Category Archives: CalendarScripts

WatuPRO 6.7

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The new version of WatuPRO is ready. Here are the new and improved features and fixes:

    • Added option to save and preview a question.
    • Added question intros. Learn more at https://blog.calendarscripts.info/question-intros-in-watupro/
    • Added shortcode watupro-memory which allows you to show a memorization section before a question. Learn more about this at https://blog.calendarscripts.info/memory-section-in-watu-pro-questions/
    • Added a new final screen variable – %%ANSWERS-TABLE%%. It creates an interactive paginaged table from the questions and their answers.
    • Added search, sort and delete in the administration of the optional answers feedback from users.
    • Added option to show “Quizzes to complete” grouped per category on the My Quizzes page. The option is on the WatuPRO Settings page -> User Settings tab.
    • Added option to automatically redirect the user to their latest unfinished quiz attempt (if any) when they log in.  The option is on the WatuPRO Settings page -> User Settings tab.
    • Added a new variable – %%ANSWERS-NOFEEDBACK%% – which is the same as %%ANSWERS%% but without the optional answer explanation.
    • Added the variable %%FEEDBACK-NOANSWERS%% – The reverse of the above variable – will include the question and the optional answer explanation, but will not repeat the question choices showing the user answer. Typically used when you manually craft the feedback on all questions according to each possible answer.
    • Added variable %%ONLYFEEDBACK%% for the questions explanation without any question or answer contents.
    • Added option to hide the “next” button on quizzes paginated one question per page when the advanced setting “automatically go to next question” is selected. The button will be hidden on single-choice (radio buttons) questions. 
    • Optimized the shortcodes that list quizzes in categories for better performance.
    • The new variable {{{num-words}}} can be used in the optional answer explanation box of essay questions to show the number of words typed.
    • The progress bar now can be configured to be based on % answered questions instead of the current location in the quiz.
    • Included “Export this data” link when watupro-myexams shortcode is used on the front-end and the GDPR features are enabled.
    • Added filters for “percent of maximum points” on the View results page and the associated watupro-takings shortcode.
    • Passing the attribute show_last_result=1 to the quiz not found shortcode will make the quiz page show the last quiz result if the logged in user has already completed the quiz at least once. At the bottom of their result they will see a “Try again” button. Clicking on that button allows retaking the quiz.
    • Added partial support for Moodle XML.
    • Obfuscated certificate taking IDs in the view certificate links. For backward compatibility the old IDs will still work unless you select the option “Allow only obfuscated certificate IDs” in your Manage Certificates page.
    • Added a new parameter use_only_latest_attempts to the multiquiz shortcode.
    • Fixed the quiz progress bar: it should start at 0% on the first page.
    • Temporarily disable TablePress integration due to errors.
    • Improved the behavior of the “See answer” button: pre-set the div size to avoid jumping, fixed the problems with category headings and avoided duplication of the new “question intros” feature.
    • Added column “Percent of points” in “My Quizzes” page.
    • Combined with the latest Play plugin 2.2.8 you can now restrict access to a test based on required badges.
    • When “store only the data of logged in users” is selected you can now further specify to store only the first or last attempt of each user on the quiz.
    • A new advanced option in the quiz setting lets you display full details of everyone’s attempts when using the watupro-takings shortcode. The option is “Allow everyone to see everyone’s details on this quiz” and will work together with passing public=1 and show_details=1 to the shortcode.
    • Applied the WatuPRO content filter in the view details table to allow parsing MathJax and similar codes.
    • Added shortcode watupro-mysettings to show the user’s Quiz Settings page on the front-end.
    • Rounded percent correct and percent of max points in the watupro-multiquiz shortcode calculations.
    • Improved the output of the certificate approval notification email.
    • Added wrapper divs on the category description and questions belonging to the category when a quiz is paginated one page per category.
    • Added option for mass-changing quiz orientation (left-to-righ vs right-to-left) for easier handling of RTL localizations.
    • [Intelligence module] When a role is not allowed to manage user groups, they will also be unable to edit their own groups.
    • Fixed layout issues on the Questions Import page.
    • Fixed rare bug with timed quizzes paginated one question per page: sometimes the first question was not showing when continuing an unfinished attempt.
    • Fixed bug: in open-end questions when maximum points limit was set up the correct answer was not always figured out.
