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Chamilo 1.11 - English

Introduction

This is the complete set of Chamilo Guides for users of Chamilo.

Most users will not require to read all guides, and will have plenty of information (maybe too much) just going through the teacher guide. However, if you want to know more or your role in your organization is specifically that of a Chamilo administrator or a developer or sysadmin, you might be interested by the Admin Guide and the Developer Guide that follow.

If you are looking at this documentation on the web, and if you find any issue, please consider creating an account on https://github.com and submitting change requests directly to the https://github.com/chamilo/docs repository. Note that translations are available as language-marked "branches" of the project.

To proceed, just click any section in the table of contents or search for a specific topic from the search bar.

Teacher Guide

Introduction

This is the complete set of Chamilo Guides for users of Chamilo.

To proceed, just click any section in the table of contents or search for a specific topic from the search bar.

Getting to know Chamilo

About this guide

This guide has been written through the collaboration of various organizations and individuals who share a common goal to contribute to education around the world. You can contribute to the writing and improvement of this guide too. All you need to do is drop us an e-mail at info@chamilo.org with your suggestions for improvements – you could attach you own modified version of paragraphs, chapters, screen-shots or even the whole manual! It's that easy!

Who is this guide for?

This guide has been written with educators in mind: the many teachers, tutors, trainers, instructors and others involved in education who find themselves faced (through choice or necessity) with responsibility for managing an e-learning course.

Entering the world of e-learning can present a complex, even daunting, challenge, but we believe Chamilo LMS in itself provides a welcome solution for newcomers. Learning how to use Chamilo will take you a long way along the road to mastering many key aspects of e-learning.

If you are already an educator with experience in e-learning, you should find this guide a useful, detailed explanation of the workings of Chamilo, and will be able to use it to further your skills in using e-learning tools to develop your courses.

Chamilo has two key aims:

to support the teacher in better responding to their students’ needs, and
to make it so easy to build and edit high quality digital learning materials that the teacher can not only create but be inspired to develop and continuously improve their courses' content.

How to use this guide.

This reference guide is designed to lead you smoothly through a clear learning path, introducing you first to the most commonly used tools, then guiding you progressively through more complex and/or seldom used features.

(The exception to this pattern is the description of the social network tool, which is explained separately at the end of the guide. We've placed it there to offer some light relief following the preceding three or four chapters, which are a little bit more challenging than the others! )

Following this, you'll find a description of alternative approaches to setting up Chamilo which you should find useful when organizing courses for your students, simplifying your tracking work and helping you easily identify and support “flagging” individuals while progressing with the course overall.

We recommend you take a quick look at the Glossary section. It will give you an overview of the terms used throughout this guide and hopefully help avoid confusion in some sections.

If you already have a teacher account in a Chamilo portal, you can move directly to the chapter which describes the Chamilo interface. If you are familiar with this, move on to the next chapter, which explains how to create a course. If you are already a course administrator (i.e. a teacher who has also created courses), you should go directly to the course tools chapter. For those who are familiar with the tools, much in this guide will already be familiar, though you may find it handy to explore updated features, such as the chapter on Social network.

This guide can also serve as a handy quick reference, thanks to the search feature at the top of the page.

If you have further questions about using Chamilo. you can visit the Chamilo forum(https://forum.chamilo.org), where numerous other users, teachers, administrators and software developers will be happy to help you find the answers.

If you have more demanding requirements, you might consider hiring one of our official providers (https://chamilo.org/providers), a group of companies and institutions which offer professional services supporting Chamilo. The official providers have a record of tried and proven serious involvement in the project and are committed to sustaining its collaborative model. By hiring them, you already support the Chamilo project.

General usability

Chamilo has been designed to provide help and support within the application. The icons are intended to symbolize what they represent, independently of any particular language or culture. Furthermore, each icon has a “mouse-over” description. If you allow your mouse to “hover” over an icon for one second (without clicking), you will see a simple pop-up description of the icon's function.

Illustration: Icons label

There is also an online help facility on most pages which appears as a partially hidden lifebuoy ring on the top right side of your screen (see Illustration: Folded help) and clicking it will open a window explaining the feature you're in and how to use it (see Illustration Unfolded help ).It remains in place when you scroll the screen so that it's constantly available and you can open and close it without affecting your current work. When you click the buoy, a small guide will open up, explaining the tool you're in and how to use it (see Illustration Contextual help pop-up).

Illustration: Folded help icon

Illustration: Unfolded help icon

Illustration: Contextual help pop-up

Terminology

At the time of writing, Chamilo is being used by more than 50,000 organizations around the world, in many different languages, including primary schools, colleges, higher education institutes, universities, NGOs, small, medium and large companies.

Obviously, all these bodies and institutions tend to use slightly differing terminologies. For example, some institutions will call their courses “Training sessions”, others will call them “Learning spaces” and others simply “Courses”. This presents challenges for the design of a “one-size-fits-all” e-learning platform (or even user guide), so we have sought the middle road, and employ a simple, universal terminology which we trust will make sense to all our users.

Illustration: History of Chamilo installations around the world, 2015 to 2017

Of course, because we understand your organization may prefer a specific terminology, we have equipped Chamilo with a way to edit any interface term from within the platform administration. (this requires administration skills and is thus described in the Chamilo Administration Guide). Should you urgently require a customization, you can ask one of our official providers for a customized language pack to be imported into your platform.

In this guide, we have endeavored to employ a universal terminology so, for example, the common education term “student” has been replaced by more neutral terms like “learner” which applies equally well in the business world. When referring to all kinds of users collectively, we have decided to use the term “user”.

This manual is available in several formats, so you can always download it in editable format from our website and do a quick search & replace operation to make it fit your needs. Don't hesitate to send us the updated version back for sharing with others at info@chamilo.org. You'll be amazed at how this can benefit you in return, as other communities build up on your work to make things even better.

The somewhat ambivalent term “training” which had been employed in previous versions of the software has now been replaced by the more understandable term “course”, while the previously ousted term “learning path” has now been reinstated after a short and unpopular change to “course”. You will find all these terms defined and explained in the following guide. Don't forget: you can customize these terms with the help of your Chamilo administrator (if that's you, check the Chamilo Administration Guide, also available from our website).

Why Chamilo?

Chamilo is an e-learning and collaboration platform which comes bundled as open-source software (or as puristswill note, ratherFree Software) which can be adapted to educational or professional projects. It is distributed under the GNU/GPL v3+ license, which you are bound to accept when using it.

