5.1 Desist from editing questions

Assessed iCMAs

You must not alter the questions in an assessed iCMA after it has gone live and we configure the VLE such that you will not be allowed to make such edits. If problems do become apparent once the test is in use you should discuss possible corrective action with Exams and Assessments.

Formative iCMAs

The VLE allows you to edit questions even after students have used them. This appears to give you 'carte blanche' but, of course, things are not as straightforward as that. Take for example a question where you remove an option. How can a student return and review their responses and the feedback if an option they chose is no longer in the question? While the VLE tries to cope, what it is able to do can no longer be considered to be a faithful review and you will inevitably get queries from baffled users (I write this to warn you that sorting out such queries takes far longer than adopting the approach below).

We therefore offer the following advice as to what can be done when a question is already in use:

1. You may alter the content of text fields.
2. You may add new answers to numeric and text response questions.
3. You should not add or remove existing choices from selection questions.

Beyond this if a question is creating too many issues we recommend that you:

1. Create a new, corrected, version of the question (and leave the original question alone).
2. Duplicate the iCMA and replace the faulty question with the corrected question.
3. Tell your students that they may use the original iCMA for reviewing previous responses and feedback.
4. Direct them to use the new version from here on.