YouTestMe - Starter
Introduction
YouTestMe Starter application was encouraged by the emerging trend of e-learning and distance learning which has been implemented in many prestigious universities around the world. The purpose of this software is to enable both students and professors to have an efficient, easy, and improved way of learning, testing and evaluating. The application itself supports multiple courses, classes, quizzes and question pools. It offers unique features to students, instructors and administrators to automate tedious tasks and and deliver the best educational experience. It also showcases a quiz generator that can be tailored to cover all needs professors might need on their respective courses.
Creating a User Profile
In order to create a user profile, click on the menu in the top right corner and choose the "Register" option. In this window type the personal information required: the username, first name, last name, date of birth, the role in the educational facility, and respective email account. After completing these steps, click on the "Register" button and, if everything is correct, an administrator will review your details and send a confirmation mail, containing the password required to log in. In case you forget or misplace your password you can click on the "Forgot password?" option and after filling in your username and e-mail address, a randomly generated password will be sent.
Managing a User Profile
Profiles and User Review
Once you log in, you can see "Profiles" tab on the utmost left in tabs section on top of the page. When you open it, a "Help" box is shown, containing basic information about manipulating different user profiles in various ways. On the right side of the screen, there are several buttons: The "Show Users" option shows a searchable list of all users and their characteristics.
Registration and User Profile
Next, the "Requests" option will bring up any registration requests from new users of the application. Also, you can always see new registration requests on the left side of the screen in the "Notifications" menu. The "New User" button will show you a form that needs to be filled with a certain user's details in order to create a profile within the application.
Role Management
There are three default roles in this system (more can be created if necessary): Student, Professor and Administrator. Each of these types has a different set of options. All of these roles are manipulated through the "Roles" option. Usually, an Administrator sets different kinds of restrictions on other types of users.
Courses and Classes
All types of users are organized into Courses and Classes. You can navigate both of these through the Navigation tab right next to notification located on left side of the screen. Here, you can see how Courses are hierarchically organized, meaning they can have Sub-Courses and Parent Courses. Also, groups assigned to each course can be seen here.
Course Information
Once you have selected a Course, numerous options will be shown, such as: New Subcourse, New Class, etc. Additionally, "Members" tab will show you all members of the course as well as their roles. Only Course Managers (Administrators and certain Professors) can add members to a certain Course, change the roles and manipulate the courses. Also if a member has joined a certain Course, he automatically joins all of the Parent Courses. However, it doesn't go the other way around, so if a member joins a Parent Course, he is not necessarily joined to all of its Subcourses.
Class Information
Each Class can be joined to all the types of Courses. Once you navigate to a Group by selecting it through a Course, general information about it can be seen, for example: Class name, Status, Date of activation, etc. In case the permission is granted, new users can be added to a class and their role assigned. Also, each group can have any amount of participants: Students/Professors or Administrators.
Question Pools
General Information
Question Pools represent a certain number of questions, usually thematically conjoined, which can be used later. The "Pools" button is located in the tab section, third from right to left. This tab also has its own navigation (on the left side of the screen), so Pools are hierarchically organized as well. This means that each Pool can have a certain number of Subpools.
Question Pool Members
Question Pools can be used by certain members, who have the permission granted by the Pool Administrator. Logically, Pool Administrators of a Parent Pool, are also Administrators of all Subpools. However, this does not go vice versa, so an Administrator of a Subpool is not necessarily an Administrator of a Parent Pool. Also, Administrators can assign roles within Pools and remove members, if needed.
About Questions
Under the Pools tab, the "Questions" button can be selected in order to show all the questions inside a selected pool. You can always manipulate questions within a pool, by changing its characteristics or adding a comment.
Question Types
There are seven types of questions: Single Choice; Multiple Choice, Ordering, Matching, Essay and Fill in the blanks. Other than this, there are more characteristics, such as Difficulty, Frequency Factor, Points Awarded, Penalty, etc.
