WhizQuiz© Documentation -8-

WhizQuiz© 2 Documentation

8. Using the Class Roll Authentication Feature

Be sure to view the documentation for the tags described here for more information and examples.

The "Class Roll" authentication feature of WhizQuiz is used to require student identification before a student can view and take a quiz. If this feature is enabled, a student must enter a value for all LABELs specified for class roll checking as well as any others marked as required. For the roll checking LABELs, the student must enter a value that matches data in a class roll file. Single or multiple files can be used to contain the class roll data. An additional feature (via the CROSSCHECK tag) can be used to have WhizQuiz crosscheck LABEL value matches so that the matches are on the same line of a single file or at the same line number in multiple files. This feature can be used, for example, to require a student to input his or her name and corresponding ID number. For name LABELs, a special matching algorithm (MATCH="PARTIAL") is available to deal with names entered in various formats.

Here's how the roll checking tags in WhizQuiz work:

There are five options you can include in the LABEL tag. The first three work together:

<LABEL=...... FILE="class.txt" DELIMITER="," COLUMN="2">

FILE gives the name fo the filecontaining the data for this LABEL. The file can be uploaded from the Quiz Administration page for that quiz (see Section 2 for details on uploading class roll files). Before the quiz can be taken, the student must enter a value for this LABEL that is contained in the file. If the COLUMN and DELIMITER are missing, then the file contain one column of data, i.e., each line is a complete entry. If DELIMITER is included, it is the column seperater character. The default delimiter is whitespace. If COLUMN is included, the LABEL value is matched against file data in the specified column.
WARNING: The whitespace delimiter would be inappropriate if one of your columns contained names in the format of "firstname lastname" since there is a space in between. WhizQuiz would think that this was two separate columns.You must insure that none of the data between delimiters contains the delimiter character. Choose the character that is most appropriate for your data.

The MATCH="PARTIAL" option of the LABEL tag is only valid on LABELs of TYPE="NAME". Currently, this option causes names to matched on last name using a case insensitive match. WhizQuiz would then validate name inputs in several common formats (Jane Doe or Doe, Jane or Jane P. Doe or Jane Doe, Jr.). To require "absolute" matching, do NOT include the MATCH option.

If there only unique entries in the data file (i.e, only one Jane Doe, or if MATCH="PARTIAL" is included, then only one Doe) then the UNIQUE option can be set to YES and included in the LABEL tag to speed up the authentication routine. Do NOT set UNIQUE to YES if there are any non-unique entries. The default setting is NO.

The remaining tag is:

<CROSSCHECK="firstname,lastname,id ,....">

where firstame,lastname,id, .... are LABEL names. If this tag is included, the LABELs must match on the same line number of single or multiple files.

Here is an example where I check ID number against name. The relevant Header tags are:

<LABEL="Section Number" TYPE="POPUP" CHOICES="Section 1, Section2, Section3" POPUPDEFAULTTEXT="Section Number:" LOG="YES" REQUIRED="YES">

<LABEL="name" TYPE="NAME" PROMPT="Name:" FILE="ENT100.txt" MATCH="PARTIAL" COLUMN="2" DELIMITER=",">

<LABEL="id" TYPE="NUMBER" PROMPT="ID:" FILE="ENT100.txt" COLUMN="1" DELIMITER="," LOG="YES">

<LABEL="Age" TYPE="NUMBER" PROMPT="Enter your age:" LOG="YES">

<CROSSCHECK="name, id">

When the quiz is taken, a student identification page is displayed with "Section Number" (becauseit's required), name, and ID input fields. The student must enter values into each of the fields. The input for the name and ID number fields are checked against the class roll. The roll file is ENT100.txt. It contains two columns, seperated by commas. The user input for name is matched against those in column 2. The last names are matched without regard to case. The ID number input is matched against column 1 of the same file. If both student name and ID number match and are on the same line, the student is allowed to view and take the quiz. Otherwise, they are given the chance to retry identifying themselves.

The class roll file, ENT100.txt looks like this:

000000000, Joe Bob Briggs Sr.
000000010, Jane P. Doe
000000020, John Smith

TOC - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10