Import Quiz Questions to Moodle Using the Aiken Format
The Aiken format lets you create multiple-choice or true-false questions using a simple, human-readable format that you can save as a plain text file and import into a Moodle course.
Write Questions in the Aiken Format
- Write your questions in a word-processing application (e.g., MS Word) or a text editor such as Notepad (Windows) or Text Edit (Mac OS X), and format as follows:
- The question must be all on one line.
- Each answer must start with a single uppercase letter, followed by a period “.” or a right parenthesis “)”, then a space.
- The answer line must immediately follow, starting with “ANSWER: ” (with a space after the colon), and then give the letter for the correct answer.
Note: The word “ANSWER” and the answer letters (A,B,C etc.) must be capitalized as shown, otherwise the import will fail.
- Use Save As and save your questions as a .txt (plain text) file in UTF-8 format.
Example:
Once you have saved your text file, you can import your questions into the Moodle Question Bank:
- Log into Moodle and open the course where you will import questions
- Select Course Management (gear icon) at the top right of your course page
- Choose More
- On the Course Management panel, under Question Bank, click Import. The Import questions from file page will open
- Select Aiken Format for the File format
- Click the General heading to expand the settings and for Import category, select a Category (or use Default for course)
- Under Import questions from file, drag and drop your .txt file onto the blue arrow in the Import box, or alternately, click Choose a file…. to browse for the .txt file on your computer
- Click Upload this file. You will see a page with the messages “Parsing questions from import file” and “importing (# of) question(s) from file,” with a list of the questions.
- Click Import
- Click Continue. Your Question Bank will open. You can now further edit the questions or include the questions in a quiz
More questions? Check out these resources:
Modified from: UMASS