Personal Profile
Details about your profile are shown when you click on your name in top right corner of the screen, right next to the Grading tab. On this page, general information about the logged user is shown (name, date of birth, gender...) as well as a profile picture. All roles the courses the user participates in are shown. Similarly, they can join/leave courses from this page and see which groups they is part of. The previous also applies for the Question Pools the user is able to use.
Grading System
The "Grading" tab is located on the rightmost side of the tabs panel. Here, you are able to review types of Grading Systems added by other users or Create your own. There are several types of grading systems available at the moment: Serbia (High School), Serbia (Faculty), Canada, America.
Quizzes
Manually Created Quizzes
Choose the "Quiz" tab in the center of the panel on top of the screen. In this section, you can choose from a previous template of a Quiz or manually create a new one. Provided a manually created Quiz is supposed to be made, several Quiz characteristics are chosen, such as Quiz Category, Quiz Type, Quiz Duration, Reporting, etc. Quiz Types can be restricted to local networks, in the case of official exams. Categories are chosen from Courses or Subcourses that are available. After adding questions from a Pool one by one, an overview is created, showing the characteristics for your Quiz. Also, a cut off date must be chosen in order to determine in what time period is the quiz available. Once created and distributed, participants will receive a notification containing a link for the Quiz.
Generated Quizzes
Another way of creating Quizzes is using the Quiz Generator. When creating a Quiz without a template, a user must choose a certain type and a certain number of questions from a pool(i.e. 5 Hard, 5 Medium and 5 easy Questions). After that, points awarded for a correct answer and points deducted for an incorrect one must be determined. After setting the duration for the Quiz and Students selected, the Quiz can be uploaded. Before sending the Quiz can also be saved as a Template for future use.
Importing Quizzes from Excel Tables
The YouTestMe application has a feature that enables users to import quizzes from .xlsx (Microsoft excel) files in a quick and efficient manner. This way, users can create a quiz with the help of a predefined template, import it using the application's interface, to utilize it later for performing testing. To properly upload files into the application it is necessary to fill in the template in the right manner. Detailed instructions that explain this procedure can be downloaded here:
Managing Quizzes
On the left side of the "Quiz" tab, there is a different "Quizzes" tab which can be chosen in order to view Quiz categories. Also, when using the Navigation tree on the left side of the screen, various types of Quiz Status can be seen: Not Scheduled, Scheduled, Running, Expired, Suspended and Deleted. Additionally, Quiz characteristics can be changed for certain types of quizzes (i.e. Not Scheduled). The Quiz Navigation tree is primarily used for searching Quizzes by filtering courses. Quizzes can be distributed from this section. By clicking the Export Quiz button, a Quiz is exported to PDF format.
Creating Quizzes Using Templates
Quizzes can also be created using predefined templates. This can drastically lower the amount of time spent in quiz creations. These templates can be set either to 'Public', for all users to see and utilize, or to 'Personal', only for the logged in users. In case the users want to change some of the template's parameters, it can be done before the quiz creation. One of the parameters that is important to mention is 'Cut-off date', which represents a specific date that serves as a boundary. Questions that appeared on quizzes after that specific date, will not be included into the quiz creation.
Collections Overview
You can find several buttons in the side menu of the Collections tab: My quizzes, Active quizzes, Scheduled quizzes, Completed quizzes, Quiz templates and Help. By clicking each of these buttons, you may see the quiz collection related to it.
Reports
Overview
Reporting is a very important feature in testing generally. After the end of the quiz, it is possible to jump to Reports page in several ways: by using the notification sidebar, or by using the top menu. A quiz manager may resolve reports on those questions that require such action this way. Also, they can see detailed statistics and percentages for each user and for each question. Users without manager privileges can see only those quizzes which they have participated in.
Important Documents
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| YTM Starter User Manual | YouTestMe Starter User's Guide with Frequently Asked Questions |