Creating a Certification Exam

A Certification Exam is a "tracked" test within a module book. The Progress Tracker Certification Exam feature is optional. It allows for a single certification exam or multiple chapter certification exams.

Overview

When an end-user accesses the Certification Exam via the Certification Exam button or the Chapter Certification Exam Popup button, code in the setup button on the Exam Start page randomly selects the correct number of questions per chapter from a defined question pool, puts them in the right place, and resets them. Unused questions are placed at the back of the book. Once users have completed the test their results are summarized on the Certification Exam Score page and available from the Student Information window (you can control whether or not these results are shown).

See Indicating Module Completion to learn how completion is determined with Certification Exams.

How to Create a Single Certification Exam

After setting up a Progress Tracker module, use the following steps to add a single Certification Exam to the module:

1. Use the catalog page templates in the Begin Certification Exam category and the End Certification Exam category to add both an exam start page and an exam score page. Place each page on its own unique background. Make sure that both pages are named. The default names are "CertificationExam" for the start page and "certificateExamScorePage" for the end page.

2. Format the fields of the start and end pages however you choose.

3. Create Instructor/CBT Edition question pages.

    All question pages should be on the same unique background (no pages but exam question pages should be on this background). The name of this background MUST be specified in the Progress Tracker Administrator.

    You should have only one question per page.

    We recommend you put the question text for each question in a field named "field 1", or in another field with the same name on each question page, or in a recordfield. This makes setting the questionText property easier (see next step).

    Set the questionText property for each question. You can either select Set Question Text from the Tracker menu for each page, or create all question pages and then use the Build Q Text button on the Tracker tool palette.

    Be sure to mark each question as scored.

    You should name each question object descriptively, since this name will appear in the detailed test data available from the Student Information window, and in some of the Progress Tracker Reports.

    Naming the question pages is not important since the randomization technique will do this for you.

    Associate each question page with a chapter to define it as part of that chapter's question pool. To do this, you can use either the Certification Exam Chapter Indicator or the Associate Q button on the Tracker tool palette.

4. Use the Progress Tracker Administrator to:

• Specify the number of questions to pull from each chapter's pool.

• Specify the name of the test background (the background for the question pages)

• Control whether or not the user can view their exam results from the Student Information window (use the "Skip View Question Log" option)

• View a Certificate from the Student Information window (use the "Certificate" option)

5. To let your users access the exam, include a Certification Exam button on your Home page.

6. How it works: Whenever the user navigates to the Certification Exam Start page in reader mode, the number of questions designated for each chapter are selected from the available question pages for that chapter and placed after the Start page and before the Score page. The questions will be grouped by chapter (so all Chapter 1 questions will be first, followed by Chapter 2 questions, etc.) but the questions will be randomized within each group. All unused questions are placed at the back of the book.

 

How to Create Multiple Chapter Certification Exams

 

Note: Although Progress Tracker allows you to create multiple chapter certification exams, it will only store a single, overall score per session. In addition, it will only keep a single exam data set per session. So you will NOT get separate exam scores or data sets for each chapter exam.

 

To create multiple chapter exams instead of a single exam, repeat the above steps for each exam, with the following additional guidelines.

 

1. All questions, regardless of chapter, should still be on the same background.

2. Each Chapter Certification Exam must have its own start page and end page.

3. The setup button on the Certification Exam Start page must be the Chapter Certification Exam Setup button, not the Certification Exam Setup button.

4. There are two ways to launch Chapter Certification Exams, with slightly different setups for each:

1. 
   Use the Chapter Certification Exam Popup button on your Home page. This will let the user select from a popup menu of all chapter certification exams. In this case, the start page for each Chapter Exam must be named "Test <chapterName>", with <chapterName> replaced with the name of the chapter.

2. 
   Use a different Certification Exam button for each chapter exam. In this case, the start page for each Chapter Exam can have any unique name, but the name must be specified in the extended properties of the Certification Exam button.