hand corner. From
the information given at the upper right hand corner we are looking at the ninth
question which is an Old Testament Bible question. The background color of the
question is dark blue and the text color is pale yellow. If you are familiar
with fonts, you will recognize the Times Roman font and the 18 point type is
easily readable.