A teacher using Chamilo can access a series of useful tools allowing them to easily and efficiently create an effective learning environment. On creating/editing a course he (or she) can:

import or create documents (audio, video, images) and publish them,
build tests and exams with automated scores and feedback as required,
build or import (SCORM and AICC) compliant courses,
set and receive virtual assignments,
describe the components of the course through description sections,
communicate through forums or chat,
publish announcements,
add links,
create work groups or laboratory groups,
set up a virtual classroom (through the videoconference extension),
manage scores through the assessments tool,
create surveys,
add a wiki to create documents collaboratively,
use a glossary,
use an agenda,
manage a project (through the blog tool),
enable tracking of learners in your courses,
register attendances,
elaborate a class diary (course progress).

The Chamilo platform is extremely flexible. All its tools can be customized according to the needs of each course. It provides a friendly and intuitive user interface which requires no special prior technical knowledge or skills.

Learning paradigm

Some learning management systems fall into the trap of attempting to support a specific learning/teaching methodology (e.g. social constructivism), perhaps in order to win some short-lived pedagogical credibility. While focusing on a single paradigm is appropriate, even desirable, on the part of individual teachers or organizations, Chamilo resists the temptation to limit the design of the platform to one specific approach in this way.

In our experience, the role of a Learning Management System is to provide a tool that can adapt to the needs and wishes of the user. Providing “the right tool for the job” may be fine for single-purpose tools (a hammer, a fork or a pencil). For a complex tool such as a LMS, however, it is a combination of the platform's wide range of flexible and adaptable features and the teacher's creative use of those features that will, in time, result in courses which reflect an appropriate specific learning methodology, be it social constructivism, instructionalism, behaviorism, radical constructivism, symbolic interactionism, etc. Chamilo acknowledges the role of the teacher in choosing their own teaching approach, and strives to ensure that all of these educational paradigms can all be effectively implemented using various combinations of the flexible tools provided on its platform.

Chamilo LMS enables you to develop a course using whatever paradigm/approach/method you as a teacher (or your institution/company) feel comfortable with and, as such, makes sure you have the right tools for the job.

The Chamilo homepage

The homepage is the first visible page. It contains the login form and a few other important elements.

Illustration: Homepage

Although your mileage may (and certainly will) vary, this is mostly what you should find on a Chamilo portal’s homepage:

The logo of your organization will always appear on the top left corner of the page. This can later be changed (check the admin guide for more info).
The blue bar (color may change depending on the stylesheet selected by your admin) contains the first elements of menu. This will change when you login or when the administrator ads new items to it.
The login block allows you to login, a very straightforward process (the administrator assigns permissions to users depending on the platform configuration).
It is possible to register on the platform using a simple form (Sign up! link).
In case you lose your password, a new one can be generated easily (using the I lost my password link).
Access to the Chamilo community's forum is provided through the Forum link in the Help box. This can be removed or edited by the administrator
A block with the most popular courses appear. This will be empty at the beginning (when no courses exist on the platform) or can later be removed by the administrator, in case you don’t want the public to know about the courses available on the platform.

Note : To view the courses with restricted access, you must be registered on the platform and must be subscribed by the course teacher, through the course users list.

Registering on the platform

As for any web platform, users wishing to access the platform contents must register with their user name and password. This is simply done by following the Sign up! link on the homepage, or by an administrator pre-registering all users. Once registered, one can simply connect using your username and password.

Illustration: "My courses" page

Once connected, the teacher has access to any courses on which (s)he is registered:

A list of courses to which the user is subscribed. A pencil will appear on the right of the courses boxes for which the current user is a teacher, allowing the teacher to directly go to the courses settings
A link to the Social Network tool (which we will analyze in the Social network section)
A (non-admin) teacher can create a course
Teachers and learners can subscribe to more existing courses through a “Course catalogue”
Teachers and learners have access to the history of their sessions through the “Courses history”. Sessions are a vast concept detailed in the Admin Guide.

Note : Although the help feature link has been replaced (since version 1.8.8) by a more dynamic, JavaScript-based box, it remains fully accessible to people with impaired vision, which might be navigating the platform through a text-based browser. Version 1.9 and upwards also offer a font resize feature for people with slightly impaired vision.

Finding your way in Chamilo

Most pages are quickly accessible via the tabs at the top of the page:

Illustration: Chamilo header

The “tabs” provide access to the homepage, the courses list, your agenda, the reporting/tracking page, the social network and (if you are is lucky enough to be a portal administrator) to the dashboard and administration pages. The last tab shows the user's picture (so he can check he's not mistakenly using another user's account) and a drop-down menu lets the user go to his profile or log out at any time in just two clicks.

Browsing through a course offers the same kind of navigation elements you will find on any computer software. In Chamilo, the very important navigation bar is referred to as the breadcrumb navigation (in reference to a popular fairy tale, the Little Thumbling who saved the lives of his brothers by leaving a trail of stones, then breadcrumbs, in a dark forest so they could find their way home). This type of navigation allows the user to find its way back to his starting point.

The first “breadcrumb” link, on the left, displays the name of the course, and allows the user to return to the course homepage directly. The links to the right of this point directly to the elements of the course in which the user is currently located.

Illustration: Breadcrumb Navigation

Within a course, Learner view allows the teacher to view the course as a learner. The link then changes to Teacher view. Just click the new link to get back to the normal “teacher” view:

Illustration: Switch to student view

Illustration: Switch to teacher view

Course creation

Illustration: Personal menu blocks

Creating a course is quick and easy, and can be done from the My courses page.

Note : on some portals, teachers might not have permissions to create new courses and are simply assigned pre-created courses by the administrator.
Click on Create course in the side column. Fill the mandatory “Course name” field (see Illustration 14: Creating a course – short version) and click the button. That's it.

The course will be visible by the course creator and (later) by the users subscribed to it. By default, the person who creates the course is responsible for this course's administration. She is generally referred to as the Course owner or Course creator.

To create the course, you need only enter a single element, i.e. a clear and detailed title.

Illustration: Creating a course – short version

Additional options (entirely optional) are available by clicking on the _Advanced settings_button:

a category within the ones offered in the drop-down box (this is optional),
a course code Pick a code that matches the course title associated with e.g. a numerical classification. (n.b. Even if entered in lowercase, the course code will be automatically uppercased and symbols like (-, and spaces_ will be removed from the code),
the course admin this option is automatically filled with your name and cannot be updated,
the language used to display the course environment (nothing stops you from using e.g. French even if the platform is installed in English). The language choice doesn't influence the course content, only the course interface
the course can be filled with some demo content to indicate to the new course administrator the sort of thing s/he can create inside the course (typically an exercise, forums and an introduction section). Alternatively, this can be left completely empty.
finally, the course can be created from a template course that you have access to (you must be a teacher in the template course to see it appear in your list)

Illustration: Create a course – extended version

In versions 1.9 and 1.10, a course creation follow-up page was displayed, which suggested:

going straight to the newly created course (through a link on the course title),
going directly, by clicking on the relevant icon, to one of the most common course configuration steps, as illustrated below.

