QuizMD: student created practice exam questions online

[Daniel Kozan]

Hi everyone,

 

The school year officially finished yesterday for us (U of A Med2010) and I'm now relaxing into summer mode.

 

I'd like to share with you a project I started this year and piloted with my class. It's called QuizMD, and its an online database of practice exam questions that's open to submissions from anyone, much like Wikipedia. The idea is that you'll forever retain knowledge that you craft into question form, since writing a question requires a thorough understanding of the topic. Also, the decision making process behind answering questions is a much more effective way to learn than simply reading notes. AND, I find we learn a lot through the debate surrounding certain questions (you can post comments on each Q).

 

The site also features flashcard type quizzes (called bite quizzes) and PBL style cases that you can contribute to as you work through them. These features are relatively new and haven't been well used yet, so you won't find much material there. The "meat" of the site currently is multiple choice questions.

 

Please give it a try. No sign up is required, but if you do sign up you'll be able to add your school and courses so you can maintain a list of questions that are more relevant to your curriculum. You also get a news feed that shows you what's new in your courses, included all the latest comments on questions, etc. And the system will preferentially present you with new questions when you start a quiz.

 

The url is http://quiz.md

 

I'm very appreciative of any and all feedback: good, back, constructive, destructive, whatever. QuizMD is a work in progress that's been mainly limited by the amount of time I could afford to give it during the school year, but now that summer's here I have big improvements planned.

 

I should note that this is an ENTIRELY student initiated and supported project!! We've had submissions from generous faculty members, but the concept, execution, and maintenance is 100% student driven.

 

Thanks for reading and let me know how it works for you!

 

Cheers,

Dan

[carebear15]

hi dan,

 

it's a nice site that is useful. however, i think explanations for answers should be included, such as in pre-test books or online study aids such as exam master. that would truly promote understanding, and at least a student could determine why they were incorrect/correct. also, there seems to be a glitch in the programming because once an incorrect answer is entered, the user cannot try the question again or determine the correct answer.

 

good luck.

[Daniel Kozan]

Thanks for your feedback! Question authors are encouraged to include explanations, although they are not required. If there is an explanation or discussion surrounding a question it'll appear after clicking "Show comments".

 

You may be referring to the "your answer" box, which only records your first answer, so you can review the quiz when you're done. However, you ought to be able to continue guessing until you find the correct answer, which should be indicated by flashing and highlighting (unless you don't have Javascript enabled! I guess I should add some behavior to accommodate this possibility). I think there are some issues with older versions of IE as well. Like I say, it's a work in progress!

 

Thanks again,

Dan