    • Removed unwanted bold style from questions when showing the quiz results.
    • You can now pass attribute user_id=”certificate” to the watupro-answer shortcode to include the answer of any question inside a certificate. The parameter will ensure that the shortcode picks the answer from the certificate achiever and not necessary of the currently logged in user.
    • Added %%URL%% variable in certificates. It can be used to display the URL or be embedded in social sharing buttons. Note that you must select “Allow public access” in your main certificates page if you want to allow sharing to the public.
    • Certificates can now have background color. (It’s still best to design certificates as full HTML documents in text mode of the editor.)
    • Added attribute wrap=1 to the watupro-takings shortcode to ensure that the table will fit your page area horizontally.
    • Added variables %%CATEGORY-ANSWERS-X%% and %%CATEGORY-UNRESOLVED-X%% to display the answers & unresolved answers for any given category.
    • Namaste! LMS integration: you can filter quiz results by tags for students in a selected course.
    • [Intelligence module] When teacher edits quiz attempt the new variable %%ANSWERS-TABLE%% will be automatically updated (if used) with the new correct / wrong data.
    • [Intelligence module] If there is a previously filled and unused coupon, it will be pre-filled on the order form.
    • [Intelligence module] Fixed problems with horizontal sortable questions in the latest WP.
    • [Intelligence module] You can now edit the automatically generated cumulative personality types on quizzes which allow ranking for multiple personalities with equal results.
    • [Intelligence module] Added attribute bar_max_height to the watupro-personality-chart shortcode.
    • [Reporting module] Added attribute skip_empty to the watupror-question-answers shortcode to allow skipping the empty answers.
    • [Reporting module]: The shortcode watupror-pie-chart now allows parameter taking_id=”ALL” when the “from” parameter is NOT “questions”. This will show user’s performance per question category on all quiz attempts from all quizzes.
    • [Reporting module] The shortcode watupror-pie-chart now also accepts parameter quiz_id to be used outside of the “final screen”. In this case the parameter taking_id should not be passed at all. This mode will work for logged in users only.
    • [Reporting module]: A new parameter charts_gd=1 lets you use  GD charts in the “watupror overview” shortcode in case the default charts do not behave as expected.
    • [Reporting module] Added option from=”points_as_percent” to the watupror-pie-chart shortcode. It will display the result for each category as a % from all possible points in the quiz.
    • [Reporting module] Improved color handling of the chart from the shortcode |watupror-pie-chart from=”questions” mode=”gd”|
    • [Intelligence module] Display an error message when a wrong or expired coupon code is entered on a paid quiz.
    • Added a filter watupro_custom_vars to the final screen which allows you to create plugins parsing custom variables.
    • Fixed issues when the quiz start button text on the “Asl for contact” section contained apostrophes.
    • Fixed issues with the category paginator.
    • Fixed bug in calculating category percent of max points when the variable is used in a certificate.
    • Fixed bug in calculating %%AVG-PERCENTAGEOFMAX%%.
    • Fixed issue when copying questions: HTML tags should not be stripped even if the user lacks “unfiltered_html” privileges.
    • Fixed bug with points filter in watupro-takings shortcode.
    • Fixed problem with the new {{{num-words}}} variable appearing when the question was not answered.
    • Fixed bug: the “See answer” button was not hiding when used on a paginated quiz.
    • Fixed bug: the “role” filter on “Mass assign users” to user groups was getting lost when using the pagination.
    • Fixed problems in latest PHP when copying only some questions from a quiz.
    • CSS fix for the quiz buttons on some themes.
    • Fixed bug when entering tags with spaces around them.
    • Improved the spacing around the new %%ONLYFEEDBACK%% variable.
    • Fixed CSS issues on the contact page of RTL quizzes.
    • Fixed errors in Manage difficulty levels.
    • Fixed bug with wrapper divs in quizzes paginated one page per question category.
    • [Reporting module] Fixed bug in the watupro-result shortcode.
    • [Reporting module] Fixed layout issues on the user overview page
    • [Reporting module] Fixed bug on “stats per question” page when a choice on a multiple choice question contained backslashes.
    • [Reporting module] Fixed bug with the next/prev links on the watupror-question-answers shortcode.
    • Fixed bug in Intelligence module – when a quiz that requires payment for each attempt was connected to the WooCommerce bridge, it was always redirected to the store page.
    • Fixed issues with BCC Math functions

Memory Section in Watu PRO Questions

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A new shortcode in version 6.6.9.5 of Watu PRO allows you to create a memorization section in selected questions. This works by showing the section for a selected period of seconds. After the period is passed, the memory section is shown and the question is revealed.