Illustration: Course creation follow-up page

However, feedback has been relatively negative about this feature, so we decided to disable it by default in version 1.11 onward. Your administrator can still enable this if desired.

This empty course structure created, the next step is to enrich this course through the addition of text, multimedia documents, audio tracks, links etc. etc.....)

Control course access

During the creation of the course, it is recommended you don't allow learners access before it is ready so they don't see an incomplete course.

In order to do this, access has to be restricted by going to the course Settings tool:

Illustration: Course administration tools

A series of choices are available to the teacher.

Illustration: Course settings - Visibility

Public : means it is accessible to any user, registered on this portal or not
Open : means all users registered on the portal can access the course as long as they have previously subscribed to it (they can do this through the courses catalog). This is the default option
Private : means the course is only available to students who have been subscribed to it by a teacher or administrator. Make sure the Subscription option is set to be only available to trainers, though, as otherwise students might be able to subscribe themselves.
Closed : means the course is only available to its teacher or the administrator. Other users cannot access it, even if they have previously been subscribed to it. This last option is recommended during the building or maintenance periods of the course.

Organizing courses

With Chamilo, one can end up managing a large quantity of courses. In addition to general course categories, all course creators have an option to create personal categories, visible only to the user who created them, to help him organize his courses.

Note : This feature is not supported by the platform's developers anymore, and might be abandoned in the future. It can result in a conflict with the courses order on the My courses page when these are registered within sessions.

Personal categories

Go to My courses, option Sort courses in the menu, to get to the courses sorting tools page. Click on the Create a personal course category, and fill the name of the new personal category to be created. Finally, click the Add category icon.

Illustration: Sort my courses

Illustration: Personal category creation form

The new personal category appears in a list at the top of the page. It is possible to create several personal course categories.

Illustration: Personal courses category created

Click the pencil icon next to each course to set a category for it. In the drop-down list, select the personal category with which the course will be associated, then click the confirmation button. With courses sorted and linked to personal categories, the courses homepage is more readable. Courses not associated with any personal category are shown at the top of the page.

Illustration: Personal courses categories

To remove a category, click the red crossand confirm.

Subscribing to other courses

Teachers and students can subscribe to courses. When a teacher subscribes to another course by himself, he is considered student in this course, and will thus not have access to the normal teacher tools. If you want to register to be registered to someone else's course as a teacher, you will have to ask the current teacher of that course or the administrator to register you, as a teacher, to that course.

Clicking on the Courses catalog link, and a list of courses will appear. You can look for the course in the suggested categories, or find it by searching for all or part of the course title via the search box on the top part of the page. If this portal uses sessions, a sessions catalog is also made available

Illustration: Courses catalog

Once you’ve found your the course, click on the green Subscribe icon to subscribe to it. The subscription gives the user subscribing learner status.

Courses management icons

In the courses management interface, you will see the following common icons and buttons.

Course administration

The My courses tab the teacher to see a list of the courses which they can manage. (These display a pencil icon on the right side of the course's box, as opposed to courses on which they are subscribed as learners).

You just need to click on the course name to access its homepage. The various tools are arranged in three categories:

Authoring : tools for creating course content,
Interaction : tools for teacher-learner or learner-learner interaction within the course,
Administration : tools for the management of course options.

Illustration: Course tools – Classical option

The teacher can choose to hide or show distinct tools using the eye icon under each tool, so that the course doesn't intimidate the new learner with too many options.

Note : In some cases the administrator may make tools unavailable to course teachers or enable tools which depend on specific extensions (like the full-text search or the video conference), so what you see entering the course might not be the same as described here.

Illustration: Authoring tools in big activity view type

Note : The course interface can be presented in different ways depending on what the administrator's chooses. He might, for example, enable a view that was popular in previous versions of Chamilo, as in this illustration. This view is called the 2-columns activity view.

Course homepage

In this chapter, we will present a brief overview of the various tools available. Each tool will be examined in more detail in later chapters.

Introductory text

Illustration: Course homepage – Introduction text

This feature, although very simple to use, is also very powerful: it can simply present a few words of introduction, but it also enables you to redesign the entire course homepage simply by hiding all the course tools and writing a large introduction text/page including icons with links to the course tools' internal pages.

To do this :

hide all the tools (by clicking the eye, which must be closed and grayed)
right-click on any tool to which the learners need access
select Copy link location
left-click on Add an introduction text
« paste » the link that was saved a few steps before (CTRL-V should work just fine)
click the save intro text button

You now have an entirely personalized course homepage! The only remaining other visual elements are the header and the footer.

Authoring tools

Illustration: Authoring tools

Course description

The description tool presents several sections which provide the course author with a simple suggested structure for their course description. (The teacher doesn't have to use these, of course; if the proposed sections do not match requirements, other sections can be created with the preferred titles). The sections include:

« Course description »,
« Objectives »,
« Topics »,
« Methodology » etc,

The description is available to learners inside the course, but can also be viewed in the course catalog (via the Description button). This button opens a pop-up window showing the description provided by the teacher.

Documents

Tests

Learning Paths

Note: If you come from a Moodle background, this feature can be compared to the ordering of blocks on your course homepage.

Assessments

Attendances

Announcements

Glossary

Course progress

Note : The learning paths created inside the course can also be made visible in the « Authoring » section, which could generate redundancy. It is possible to show or hide them using the double square icon in the learning paths list (« Make visible to learners »)

Blogs

Search

Interaction tools

The objective of the interaction section is to group tools which facilitate communication between learners as well as between learner and teacher. Unlike the Authoring tools which are primarily for teacher use, The Interaction tools are provided mainly for use by other users also, to support their learning.

Illustration: Interaction tools

Agenda

Dropbox

Groups

Assignments

Wiki

Forum

Users

Chat

Surveys

Notebook

Video-conference

Administration tools

The administration section groups tools that the learner never needs access to – there is therefore no option to hide or show the tools, which are designed for teacher use only.

Illustration: Administration tools

Projects

Settings

Reporting

Backup

First Steps: Documents

Chamilo allows for the import of all types of documents (HTML, MS-Word®, MS-PowerPoint® MS-Excel®, PDF, Flash, Quicktime®, OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, MP3, OGG, AVI, etc.) and can first be used as a simple documents catalog while the teacher builds up a bank of materials (a few weeks, depending on the context).

You can rename documents at any time and arrange them in directories/folders. The only provision is that the user must, of course, have the requisite software installed on his computer to read the files at his disposal. We recommend the use of standard and open formats (see note below) to avoid the need for the learner to download or buy costly software which might be overly specific (i.e. with no other use) or prove difficult to maintain.

With regard to file storage, you do need to be sure to organize the Documents tool carefully to make it easy to find a document later on.

