Importing premade test items

Test authors who are not familiar with the TAO authoring tool can import premade items containing choice interactions via CSV file. These items can be imported in bulk, which provides an easy way to create simple assessments quickly.

The basis of the import is a CSV template - provided by TAO - that can be downloaded from the Import form. The CSV template provides the ability to define the question with all the possible answers for each choice interaction you provide, the metadata, and the scoring for each of the items.

The steps to import items are as follows.

1. Click on Items on the Assessment Builder Bar.

This will take you to the Item Library, which you will see on the left.

2. Click on the Item class  (i.e. folder) in the library that you wish to import the new item into.

3. Click on Import  in the button bank below the library.

This opens a dialog box which asks you to select the format of the item to be imported.

4. Select CSV content + metadata.

Select Download a sample CSV file to download an editable CSV file. This file contains the proper columns to ensure the file’s structure is correct and the import completes successfully.

5. In the CSV file, populate each field with your information according to the entities defined in each column.

Entities

Mandatory

• name

  • Enter a name (identifier) for each interaction.

  • This field is mandatory.

• question

  • Enter a question for each interaction (i.e “What is the capital of Luxembourg?”)

  • This field is mandatory.

• choice_{x}

  • Enter text for each choice available in each interaction.

    • For example: choice_1 → Paris, choice_2 → Luxembourg City

  • This field is mandatory.

• correct_answer

  • Enter the column header text for the correct choice in this field.

  • For example: correct_answer → choice_2

  • This field is mandatory.

Available

• shuffle

  • Enter a value of 1 or 0 (default is 0)

  • Entering a value of 1 shuffles the choices for that interaction.

• language

  • Enter which language is present in each interaction (i.e, US-en)

• min_choices

  • Enter a numeric value for how many choices are permitted.

  • Default is 0 (unlimited)

• max_choices

  • Enter a numeric value for how many choices are permitted.

  • Default is 0 (unlimited)

• choice_{x}_score

  • Define the score for each choice.

  • For example: choice_1_score → -1, choice_2_score → 2

• metadata_{property_alias}

  • Enter the name for any existing metadata property. Users can set the values for those metadata properties through this field. Any text-based metadata can be used (not choice-based metadata).

  • For more information, see Classifying items with metadata.

6. When you have saved your completed CSV file, select Browse to upload it from your computer to TAO. Click Import.

The items will display in the class you have selected.