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Importing and Editing Questions

Armando Fox edited this page Jun 30, 2016 · 2 revisions

Adding or Importing Questions

You can manually add a single question using the New Question button in the main view. You must use the RuQL markup format to enter the question.

When adding a question you can optionally also specify tags, a Bloom category, and one or more of your own collections to add the question to. You must also specify whether the question is Private (only you can see it) or Public (anyone can see it).

If the question being added is intended to supersede an existing question, the UID of the question being superseded can be added in the Parent field; otherwise leave the field blank.

To batch-import an entire text file of RuQL questions, go to My Collections and click Upload questions. A collection containing all the questions in the uploaded file will be created. If the file contains multiple groups of questions (where a group is delimited by the quiz keyword in RuQL), each quiz group will be in its own collection, whose name matches the name of the quiz group.

NOTE: There is a known bug whereby uploads seem to time out, but if you just revisit the "My Collections" page, the upload usually has completed successfully.

Duplicate detection is so-so.

Modifying Question Metadata

When viewing a question (either as part of a collection or as part of a search result), you can edit the following attributes directly by clicking the respective buttons in the question panel: Public/Private, Bloom category, add tags, collections containing this question.

Obsoleting and Superseding Questions

Once a question has been added, it is immutable and undeletable, to simplify referential integrity. However, "bad" questions can be culled in two ways.

The Mark Obsolete button shown for a given question marks it as permanently obsolete. Obsolete questions do not appear in searches unless the Show obsolete checkbox (bottom of left-hand search bar) is checked. Obsolete questions remain in any collections they were previously in.

The Supersede button allows you to essentially replace the question with a more up-to-date version, for example to correct a typo or improve the question wording. Superseding explicitly preserves parentage, so that you can see the "lineage" of a question that has evolved over time. When you click Supersede, a text box will open with the editable question text; you can edit the question and all of the same attributes specified on a new question. The "older" version of the question will only appear in a search result if its parent matches the search, i.e. searches will only return the most recent version of each question but will allow you to see the question's lineage. If you prefer to edit the question in an external text editor, the Clip Source Code button will copy the question text to your computer's clipboard; you can then edit and paste in the new code using the Supersede button.