Note : The Chamilo community strives for a complete freedom in the distribution of (distance) learning material. From this perspective that a high priority is given to the support of open formats and applications, like LibreOffice® and its OASIS format rather than the Microsoft® Office® suite;OGG (and its variations) rather than MP3® or DivX®; etc. So we'd like to remind you that all features of Chamilo can be used with a simple, open spec. browser, the only exception to which is the video-conference and the hot spot exercises, which require the Flash® plug-in (which is free but not open). We are working on this last element to increase the availability of this type of exercise to devices that do not support Flash®.

Create a directory

Illustration: Documents – creating directories

To create a directory:

click on the Create folder icon,
enter the directory name,
click on the Create the folder button,
The new directory has been created and can be used right away to store new documents.
If you want to create a sub-directory, open the directory you want to create it in and follow the same procedure.

Importing a document

Illustration: Documents - Icons - Upload

The following screen appears:

Illustration: Documents – Documents upload

Click on the green area to explore the files on your disk and select one(s) to upload. Inside the pop-up window, click the confirmation button. The documents upload starts. If you send several files at the same time, you will see their upload progress, live, as in the following illustration.

Illustration: Documents – Documents upload in progress

Once the upload is finished, the following validation list appears.

Illustration: Documents – Document upload finished

The green ticks indicate that the documents have been sent to the course successfully. Click on the blue arrow icon pointing left to get back to the documents list.

Note : The tab labeled Send (Simple) allows you to use the traditional “dialogue window” procedure to upload. We called it Simple because users are generally more used to this one, though it's really a bit more complicated to use! Document indexing options can only be found in the Simple form (in case your administrator has enabled the search feature) as well as an option to unzip a complete file hierarchy.

Authoring content in Chamilo

A major advantage of Chamilo over other Learning Management Systems is that it provides a wide range of inbuilt features supporting the effective authoring of course content. The toolbar at the top of the documents page displays a range of tools to support authoring:

Illustration: Documents - toolbar

Illustration: Documents – Creating a new document

After naming the document, it is possible to use all the options in the embedded rich text editor to format them. The editor supports a wide range of elements, including tables,images, audio, video, flash, etc. It includes an html editor which means that, for those with some knowledge of scripting the sky's the limit in terms of rich content!)

You can also use a series of document templates, (available in the left column), or create and save your own templates for designing further pages.

Once the document has been created/edited, save it by clicking on the Create document button.

Other types of documents can be created depending on your browser and the portal configuration (ask your administrator to enable these extra features if you don't see them in the toolbar).

Icon

Feature

The draw feature allows you to draw diagrams or schema in a vector format, which can be re-edited or exported to the bitmap format.

The photo retouching feature is very similar to the _Photoshop_® tool and allows for the editing, cutting, colouring etc. of pictures or other bitmap images.

The audio recording feature the recording of audio tracks right from your browser, using your microphone (on a laptop, the microphone is generally embedded). Flash® or Java® applet browser support is required for this one.

The text-based voice generation feature allows you to have the computer speak for you. Try it. You'll be surprised by the quality of the generated voices.

The web-cam clip feature allows you to record footage directly from your laptop's web-cam Flash® is required for this one.

Saving documents

Illustration: Documents – Download a copy

Deleting a file or a directory

To delete, update, hide or show a file or directory, use the options in the right hand column of the documents listing:

Illustration: Documents - Options

As you will realize yourself, the icons vary depending on the document type. HTML documents offer more possibilities.

The magic wand icon allows you to use the selected document as a template to create other documents. It thus becomes very easy to ensure a consistent visual style for all documents in the same course.

The PDF icon allows you to export the document in a PDF format. This can be particularly useful if you wish to read your course in the train or the plane, where you don't have access to your e-learning platform.

Watching course quotas

By default, a course quota of 100Mb is set, but it is also possible for your administrator to increase it. To check the space usage, look at the indication at the bottom of your documents list. I will indicate the percentage of your course that is being used.

Illustration: Documents - Quota

If you think you might reach the course limit in a few days, contact your administrator to ask him if it is possible to increase the available space. Only the platform administrator has the power to use this feature.

Illustration: Documents quota chart

Note : the space available in a course is only limited, in Chamilo 1.9, to the use of the documents tool. Users will be allowed to send numerous assignments without worrying about the space limit.

Slideshow

You'll be presented with a type of “slideshow” view of the images in that folder. Each image is captioned with its name, dimensions and size on disk.

Illustration: Image gallery - Slideshow view

Illustration: Thumbnails view

Interactivity: Tests

Creating a new test

Illustration: Exercises – Create a new test

The test will be displayed on the main page of the test tool, listed along with other tests created in the course:

Illustration: Exercises - List

Because there are so many different ways the test tool can be used, there is a good chance the default options are not entirely suitable your needs. Be careful, therefore to consider the extensive Advanced settings section available in the create/edit test page:

Illustration: Exercises – Creating an exercise – Advanced options

The settings are fairly self-evident:

feedback can be provided either at the end of the test or withheld, e.g. for an exam
questions can be presented either on a single page (e.g. for a brief text quiz) or on separate pages (e.g. when the question and answers are lengthy or incorporate media)
scores and correct answers can be shown (e.g. for an interactive exercise) or hidden (e.g. for an exam).
Questions and answers can follow a pre-determined sequence or be randomized and shuffled
The relevant questions category can be displayed or hidden
The number of attempts allowed can be limited to a given number - “infinite” attempts might suit a “practice” exercise
Start and end times for the test can be set and the time allowed to complete the test can be limited; )a real-time counter will appear to the user)
Negative scores can be “zeroed” or carried forward to the next question
Students can review their answers before submitting the test
A pass percentage can be set to indicate success or failure to the student
A closing message to be viewed on completion can be composed.

Note : The platform administrator may enable an additional option in the “Feedback” section of the advanced settings:__Self-evaluation (immediate feedback). This option, if checked, enables the “scenario” question types which allows teachers to devise quizzes based on multiple-choice or image mapping questions which, depending on the answer given, lead the learner to alternative subsequent questions. This is a powerful tool – however, be aware that once self-evaluation is checked, these advanced settings cannot be changed: you will instead have to create a new test not based on the Self-evaluation (immediate feedback) option.

Feedback, score and correct answers

This section describes some of the key educational concepts which have steered the design of the Tests feature in Chamilo. For teachers new to on-line teaching and learning, it is useful to consider some of the terminology Chamilo uses in relation to these concepts prior to developing the tests themselves.

Automated feedback

A major advantage in on-line learning is that it can offer the learner enormous flexibility in terms of where and when he/she chooses to study. A student can undertake a fully automated test if they wish anywhere and at any time and receive their score immediately. However, this freedom also means that there is no teacher to hand to explain why they have got a question wrong in a test or exercise, as there might be in a traditional classroom. In automated on-line tests, therefore, the teacher needs to pay particular attention to the provision of automated on-line feedback.

