Importing TestGen questions into D2L isn't as straight-forward as one would have hoped. After some digging around and a little experimentation, here's the process that worked for me:
- Open the .tst file in TestGen (these instructions are for version 7 of TestGen).
- File > Export
- Select "Blackboard 5.x, 6.x, 7.x" under "Export Exam To:" and click "OK".
- Specify both a last name and a question pool name and click "OK".
- Specify the destination folder, name the file, and click "Save".
- In Windows Explorer, navigate to that destination folder and unzip the .zip file that TestGen exported.
- Edit the imsmanifest.xml file in your text editor of choice.
- Check for any
<file>nodes in the<resources>node, such as for images. I suspect those require special treatment, though I didn't test this out (instead, I found that an emdash had been converted into a graphic by TestGen, so I converted it to an—SGML character). - Delete the contents of the file and replace it with such:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<manifest identifier='man01'>
<organization default='toc01'>
<tableofcontents identifier='toc01'/>
</organization>
<resources>
<resource baseurl='__FileNameOfDatFileHere__.dat' identifier='__FileNameOfDatFileHere__.dat' type='assessment/x-bb-pool' file='__FileNameOfDatFileHere__.dat'/>
</resources>
</manifest> - Replace
__FileNameOfDatFileHere__with the name of the .dat file found in the .zip file. - Re-zip the two file (imsmanifest.xml and __FileNameOfDatFileHere__.dat) into a single .zip file.
- In D2L, go to "Edit Course".
- Go to "Import/Export/Copy Components".
- Select "Import Components" > "from a File" and choose the .zip file, and upload it.
- Click "Next".
- Click "Next" again.
- Specify a location to import to (if you wish) and check the box "Question Library".
- Click "Next".
- Confirm import settings and click "Next".
- Once the import process is complete, click "Next" once more.
- Now if you click on "Quizzes" and click "Question Library", you should see your questions (albeit uncategorized, thus I recommend only importing one TestGen file at a time, then selecting all questions and moving them to a suitable category).
<sarcasm>Not bad -- only 20 steps involving four programs (counting the compression utility)!</sarcasm>
[hat tip]
Potentially new info?
Here's some potentially updated info on this. In attending a Fusion09 presentation it was mentioned that importing from TestGen is painless. This certainly wasn't my experience and I haven't checked this myself, yet, but it may be worth trying. Here's what they said:
That's be nice!
This worked fantastic!
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