This can be used to show an image or content that should be memorized and understood before the question.

How It Works

In the questions editor, simply enter the memory section before the question contents, wrapped in a shortcode watupro-memory id=”X” where X is the current question ID.

For example:

watupro-memory shortcode

The shortcode wraps the content that should be in the memory section. Below the closing /watupro-memory shortcode begins the normal question contents.

Parameters

The shortcode accepts the following parameters:

id (required) – This is the current question ID. You can see the ID shown in the poll-like shortcode just above the title field. If you are just creating a question, you will need to save it first and go to edit to get its ID.

seconds (optional) – The number of seconds the memory section is shown before the question contents. Defaults to 5.

Limitations

  • You can have one memory question per quiz page. If you want to add memory sections on different questions, make sure the quiz is paginated.
  • The memory section will reappear if you refresh the page. If you want to use this for an exam, it’s best to combine it with a time limit on the exam. This will discourage quiz takers from refreshing multiple times to see the memory section again, because they will waste their time.

HOCK international: Case Study on the Flexibility and Customizability of Watu PRO

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Written By Kevin Hock, CFO of HOCK international

Watu Pro – An Easy Choice

HOCK international prepares candidates for professional accounting exams, and test banks are a critical tool in our study programs. With thousands of multiple-choice questions per exam, we needed a way to categorize, organize, and offer questions by topic to students.

While it can be difficult to evaluate and choose from the dozens of quiz plugins available for WordPress, Watu Pro has been a cornerstone of our learning management system since 2014. In this case study, I will explain how we chose Watu Pro, show some of what is possible using Watu Pro, and give examples of how easily it can be customized.

Powerful and Flexible Test Bank

Watu Pro’s question categories allow us to organize the questions in a way that mirrors the exam structure, and then offer questions to students in various combinations, including by topic, by Section, and from multiple Sections. Furthermore, Watu Pro’s ability to re-use questions from entire quizzes rather than just selecting specific questions is a powerful and unique feature, even among other quiz systems that claim to offer test bank capabilities.

The following screenshot shows how easily a student can pick questions to study from one or many topics (and see their current statistics):

Question Selection

Detailed Statistics

Students preparing for professional certifications want detailed statistics about their performance. Watu Pro’s database tables store every student response in any easy-to-understand layout, which is convenient for creating custom queries to show the students’ progress. Aggregate queries such as SUM, COUNT, and MAX can all be used to create performance metrics. By storing the results of such queries in the WordPress user metadata table, statistics can be displayed in dashboards created through page builders like Beaver Builder, as shown in the following screenshot.

MCQ Stats and charts

HOCK’s Customizations to Watu Pro

Beyond the built-in features, the modular design of Watu Pro allows PHP/MySQL programmers to easily edit the code. With only minimal modifications, we were able to add the following customizations:

  • Show bar graphs of topic-by-topic performance using the wpDataTables plugin.
  • Group incorrect answer choice explanations using expanders.
  • Display explanations for only a limited number of unanswered questions on each quiz.
  • Allow students to delete quizzes with a score under 25%.
  • Show the percent correct next to each topic in the question selection list.
  • Choose questions not yet answered correctly before repeating questions.
  • Sort “All of the above” and “None of the above” to always appear as the last answer choice, even with answer randomization.
  • Create reports for the percent of students who get each question correct on their first try to identify difficult or poorly-worded questions.

Extensive Visual Customization

Watu Pro uses CSS to control many aspects of the quiz layout. In the screenshots below, compare the standard Watu Pro layout to one of the layouts created by Watu’s designer to get an idea for how much the look and feel can be modified.

Default Layout

default design example

Customized Layout

customized design example

The Watu Pro Advantage

Even when HOCK investigated commercial AI-driven learning systems, none of them could match the features offered by Watu Pro. Furthermore, being able to extend the capabilities of Watu Pro offers tremendous advantages over other quiz platforms. With the help of Watu Pro, HOCK has been able to offer a best-in-class learning experience for our students.

About HOCK international

Founded in 2000 by Brian Hock, HOCK international provides complete and affordable study materials for the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) exams. In addition to the robust test bank powered by Watu Pro, HOCK also offers detailed textbooks, multimedia classroom videos, and the best support and guarantees on the market.