This means that as well as receiving a score, the student can receive a brief (pre-written) comment relating to their answer, whether it is right or wrong. Typically, if he gives the right answer, you might congratulate him: “Well done, I can see you have a good grasp of this concept!”. If he answers incorrectly, you can offer immediate feedback to encourage him to look beyond that demoralizing red “X”, and help make the error part of the learning process. This is the best time for him to learn where he went wrong and how to avoid the error next time. Use hints e.g : “Sorry, wrong answer! Have you read the Open Standards chapter deeply enough? A quick revision of Chapter 3 should help you out! Remember the example of OASIS and how it was designed?”. (This feedback could also contain a direct link to the “Chapter 3” example.)

Such feedback can “humanize” the test and is often really appreciated by students. It means a bit more work for the teacher when creating the test, but provides an important way of encouraging and correcting the learner during his auto-evaluation attempts.

Scoring tests

Assigning a score represents a “raw”, even crude way of evaluating a student's skills. Nevertheless, scores matter a lot to students even though they are of limited use in terms of formative assessment. You have a lot of flexibility in setting up scores, pass marks etc. in Chamilo, including assigning overall weightings to tests and the option to assign negative scores to individual answers. You should use these features with care, and avoid careless errors especially (a wrong score for a correct answer is incredibly frustrating for a student). If you give a automatically score to a learner, it can prove difficult to adjust it afterwards. Updating a score may be necessary under specific circumstances (e.g. where the test is complex), and this will require a manual revision by the teacher.

Displaying correct answers

The option to display correct answers is a simple and direct way of providing feedback by demonstrating to the learner what he should have answered. Sometimes displaying the answers in this way is desirable, but given that the learner may wish to re-take the test without being given the answer, or that you may well want to re-use the test on a future occasion, it is recommended you don't display the any answers, but instead use feedback to let the learner know how (rather than what) he should have answered and set him on the right course to get it right next time through his own efforts.

Test types

You will have gathered by now that the term Tests used for this tool is a generic term used to describe a range of on-line learning activities which, along with assignments and forums, can be used to generate evaluative information which can guide students' further learning. A key aspect of the Tests tool is that it can be used to provide instant automated responses to student input without the need to wait for the teacher to respond. How such automated responses are delivered and used however can vary widely in the course of the student's journey through the course. Below are some suggested broad categories of evaluative activity which can be effectively set up using the Tests tool.

Exams refers to (generally time-controlled) exercises for which no immediate feedback, nor any answer, is given to the learner : he will obtain his results when the teacher considers it right. This type of summative assessment is often undertaken at the end of a course and may carry a high weighting in the overall assessment of the student. Because of its significance scoring and feedback are generally withheld until the teacher has had the chance to go through at students' results with a “fine-tooth comb”.
Exercises allow the teacher to assess the learner throughout the course e.g. at the end of a lesson, unit or module. Less formal than an exam, such tests might allow students three or more attempts and represent a more formative approach to assessment, involving plenty supportive feedback. Some elements of these tests might not be fully automated, requiring some level of direct assessment by the teacher. Most scoring would be immediately supplied, but feedback would tend to fall short of displaying the correct answer directly, challenging students to apply themselves to study revision and reflection to work out the correct answer for themselves.
Automated tests can generally be available to take an unlimited number of times. Their key purpose would be to allow the learner to “drill” himself, e.g. to learn vocabulary in a language course, rehearse a particular mathematical algorithm or memorize a safety procedure. Such tests would be free of any time constraints and would be fully automated displaying scoring, feedback and even correct answers to encourage improvements through practice.
Scenarios represent a more advanced form of interactive exercise where the teacher can pre-determine alternative next steps in the test predicated on student's response to a question, leading the student through a particular path of questioning. This type of activity can be achieved using Chamilo's Tests tool and can provide students with a very effective interactive on-line learning experience, but of course is by its very nature quite complex and demanding to set up.

The above descriptions demonstrate how the Tests tool can function depending on how it is configured by the teacher. The tool is designed to be as flexible as possible while remaining relatively easy to use, so variations on all the above “models” can be achieved to meet requirements.

Adding questions to the test

On creating a test, click Proceed to questions you will be taken to the questions page:

Illustration: First view of the questions list

In addition to the toolbar the page displays an array of different types of question. (The same page can be accessed at a later time using the edit icon for any given test listed in the Tests page.) It offers a range of question types from which to choose, which are described in this section. Each test can contain a combination of question types – this can prove handy for ensuring tests don't become monotonous.

Fill banks/form

multiple choice

Open question

image zones

Unique answer + unknown

Combination T/F/ ?

multiple answer

matching

Oral expression

exact selection

Multiple answer T/F/ ?

Global multiple answer

Illustration: Exercises – Question types

Questions are created using an on-line form which differs according to the question type. The following subsections describe each form in detail. Completion of the forms is quite intuitive. The following general points regarding the completion of the on-line forms apply to all or most types of question:

The “Comment” column will only be shown if you selected the show feedback_option to in the _advanced settings when you created the test (if you don't want to show any feedback, then there is little point in showing this column on the page.)
Any fields marked with a red asterisk * must be completed.
Every question has a title and an “enriched” description. We generally recommend putting a short title in the title box, and putting the real question in the enrich question box. This will allow you to present a much fuller, more meaning question, use images, and/or include audio or video.
All answer and comment boxes have editing tools which are hidden by default but can be viewed by clicking the small black arrow on the top-left corner of the text box. This will allow you also add images, links and audio to your answers or feedback comments.
Every question type involves the allocation of scores. In the case of questions requiring scoring later by a teacher, this will simply be a maximum score against which the teacher will mark the test. In the case of objective tests involving learners selecting an answer, the score for each right or wrong answer chosen can be set, and can include negative values. Teachers should give some thought, particularly in tests involving different question types, to what weighting within the overall test each question should carry.
Teachers should also consider the number of options they wish to offer in the case of multiple choice type questions – this can be determined using the red and green remove/add answer option buttons at the foot of the form.
You can also assign a difficulty level for each question in the advanced options. This can be handy for later fine-tuning the evaluation of students' work, or reviewing the test overall. It can also be very useful when it comes to recycling questions, allowing you filter questions by difficulty.

Type 1 : Multiple choice – Single answer

Illustration: Tests – Multiple choice, single answer

Type 2 : Multiple choice – multiple answer

Illustration: Tests – Multiple answer question

Type 3 : Fill the blanks

Illustration: Tests - Fill the blanks

The question will appear like this to the learner, who simply needs to type the correct word in to the blank fields:

Type 4 : Matching

Illustration: Tests – Matching text elements

The learner will view the matching question like this:

or, from 1.9.6, a draggable circle will make it a little more appealing to students.

