Excel2GIFT v1.

1 by Jeff Sherk created March 2007

Based on GIFT_Maker VERSION 2 by Timothy Takemoto, which Tim based on an idea
by Olga Forlani elucidated by A.T Wyatt. Thanks to Paul Robinson for the Toolbar
subroutines.
Here's how it works:
QUESTIONS - You can enter True/False questions, Multiple-Choice Single Answer
question, Multiple-Choice Multiple Answer, and Short Answer question, all on the same
worksheet. You can enter up to 100 questions total at a time (any combination). It will
automatically determine the question type during export. Here's how the logic works:
-If the Question field is blank, it skips to the next question.
-If only one answer was filled in, then it must be a True/False question, or a Short Answer
question with one answer. If the one answer is either a T or a t or an F or an f, then
it must be a True/False question. Otherwise it must be a Short Answer question with one
answer. NOTE: In both these cases, you do not need to set the grade it will
automatically be set to +100% .
-Next, if two or more answers were filled in, then it's either a Multiple-Choice or a Short
Answer question.
-Next, if only one grade is positive (and the rest are zero or negative) from the filled in
answers, then it must be a Multiple-Choice Single Answer question.
-Next, if more than one grade (but not all the grades) are positive from the filled in
answers, then it must be a Multiple-Choice Multiple Answer question.
-Next, if all the grades are positive from the filled in answers, then it must be a Short
Answer question.
ANSWERS - You can enter any number of answers (up to maximum of 10) for each
individual question. Each question can have a different number of answers. Simply fill in
the answer fields you want to use, and leave the other answer fields blank. For True/False
type questions, simply enter a T or a t or an F an f in the Answer1 field, and your done.
For a Short Answer type question with only one answer, simply fill in the Answer1 field,
and your done. NOTE: You must fill in the answer fields sequentially. The program will
assume you stopped entering answers for an individual question, when it comes across
the first empty answer field.
GRADES - You can choose the grade for each individual answer, from a drop-down list.
It will change color, based on the grade you pick: RED for negative grades, BLACK for
zero grades, BLUE for positive grades, and GREEN for +100% grades.
-For True/False questions and single-answer Short Answer questions, the grade will
automatically be set to +100% regardless of what you enter in the Grade field.
-You can easily change and re-arrange the grades in the drop-down list, and put the ones

you use most commonly, at the top of the list. Simply scroll-right on the worksheet, and
you will see the list along the top by column AI. NOTE: Moodle only allows the specific
grades listed here. If you change the values to something else, then you will either get an
error when importing into Moodle, or else Moodle will just change the value to the grade
that is closest.
-There is one option, specifically for Multiple-Choice Multiple Answer questions only. If
selected, it will set all the zero grades and the negative grades to -100% during export.
NOTE: You might be asking Why would I want to do this? The functionality of this
question type, allows the student to select ALL answers listed, regardless of how many
you want them to pick. Therefore, a student could receive full marks for this question type
by simply selecting ALL the answers listed. In order to prevent this, you need to assign
negative marks to the incorrect answers. Although the question type functions as it
should (meaning this issue is not a bug), this provides one possible "workaround" for
those of us that consider it to be a problem.
FEEDBACK - You can enter individual feedback for each answer, or you can leave the
feedback field blank. You can enter whatever you want in the feedback field, or choose
from a drop-down list. You can easily change and re-arrange the feedbacks in the dropdown list, and put the ones you use most commonly, at the top of the list. Simply scrollright on the worksheet, and you will see the list along the top by column AD. NOTE: For
True/False type questions, you can enter feedback for the correct answer in the
Feedback1 field, and feedback for the incorrect answer in the Feedback2 field.
-You have the option to insert GENERIC (column specific) feedback, at the beginning of
each individual feedback field. You can have it inserted (a) only in individual feedback
fields that were left blank, or (b) only in individual feedback fields that were filled-in
(non-blank), or (c) both (a) and (b), or (d) not inserted at all. There are 10 different
Generic feedbacks, which you can easily change. GenericFeedback1 will be inserted in
front of all the Feedback1 fields, and GenericFeedback2 will be inserted in front of all the
Feedback2 fields, etc. NOTE: Generic Feedback gets inserted after Grade Specific
Feedback (see below).
-You also have the option to insert GRADE specifc feedback, at the beginning of each
individual feedback field. You can have it inserted (a) only in individual feedback fields
that were left blank, or (b) only in individual feedback fields that were filled-in (nonblank), or (c) both (a) and (b), or (d) not inserted at all. There are 4 different Grade
feedbacks, which you can easily change. One for negative grades, one for grades equal to
zero, one for positive grades, and one for grades equal to +100%. This feedback will be
inserted first (in front of) ALL feedback fields (Feedback1 fields thru to Feedback10
fields). It will also be inserted before Generic Feedback, if used.
QUESTION NAME - You can fill the Question Name in manually, or leave it blank. If
you leave it blank, it will automatically get filled in with the QUESTION.
-You have the option of inserting Special Text at the beginning of the Question Name,
based on the question type. You can have it inserted (a) only in Question Name fields that
were left blank, or (b) only in Question Name fields that were filled-in (non-blank), or (c)
both (a) and (b), or (d) not inserted at all. You can easily change this Special Text to
anything you want. NOTE: The main reason for this feature, is to be able to distinguish

