An R-Type Items consists of a rich text passage known as Lead-In and a set of Answer Options that are shared by all the items included in the R-Type items. Questions Stems for an R-type item can be submitted either from already available R-Type items or by creating new R-Type Question Stems.
Create R-Type items
- Select the Develop Questions → Write Item menu.
- Click the Write Question link.
On the Write Question page, select Shared Option List (R-Type) from the Question Type drop-down list.
The screen appears very similar to the MCQ type of items.
- Enter the Lead-in text for the R-Type item. The Lead-in text relates to each of the items in the R-Type item.
- Enter the Answer Options in the Rich Text editor in the Options tab. The Options are the answers that can be selected for each of the items on the Stems tab.
- You can use the automatically populate the R-Type options group list via template that is saved in the R-Type Options setting of the project Configuration.
- Click the drop-down list in front of Select template options group in the Options tab and select one of the saved templates.
Click the Populate Options List button to automatically populate the options list with options saved in the selected template. This only pulls data from the templates. You can modify the data to suit your requirements.
- Enter the Lead-in text for the R-Type item. The Lead-in text relates to each of the items in the R-Type item.
You can add additional Answer Options by clicking the
Add Distractor icon. If you wish to remove an Answer Option, then you can do so by clicking the 
Remove Distractor icon next to it.The default setting is four Answer Options, but the Project Manager might choose to allow questions with a different number of Answer Options by selecting the Allow Differing Option Count setting on the Questions tab of the project's Configuration page. If differing option counts are allowed, you’ll see the
Add Distractor icon after the stem and Remove Distractor icon corresponding to Answer Options. Use the Add Distractor icon to add an option, and use the Remove Distractor icon to remove the corresponding Answer Option.The Answer Option is deleted without any warning if you click on the Remove Distractor icon. The only way to restore the deleted Answer Option is to click the Cancel button below the item, which also reverses any other modifications you made to the item in the current editing session.
The minimum number of Answer Options is 2.It is possible to sort the Answer Option in ascending alphabetical order by clicking the
alphanumeric sorting button on the right side. The Option Label order remains the same.
You can select the check box next to Custom Option Label if you wish to specify your own custom label(s) for the Answer Options.
You can use the corresponding arrow
Move Up and Move Down icons on the right to manually reorder the Options as required.
If you rearrange the order of the Options and the options have been applied to the question stems on the Stems tab, you must reapply the correct Options to the Question Stems.
Now click the Stems tab. You can enter the Question Stem in the Rich Text editor.
Select the correct Answer Option for this Question Stem from the Correct option drop-down list. The selected Option text is displayed in the Correct option text.
Assigning Weights
Weights affect the examinee’s score for an item. Assigning weights is optional and can be done via the Weight drop-down list.
The default selection item over here is Default, which assigns a score of "1" to the item.
If you choose to assign a custom weight for the item, then you must select Item from the drop-down list. A text box appears next to the drop-down list, where you can enter the weight value for the item.
Item weight can be a positive decimal or integer value. It can range from ".001" to "9999".
You can also add Question Stems previously created in other R-Type items by clicking the Search for Stems button to add Question Stems present in previously written R-Type items. A pop-up window with controls to search and retrieve opens. You are only adding the questions to your R-Type item. You must provide the correct answer to these items in the Options tab of your R-Type item.
Users can optimize the number of search items per page by selecting a value from the Items Per Page drop-down; this number ranges from 10 to 50 per page. The default number is 20.
The selected number of search items is displayed in the grid below the drop-down.
The search items per page can be changed and viewed at any time for the user's convenience.
The search results are listed on multiple pages according to the selected number of Items Per Page in the drop-down, if the total number of search items resulting from the search criteria exceeds the selected number of items per page.
The user can also directly jump to another page of the search results grid by clicking its corresponding link above the search results grid.
The Selection drop-down in the left of the header row has four selection options: None, Some, Page, and All.
This Selection drop-down is present on pages in which users need to select multiple search items for use such as viewing, modifying, etc.
The Selection drop-down options perform the following functions:
Column Description None All items in the list across all pages of the search results grid are deselected. Page All items on the currently visible page of the search results grid are selected.
If you move to another page of the search results grid, you will see that none of the items on that page are selected, but the items selected on the earlier page are still retained.
Some This selection appears when you manually select a few items from the list by selecting their corresponding check boxes. This selection also appears if you select Page from the drop-down and then increase the Items per page, or if you select All from the drop-down and then deselect any item on the search results page.
It is also possible to select items across multiple pages of the search results grid by simply making the selection on one page and moving on to another - the item selection made on the earlier page is retained even if you move to another page to make additional selections.
All All items in the list across all pages of the search results grid are selected.
Even when moving to any other page of the search results grid, all the items on that new page are also selected.
The selection drop-down remains as All if any of the items are not deselected, and it changes to Some if any of the items on any of the pages of the search results grid are deselected. Furthermore, if the deselection is made on the first page of the search results grid, then all the items on other pages are deselected. However, if you move to another page of the search results grid while the selection drop-down is All and deselect any item, the selection drop-down for that page changes to Some, while all items on the remaining pages remain selected with the selection drop-down selection showing as Page on those pages.
Retrieve Questions button. You can then select the Question Stems to be added to the R-Type item by selecting the check boxes corresponding to the item listed in the search result, and click the Add Question Stem button to add them to the R-Type item. In case a selected R-Type item in the search result has more than one Question Stem, then all the Question Stems from that item are added to the R-Type item being created.You can add additional Question Stems by clicking the
Add New Stem icon. If you wish to remove a Question Stem, then click the Remove Stem icon next to it.The Question Stem is deleted without any warning if you click on the delete icon. The only way to restore the deleted Question Stem is to click the Cancel button below the item, which also reverses any other modifications you made to the item in the current editing session.
The minimum number of Question Stems is 1.- If you have more than one Question Stem, then click the corresponding arrow on the right to reorder the Question Stem with reference to the ones before or after it. There is no confirmation message upon clicking the arrows and the Question Stems are immediately reordered.
Blueprint, references, comments, and metadata can be specified as mentioned in other Item types.
After entering all the data for the item, you can click on one of the below buttons:
- Click the Add Question to Case button save the item and create a new case. The item is automatically attached to the case. Only users with permission to create cases will see this button.
- Click the Save button. The item is saved and the item is checked-out preventing other users from making edits to the item. You remain on the Write Question page where further edits can be made to the item.
- Click the Preview button. Changes to the item are saved, the item is checked-out, and the item is opened in the Preview window. Only users with permission to preview items will see this button.
- To save an incomplete item, click Save and Exit. The item is saved in a Draft state and checked-in so any users with access to the item may make edits to the item. It is visible in the Draft/Returned Questions tab of the Project Writing Summary page.
- To submit the item for review, click Submit. The item is saved and checked-in so any users with access to the item may make edits to the item. The item is advanced to the next reviewer in the list or to the next stage in the workflow.
A user can click Submit on Behalf of drop-down control and select one of the user names in the list to submit an item on behalf of the selected user. The user list contains names of users enabled in the current project, except for the user who has logged in and is viewing the list. The list is displayed in ascending order by last name, first name, and user name. Once you click the Submit button, the item saves to the Draft mode and does not show for the current user.
Submit on Behalf of drop-down list is not available at the time of Modify Question.
Click the Check Spelling link to check spellings for text in Stem and Options. The spelling is checked first against the built-in or installed dictionary and then against the words specified for exclusion on the Dictionary tab of your project's settings.