Type 5 : Open question

Illustration: Tests - Open questions

The learner will be presented with a text field in which to write. (He can use the small arrow on the left of the top border of the field to make use of a range of fields if he wishes to enrich his presentation. e.g. with heading or highlighted text.)

Type 6: Audio answer

(note: This question type requires the learner to have Java applets supported in his browser. If this is not the case, he will need to to record the audio separately and then upload it as an MP3 file to the server.)

Because of the additional requirements for this question type, you should make sure your learners are aware that the test will contain an audio question and that they have a more than one chance to try the test to check whether their browser supports it or not. (Bear in mind that taking a test is generally a stressful experience. You don't want to give your learners a nervous breakdown because they can't manage to record an audio answer!)

Illustration: Tests – Oral expression

The learner simply needs to press the Record answer when he is ready to talk, and follow the instructions for the on-screen Nanogong recorder, which will automatically send his recording to the teacher for marking and scoring.

Type 7 : Hot spot, or image area

Illustration: Exercises - Hot spot question creation

Having uploaded your image and named your question, you can add or remove hotspots, and define the area using an ellipse, a rectangle or a polygon shape. As with other question types, you can add comments for feedback purposes and determine a score for each correctly identified area.

The learner needs to click on the picture to identify the areas listed – the numbers will appear on top of the areas on which he clicks:

Illustration: Exercises - Hot spot learner view

Type 8 : Exact combination

Illustration: Tests - Exact combination

Type 9 : Unique answer with unknown

Illustration: Tests – unique answer with unknown

Type 10 : Multiple answer True/False/Don't know

Illustration: Tests – Multiple answer true/false/don't know

Type 11 : Combination True/false/don't know

Illustration: Tests – Combination true/false/don't know

The learner will view the question(s) and use radio buttons like this:

Note: a “don't know” will generate a zero score, so this format might most fairly contain one or two questions – requiring prudent use from the teacher.

Type 12 : Global multiple answer

Illustration: Tests – Global multiple answer

Recycling existing questions

Any question created, independently of the test or course to which it has been attached, feeds the questions database. This base can be very useful for teachers wanting to re-use questions that are very general or, needing questions to serve as “fillers” when you're short of a few questions in a new test.

During test creation, the database shows questions from other tests, as well as orphan questions (i.e. those questions which have belonged to a test which has been removed).

When the question database shows, it presents a list of all existing questions inside the course. This is where assigning questions to categories and adding a difficulty to tests can prove very useful for identifying individual questions: use the Filter and Difficulty drop-down lists to filter the questions accordingly.

Illustration: Tests – Questions database

Importing: HotPotatoes, IMS/QTI2, Excel

As well as allowing teachers to create their own tests as described above in sections 12.2 to 12.6, Chamilo enables teachers to easily upload and include tests created in external tools, in particular tests created using Hot Potatoes, Qti2 and Microsoft Excel. These are popular authoring tools which can produce tests in a standard format suitable for use in many, LMSes, including Chamilo. Details of how to use these software packages are obviously outwit h the scope of this guide, but experienced online educators may well be familiar with one or all of them, and may have produced tests with them which they wish to upload to Chamilo.

To do so, the teacher need simply click on the relevant icon in the toolbar on the main Tests page and follow the dialogue box to locate and import the relevant file.

Illustration: Tests – import external tests from Tests page

Illustration: Tests - Import HotPotatoes, Qti2 and Excel tests

Test results

Illustration: Exercises - List

This will display a page listing all the results for the relevant test.

Illustration: Exercises – Results list

Communication : Forums

Following on from the previous chapters you might be expecting to examine the learning paths tool at this juncture. However, we'll look at this later (see Structure: Learning paths on page 76). Instead, it actually makes more sense here to take a look at the next most commonly used tool on the platform.

The forum is an asynchronous discussion tool, i.e. the people involved in a conversation do not have to be connected simultaneously to participate. Email is also an asynchronous tool. However, a major difference from e-mail is that the forum is a public or semi-public space, where several people can see information (even if they were not part of the discussion initially), boosting support for learning by providing ready access to really useful information, inasmuch as a group of students and teachers can exchange ideas together in their specialist field.

Forum management tools category

Name of forum

Illustration: Forum – Global view

Exchanges are organized hierarchically, as follows:

Forum category
- Forum
  - Discussion thread
    message
    answer to the message
    answer to the message
    message
    answer to the message
    answer to the answer

and so forth...

Using forum views

Depending on the complexity of exchanges on the forums, several display modes can be used to simplify reading and answering discussion threads.

List view : simply shows messages in chronological order,
threaded view : shows only one answer thread at a time,
nested view : uses the threaded view but displays a complete subject.

Illustration: Forum – Display modes

Add forum categories

In the Forum tool:

click the New category link,
give it a name,
add a comment if needed,
click Create category.

Illustration: Forum – New category

Add forum

From the Forum page:

Click New forum,
give it a name,
add a description if necessary,
in the advanced settings, it is possible to:
- authorize learners to modify their own answers,
- authorize learners to create new discussion threads,
- set the default view,
- decide if the forum is the one of a group, if it is public or private,
click the Create forum button.

Illustration: Forum – Forum creation form

Manage forum categories

Managing forum categories makes use of familiar icons:

Manage forums

Managing forums makes use of familiar icons:

Start a new topic

When the content of a forum is shown:

click on the New message link,
complete the Name and Description fields,
advanced settings allow us to
- score a discussion thread as a teacher and give it a maximum score. To do this:
  - select the “Mark this thread” box
  - set a maximum score to reflect the learners participation in a discussion thread,
  - enter or update the title of the corresponding column for the assessments tool,
  - give a weight to the participation in the discussions thread in comparison to the other components of the assessment tool.
- receive e-mail alerts if an answer is added to the discussion thread,
- set a discussion thread to appear on top of the threads list,
- add an attachment to any message, together with a comment,
Click Create thread

Illustration: Forum – Discussion thread

Manage discussion threads

The day-to-day administration of topics (also referred to as “discussion threads”) is identical to that of categories or forums. You may, however, move a topic from one forum to another better suited,one.

Moving a topic from one forum to another has to be done through a drop-down list. Select within that list the destination forum, then click on the “Move Thread” button to proceed. The effect is immediate.

Manage messages

A message is an answer within one of the discussion threads.

Give your learners a score

If you choose to score/grade a topic/discussion thread, you will first need to assign a maximum score to this thread. This needs to be done when the thread is created. Go to advanced settings in the create thread page and check the grade this thread box. An option to enter a maximum score will appear:

Illustration: Assigning a maximum score to a discussion thread

To score a student's contribution to a thread:

scroll down to see the list of learners,
on the new page, locate the list of all the contributions (messages) written by the learner scored as well as a statistical table based on these same contributions,
enter the score you want to assign the learner: with the help of the list of contributions, choose a qualitative evaluation for these contributions. The statistical table allows a quantitative evaluation of the contributions,
Click the Grade this thread button.

