Tech Tip: "Importing Questions with HTML"

One of the most popular tools in Respondus allows you to import questions from rich-text and text files. If the questions contain HTML, there are times when you want the HTML imported as "text" and other times when you want the HTML to be interpreted by the browser as HTML following the import. Respondus can import it both ways, but you need to tell it what you want.

Suppose you are teaching a course on HTML programming and you want the HTML contained in questions to be left alone when it is imported to Respondus. For example, let's say that you wrote the following question in a word processor and you want to import it to Respondus:
    What will happen to the word Apple in this example: <B>Apple</B> ?

Respondus will keep the <B>Apple</B> as regular text, which is what you want in this particular case.

But let's say that another question being imported by Respondus contains HTML that allows students to click on a link that will open a document on another web server. For example, if you wanted a question to appear to students like this:
    CLICK HERE to view the worksheet. Then explain what is wrong with the calculation.

then the question being imported might look like this:
    <a href="http://www.statecollege.edu/smith/worksheet24.html">CLICK HERE</a> to view the worksheet. Then explain what is wrong with the calculation.

In order for Respondus to recognize that the "a href" statement should be imported as HTML rather than text, you need to place an [HTML] tag at the beginning of the HTML block and a [/HTML] tag at the end of the HTML block. So this question would require the following formatting before it is imported to Respondus.
    [HTML] <a href="http://www.statecollege.edu/smith/worksheet24.html">CLICK HERE</a> [/HTML] to view the worksheet. Then explain what is wrong with the calculation.

Pretty easy, isn't it?

Source: Respondus, Inc. (www.respondus.com)
Originally Published: Feburary 16, 2004

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