Docent - Teacher

How do I set restrictions for a quiz?

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With the Restrictions tab you can decide:

  • whether a quiz is displayed to students and/or has a deadline (status, deadline and availability);
  • whether there are release conditions attached to the quiz; 
  • whether the quiz has a time limit (restrictions);
  • whether students need to enter a password before they can start on the quiz and/or can only do the quiz when they are working from a certain IP-address;
  • if there is a time frame in which the students need to complete the quiz;
  • if you want to allow (certain) students to get special access to the quiz (for example extra time for a student with a visual disability).
  • Go to Activities in the navbar of your course. 
  • Click Quizzes. You will land on the quiz homepage.
  • Click the arrow next to the title of the quiz you want to edit. 
  • Click Edit.
  • Click the arrow next to Availability Dates & Conditions to unfold the tab.

Availability dates & Release Conditions

  1. Under Start Date, choose from when students can take the quiz.
  2. Under End Date, choose from when students can no longer take the quiz.
  3. If you tick Add availability dates to Calendar the Start Date and the End Date will be visible in the Brightspace Calendar.
  4. Under Release Conditions, you set conditions to your quiz that students must meet before they can take the quiz. A quiz can have multiple release conditions (for example: students can only access the quiz once they have turned in assignment 1 and/or fully ticked off the checklist from lecture week 1).
    • Click Add Existing to add existing release conditions.
    • Click Create New to add new release conditions.

Take a look at the manual What are release conditions and how do I use them for more information and advice on release conditions.

Date restrictions and release conditions are adopted if you make the quiz available in Content. If you edit these date restrictions and/or release conditions in Content for a topic of the quiz type (via Edit Properties In-place or in the topic itself), this will also be applied to the quiz, not just to the topic.

Time limit

On the quiz editing page, you will find four tabs on the right-hand side. You can enter a time limit on the Timing & Display tab. Click the arrow next to Timing & Display to open this tab.

  1. You can set a time limit here. To do so, enable Set time limit.
  2. Enter the time limit.
  3. Then click on Timer Settings.

You will be shown several options.

  1. Below Quiz Startchoose for:
    • Asynchronous if you want the timer to start when the students starts the quiz;
    • Synchronous if you want the timer to start at the start date and time. You can set the start date under availability dates.
  2. Below When The Time Limit Expires choose for:
    • Automatically submit the quiz attempt if you want the quiz to be automatically submitted when the time limit is reached;
    • Flag as 'exceeded time limit' and allow the learner to continue working if you want the student to continue taking the quiz after the time is up, but it will be marked as an attempt not completed within the time limit;
    • Do nothing: the time limit is not enforced if you want the time limit to be an indication only, but with no further consequences.

The Synchronous setting can be useful when you want the quiz to end at exact the same moment for each student, independent from the time the student started the quiz.
With the Asynchronous setting each student will have the same amount of time to complete the quiz.


Special Access

Special Access is a feature in Quizzes where you give participants special access. You can find Special Access under Release Conditions in the Availability Dates & Conditions tab.

  1. Click Manage Special Access.
  1. Enable Allow selected users special access to this quiz if you want all participants in your course to be allowed to take the quiz and only those with Special Access have other restrictions. Enable Allow only users with special access to see the quiz if you want only participants with Special Access to see and create the quiz.
  2. Click Add users to Special Access.

This opens a new screen where you can define the properties of the quiz for special access users.

  1. Here you can set a different deadline for users with Special Access. Don't want to set a Due Date for them? Then make sure Has Due Date is not enabled.
  2. Here you can set a different Start Date for users with Special Access. Don't want to set a Start Date for them? Then make sure Has Start Date is not enabled.
  3. Here you can set a different End Date for users with Special Access. Again, if you don't want to set an End Date for them, make sure Has End Date is not enabled.
  4. Do you want to adjust the time limit for Special Access users compared to other users? Then enable Override time limit. Next to Original time limit, you will see the time limit for regular users.
  5. Select Set time limit if you want to set a different time limit and No time limit if you don't want to enter a time limit for Special Access users.
  6. If you chose Set time limit, you can enter the new time limit under New Time Limit. You can also choose to use the multiplier. Students with Special Access will then receive X times as much time as students without Special Access. Under Extra Time you can see how much extra time students with Special Access get.
  1. Enable Override behaviour when time limit is exceeded if you want there to be different consequences for users with Special Access when the time is up. Behind Original behaviour you see the consequences for users without Special Access.
  2. If you enable this, you get three options. Choose
    • Automatically submit the quiz attempt if you want Special Access users to automatically submit the quiz when the time limit is reached;
    • Flag as 'exceeded time limit' and allow the learner to continue working if you want the Special Access user to be able to continue taking the quiz after the time is up, however it will be flagged as an attempt not completed within the time limit;
    • Do nothing: the time limit is not enforced if you want the time limit for Special Access users to be an advice only, however, with no further consequences.

With Multiplier of original quiz time, you have to pay attention when you change the original quiz time limit. This is because the multiplier does not change with it. So adjust this manually after you have changed the original time limit.

With Attemps, you can specify alternative options that students with Special Access have.

  1. Enable Override attempts allowed if you want students with Special Access to have more/less attempts. Then under Attempts Allowed, enter how many attempts those students will get.
  2. Under Advanced Attempts Conditions you can indicate whether students must have reached a minimum percentage on the previous attempt to be allowed to make another attempt.

With Users, you specify which students will receive Special Access.

  1. Enable the students you want to give Special Access to.
  2. Click Add Special Access.

When you copy a quiz, Brightspace includes students with Special Access as well. So pay attention to this if a student is entitled to it on one quiz, however not on another. If this is the case, you can reverse the steps of Special Access in the copied quiz

Password and IP restrictions

You can optionally secure your quiz with a password and/or IP restriction. Only users who enter the password and/or use a permitted IP address can then access the quiz:

Enter a password under Password.

Click Manage IP Range to define the IP addresses.  Then enter one or more IP ranges and click Add.

At the bottom left of the quiz editing page, click Save or Save and Close to save all added restrictions.

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