Illustration: Forum – Marking a thread

Give a score from a message

The new page gathers the list of all messages posted by the learner as well as a statistical table based on these messages,
Click the Grade this thread button.

The score given to the learners will be shown in the assessment tool.

Add a message to a thread

clicking the icon will give you access to the on-line editor to write your message. An area allowing you to read the other messages of the thread appear at the bottom of the page,
give a short topic to your message,
enter your message,
choose whether you want to be notified by e-mail in case anybody answers your message,
attach a document (optional) and, if you do, add a small comment describing the document,
click on the Reply to this thread button.

Reply to a specific message

The reply procedure is the same as the previous one, except the message topic includes the initial message, prefixing it with a « Re : » indicating the two messages are related.

Quote a previous message

Reply or Reply to this topic

The main difference between those two options resides in the hierarchy of the different messages and their answers.

Reply creates new answers which will be deleted altogether when the initial message s removed, while Reply to this thread creates messages which will be kept, even if the starting message is removed.

Search a forum element

All the screens of the Forum tool include a search feature. The search can be executed in all the forums at once and you can combine search terms with the “+” sign. The results are sent in the form of a list indicating:

the forum category,
the forum title,
the title of the thread in which the searched words have been found.

Structure: Learning paths

Introduction

A learning path in Chamilo is an organizational concept/tool which presents activities or learning objects from the course in an organized sequence to guide and support learning. It can be constructed in various ways appropriate to course content. At its simplest it constitutes a clear table of contents or, depending on the nature of the activities involved, it can provide the necessary agenda for the acquisition of a given area of knowledge, understanding or skill.

A learning path can be sequenced in a way which is suggestive (simply displaying sections one after another like a menu) or prescriptive (the learner is required to follow the sections in a given order). It is important to bear in mind that a learning path is more than just diced-up course content: it represents a pedagogical itinerary which might include tests, discussions, evaluations, experimentation etc. Structuring a path effectively to guide students through these learning experiences is a key factor in good course design.

Using the learning path tool, you can either import an existing AICC or SCORM course, create a new learning path within Chamilo or edit an existing learning path:

Illustration: The learning path tool:

Create a learning path

Illustration: Learning paths - Creating a new learning path

Give a name to your learning path and click Continue. The learning path is created immediately (without content for the time being). It will appear in the learning paths list. Once the learning path is created, you get access to a series of tools to:

Illustration: Learning paths – Learning paths – Adding a learning object or activity

Learning path's settings

Illustration: Learning paths – Settings

: Note that Chamilo uses the simple term “course” here rather than “learning path”. Don't confuse this with the the term “course” as applied to the overall course (Learn English in the illustration)

Add Learning Objects and Activities

As you build your learning path/course, you have the option to include existing learning objects or activities or to create your own using Chamilo.

Illustration: Adding a learning object or activity to a course

Create a new document

This option allows you to generate a document which will be automatically added to the learning path and saved in .html format in the learning path documents.

In essence, it is possible to use the rich text editor to edit styles, add images, videos, etc. You can toggle between html and the WYSIWYG editor to produce whatever content you wish. In other words, Chamilo provides you with a complete learning path creation tool.

Illustration: Learning paths – Rich media creation tool

Use existing resources

You can use any document you have previously imported or created in the documents tool of the course (e.g. a SCORM course, .html pages, videos, images, etc. - see_Authoring content in Chamilo__)._

Links, tests, assignments and forums can be created prior to building the learning path in the Authoring or Interaction sections on your course's homepage, and then added from these sections into your learning path via the relevant tab on the learning path page. (Alternatively, they can be created directly from within the tabs themselves as you build the learning path:)

Illustration: Learning paths – Importing existing resources

Add a new section

Illustration: Learning paths – New sections

Display the learning path

Display the results of the learning path you just built:

Illustration: Learning paths – Learner's view

Import AICC and SCORM

Illustration: Learning paths - Import SCORM

Click choose file to select the relevant document on your hard disk and send to upload it. That's it. Your imported course is ready to use.

Note : Chamilo 1.8 and all its derivations (including D0keos) only support SCORM in version 1.2.

Prerequisites

If a learning path contains several elements, it is possible to establish the completion of tasks and targets expected of learners following the learning path using the prerequisites feature.

Illustration: Learning paths – Prerequisites

This allows the teacher to require the learner to have completed another task in the learning path (e.g. the preceding task) before they can access this element, and also, e.g. in the case of a test or assessment, to have achieved a given minimum score.

Using the prerequisite options button in the toolbar, prerequisites to complete the preceding step can be set globally for all steps in the path, or alternatively all prerequisites can be cleared from the path.

Illustration: Learning paths – Prerequisites options

Test/exam Reporting

Illustration: Exam tracking

Inside the Tests tool

Inside the Tests tool itself, the teacher will also find a large amount of reporting options.

Illustration: Tests list

Note that the broom(s) icons are meant to delete all previous user results from the database, so do not use them without thinking thoroughly about the impact they might have on your tracking.

Export all results as individual PDFs

Note the zips themselves are named based on internal IDs of the session (S) (if any), the course (C) and the test (T). While these IDs are not readily visible in Chamilo, you can usually find them in the URL or hovering over an icon.

Although not covered completely in this manual, the same kind of report can be generated, with the addition of a date filter, from the administration page, "Course sessions" block, "Export all results from an exercise" link.

Illustration: Link to PDF export of all results

On this page, you can filter by session, course, test and start/end dates.

Illustration: PDF export page for all tests

This latter feature is only available to administrators as it spans all sessions, courses and tests.

Within a test

Illustration: Test reports page

On this page, everything has to do with reporting, so let's dive into more details.

Live results

Illustration: Test report "live"

On this screen, you can see that 2 users are currently taking a 3-questions test. One of them started at 10:46 AM, the second one at 10:47 AM.

The first user only answered 1 question so far (column Questions already answered only showing partially in this screenshot), while the second user already answered 2 questions.

However, their score is the same, meaning the second user has made a mistake already (otherwise, given the test contains 3 questions and (s)he already answered 2 of them (s)he would have obtained 67% progress).

This type of report is particularly practical while watching over a group of students in a common room, as you can then intervene and check if everything is alright before the end of the test.

For example, getting all answers correct very quickly might mean the user is using some cheating technique.

On the opposite spectrum, if users take a long time and answer most questions incorrectly, they might have some technical issue or mental stress that you might be able to help with.

Report by question

The second icon, a standard pie chart icon, brings you to a report page all about questions.

Illustration: Test report by question

The table is divided into two different sections.

