Creating Quizes on Google Docs

October 27, 2011 7:47 PM

Is it possible to create a quiz using Forms on Google Docs that will give a score to the person taking the quiz?

I am looking for a way to have my students do their homework online. Ideally, they will get a response after each question so they know if it was correct and they'll get a total score at the end. Ideally I'd like to use forms on Google Docs to do this for a number of reasons. I know that by using "go to based on answer" they can know immediately if they were correct, but I can't think of any way of giving them final tally. Because their responses are all in a spreadsheet, I can see their final tally. In theory I could give them all access to that sheet, but I don't want them to be able to see one anothers grades. I could solve that by assigning them random codes so they wouldn't know who was who, but they are elementary students and I don't want to make things complicated.

I also know that, at least in theory, if I created enough pages and enough paths I could have the pages show the number correct, but for a 20 question assignment that would be huge number of pages.

I hope I've made it clear what I'm looking for. I don't actually know if what I want to do is possible, but I'm hoping someone out there knows something I don't.

posted by robverb to computers & internet (3 answers total)

The back end of what google uses to make those forms is pretty straightforward. Sometime with a web developer would make this problem go away.

That said, there are probably other, better-suited solutions out there. The google query "online quiz maker" seemed to yield some things that might interest you.
posted by milqman at 12:07 AM on October 28, 2011

Yes - are you interested in a little light programming? If so, you can totally accomplish this with Google Apps Script. It's a script you can write in the form's spreadsheet that can access other Google services. So, for example, it could easily calculate the score and send the student an email with the results.

Google Apps Script is Javascript-based and a fun beginning language, if you haven't programmed before. More info on Google Apps Script.

You should also check out the script gallery to see if anyone has written anything like this already.
posted by beyond_pink at 10:37 AM on October 28, 2011

@ milqman, Thanks for the response. I've looked at a lot of other options and I can't seem to find one that gives immediate feedback and a total score AND is free. Moreover, with Google Sites, I can integrate the quiz, instructional videos and other content easily on one page.

@beyond pink - Thanks to you as well. The last time I wrote code was back in the early '90s (in C++ or Cobol or something - I honestly don't remember) - which puts me fairly close to back to the beginning stage. But I will give it shot. Unfortunately, most of my students don't have e-mail (they're in fifth grade). I'll look into the following question myself, but maybe you know the answer: Is it possible to have the results sent to a new spreadsheet or document rather than an email address?
posted by robverb at 7:01 AM on October 29, 2011