Enterprise Portal: Tips for Essay Questions

Note: For an overview of the question-creation process and the various options that are available, see: Enterprise Portal: Basic Steps to Create Questions

In this guide:

• Tips
• Grade a Spreadsheet-Optional
• Grade with a Rubric-Optional
• Student View

Tips

• The Question Title is optional. You might find it useful to enter a label that describes this question. If you leave this field blank, ExamSoft will create a title by using the first 40 characters of the Question stem.
• In the text box for the Question, you can use the text formatting toolbar. 
• To display an image, table, or formula within the question text: Use the buttons on the right side of the toolbar. For help with the WIRIS formula editor, see: WIRIS Equation and Formulae Editor
  
  

   

• To add a Case Study to a question, select the Add Case Study button. See Enterprise Portal: How to create a Case Study (Electronic Health Record) for more information.
  
  
  
• Enter the Essay Character Limit to restrict the length of the responses.

  

Grade a Spreadsheet (Optional)

To enable grading a spreadsheet in addition to the essay answer:

1. Toggle the Enable Spreadsheet Grading option to On. This will enable the Spreadsheet tool and provide access to the spreadsheet when grading the students’ essay answers. If you only want to grade the spreadsheet and do not require an essay answer, you can add instructions to the student in the question text box and, optionally, set the Essay Character Limit to 1.
   
2. Only one grading option is supported. If rubric grading is enabled, it must be disabled if you want to grade the spreadsheet.
   
3. Initially, the spreadsheet will contain three blank sheets. If you wish to customize the spreadsheet, or import one from Excel, select the Open Spreadsheet button to set it up. Examplify allows a maximum of three sheets in a spreadsheet, and each sheet may have a maximum of 35 rows and 20 columns. If you exceed these limits, the extra sheets, rows, or columns will not be available when the student takes the exam. See Enterprise Portal: Basic Steps to Create and Edit Questions and for more information. See also Examplify: Working with Spreadsheets for details on features and formula functions currently supported by Examplify.

Grade with a Rubric (Optional)

To grade an essay question with a rubric:

1. Toggle the Grade with a Rubric - Optional to On and select the + Add Rubric button.
   
2. Only one grading option is supported. If spreadsheet grading is enabled, it must be disabled if you want to grade with a rubric.
   
3. The Add Rubrics to Question modal will open. Then, attach a rubric to the question by select the + (plus) symbol.
   
4. A green notification indicates that a rubric will be added to your question. To complete the process, select the Save button.
   
5. The rubric(s) will be listed on the question creation page. 
   1. To preview the rubric, select the eye  icon.
      • Then, you can print the rubric or export the rubric to pdf.
        
   2. To remove the rubric, select the trash icon and the Remove button.
      

For more information about how to create a rubric, see: Enterprise Portal: Create a Rubric

Student View

Student View (with spreadsheet grading enabled)

In this example, spreadsheet grading is enabled and the Essay Character Limit was set to 1.