between Single Answer and Multiple Answer Multiple-Choice question, within Moodle.
Without special-text on the front of the Question Name, you cannot differentiate the
Multiple Choice questions, without going in to edit them individually.
HTML - When entering Questions, Answers or Feedbacks, you can choose to BOLD any
characters you want. HTML tags will be added on either side of the bolded characters.
The default is <strong> and </strong>, which will cause those characters to be bolded
within Moodle. You can easily change these tags to any valid combination of HTML tags
you want (like color or italics). NOTE: You MUST always use the BOLD from the Excel
toolbar or right-mouse-click. Any other formating (like underline or italics or colors) will
be ignored.
-It will only add the HTML tags to the QUESTION, the ANSWER, and the FEEDBACK
fields. It will ignore BOLDing in the QUESTION NAME and the GRADE fields.
TOOLBAR MANAGE SHEET - CLEAR - This will clear ALL the fields on the
spreadsheet, and reset all the grades to zero. If you click it accidentally, don't panic
because it will ask you 'Are you sure?' before it changes anything.
TOOLBAR MANAGE SHEET - HIDE/UNHIDE QUESTION NAME COLUMN If you are leaving all the Question Name fields blank, so they will automatically get filled
in with the Question field, then you can click once to Hide the column so you have more
room on your screen. Click the button again if you want to UNhide the column.
TOOLBAR MANAGE SHEET FREEZE/UNFREEZE PANES - Click once on
the FREEZE PANES button, and this will set the screen up so your Question fields don't
scroll off the screen when you scroll to the right. Click once again on the button, and it
will return to normal.
TOOLBAR MANAGE SHEET PROTECT/UNPROTECT SHEET The sheet is
Protected by default, which means some cells are protected and can't be changed. Click it
once to UNprotect the sheet, so you can change anything you want. Click it once again to
Protect the worksheet.
TOOLBAR - EXPORT TO GIFT - This will export your spreadsheet into a text file, in
the GIFT format. It checks the different question types for some errors, and then it will
ask you for a filename and location. When it's done it will give you a brief summary,
something like this:
1-TF 2-MA 4-MC 6-SA - This says Question#1 is a True/False, Question#2 is a
multiple-choice Multiple Answer, Question#4 is a Multiple-Choice single answer, and
Question#6 is a Short Answer. Questions #3 and #5 were skipped because their Question
field was blank.
Total of 1 True/False question was exported, Total of 1 Multiple-Choice (Single
Answer) question was exported, Total of 1 Multiple-Choice Multiple Answer question
was exported, Total of 1 Short Answer question was exported.
Actual Questions exported: 4 - Total number of questions that were exported.
Blank Questions skipped: 2 - Total number of questions that were skipped because their
Question field was blank.
Last Question# 6 - This is the last question number in the spreadsheet that had the

Question field filled in.

For further discussion, check the the Moodle forum at:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=45245