The first one is a synthesis of each question:

Question title.
Question type.
Number of learners who "selected" it, meaning the number of users who had this question appear in their test. It's important to note that, in tests with questions picked at random in a questions bank, not all users will see all questions.
Lowest score: the lowest score obtained on that question. This is usually 0, except if no-one got it completely wrong.
Average score: the sum of scores on that question, divided by the number of times it appeared to a student.
Highest score: the highest score for that question. If a question does not have the top score there at all, it means that no-one got it 100% right, so it would look like the question itself might be a bit too difficult or out of context. A good hint for teachers.
Score: this is the highest possible score for that question (to be compared with the Highest score column).

The second part of the table focuses more on the possible answers, and tries to provide some insight into how well these possible answers have been prepared:

Question title.
Answer: each of the possible answers.
Correct: whether that specific answer is considered correct for the question.
Number of users who selected it: the number of users who selected that specific answer when answering the question.

If a question has well-designed "possible answers" and you have a normal set of learners, it is likely that each answer would be selected at a reasonable frequency. If an answer is never selected, then either:

all of your learners are amazingly good at this
that answer is too obviously wrong
your data set is not large enough to make this analysis relevant (only a few learners or so)

Note you can export this report using the icons in the action bar.

Report by attempt

The Report by attempts icon brings you to a page focused on counting attempts, essentially.

Illustration: Test report by attempt

The table shows the following information:

Username
E-mail
One column for each question (hovering the ID will show you the question title), giving you the number of times each question appeared during the attempt (0 or 1 time)

By clicking the cells with something different than 0, you open a modal window showing you the answer of that specific user to that specific question.

Illustration: Detail of question attempt

Note you can export this report in .xlsx format.

Export un-detailed results

Illustration: Export results options

An option allows you to include user profile fields (if they have been defined by the administrator and marked as available for filtering) in the export.

Recalculate results

Recalculating scores can be useful if you have modified a question in a way that fixes an issue but can have an impact on previous users' scores to the test.

For example, let's say you had a unique-answer question and, while designing the question, you made a mistake and marked answer 2 as correct whereas it should have been answer 3.

Learners who (erroneously) marked answer 2 would have gotten a score for a correct answer (+1, for example) while they should have gotten 0 or -1. Similarly, learners who marked the correct answer 3 would have had a score of 0 or -1 to that question.

One learner reports that this question was incorrectly scored (or maybe you noticed it yourself), so you decide to fix the question by changing the correct answer and the corresponding score.

Now your question is fixed, but the scores of learners who took the test previously are still considering that answer 2 was the correct one.

To fix this, simply click the Recalculate results, either in the action bar (applying to all attempts) or next to one specific attempt to only affect that one. Chamilo will then recalculate the scores based on the answers selected by the learners, but taking into account the correct score.

Of course, this might lead to confusion within your group of learners, so make sure you communicate correctly around this change. You can do so through the "Announcement" tool of the course.

Export all results from an exercise

Given the fact it generates several PDFs at once, it will package them in one single zip file.

Clean all results before a selected date

In this case, a calendar allows you to pick the date after which attempts will not be deleted.

This option is often used in the absence of sessions management, where the same course is used over and over again across calendar years, so you want to clean up what other learners did before, so you have a clean sheet to work with.

However, we strongly recommend using sessions and keeping reporting data untouched.

Questions stats report

The Question stats button leads you to a table putting in evidence the number and rate of wrong answers to each question. Similarly to the Report by question we saw a few sections back, this report helps you identify the questions that have the highest probability of being improved by reformulating, as it is not "normal" that most learners would fail it.

Illustration: Questions statistics report

Note you can export this report in XLS format, and you can filter the results by group or by user.

Comparative group report

The Comparative group report button leads you to a page that allows you to compare the relative performance between user groups (as defined in the Groups tool of the same course).

Illustration: Comparative group report

The report is very short and shows the average score for each group.

Note that this report is based on an average of all attempts by users. If a user has 3 attempts, then the average will include those 3 attempts.

You can export this report in XLS format.

Within an attempt

Finally, on the main results page, you already have relevant and important data...

The page is paginated, which means you can have as many results there and you can choose the number of results shown per page.

Most columns are sortable and searchable, so if you have a lot of data there, you can quickly filter by users' lastnames, for example.

Illustration: Test reports page, more results

Let's review the available columns:

First name.
Last name.
Group: the user group to which this user belongs, in the course (this is not the global class).
Duration: in minutes, the amount of time the user took to finish this attempt. Note that while the test is unfinished, this number remains set to 0. To see a "live" attempt, check the Live results report.
Start Date: the date and time the user started the test (expressed in your timezone if you have set one, otherwise the system time).
End Date: the end date. If the test is unfinished, this is the time of the last interaction (saving an answer, for example).
Score: the user's score for this attempt. The format of that information can be reconfigured at the global level. By default, it shows the percentage and the absolute score on top of the maximum achievable score for this test.
IP: if not disabled by the admin, the system registers the IP address of the user (IPv4 or IPv6) and shows it to teachers, in an attempt to ease identification of fraudulent simultaneous attempts by the same user from 2 different IP addresses.
Status: an indicator of the current state of the test. Can be "Unclosed" if still unfinished, "Not validated" if finished but the teacher did not yet validate the test results manually, and "Validated" when (s)he did.
Learning path: in case this test is used in a learning path, the name of the learning path will be shown in this column for informative purposes.
Detail: a series of actions that can be executed on the attempt, or basic information:
- Teacher icon: identifies if the user who took this test was a learner or a teacher (usually, results from teachers can be ignored, but we still include them where we feel it would confuse teachers not to include them).
- Lock icon: whenever a test is in the "Unclosed" state, teachers can force the closure of the test, in which case it changes to "Not validated".
- Test icon ("Grade activity"): allows the teacher to move to the detailed report of attempt for this attempt and give feedback or set scores in the case of open-type questions.
- Pencil icon ("Edit"): only appears if the test was already validated before, to allow for another layer of validation.
- Compass icon (IP address appears on hover): check where in the world the IP address that was registered is located (approximately).
- Cross icon ("Delete") to delete the attempt (which will allow the user to take the test again, except if it was limited in dates of availability).

Test attempt detail

When clicking that test or pencil icon in the "Detail" column of any attempt, the teacher is sent to the same kind of page as the user itself will see upon finishing the test if some feedback or results are set to be shown.

Illustration: Test attempt detail

Except the teacher can provide feedback (if the question is auto-evaluated) or feedback and a score if the question is of "open" type.

At the end of the page, a checkbox allows the teacher to decide whether the feedback provided should be sent by e-mail to the user or not.

If the test was not entirely auto-evaluated, the manual evaluation is a necessary process. We recommend to teachers to do that quickly, as users love rapid feedback.

Obviously, the ideal solution in terms of immediate feedback is still not to include any question that requires manual evaluation.

This detail page can also be exported to PDF.