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Items exported from Practique 7.1+ can be imported back as new items. Practique currently supports the import and export of mixed item types in one file.

Item export

The Item export has been moved to Batch operations. On the item list, there is a Batch… button on the right side of the filtering panel. The batch operates on items currently filtered so select your preferred filtering criteria and click at Batch… button. Follow the instructions to export the items. Items are exported as CSV and XLSX file at the same time.

Item import

File header

The item import could be either an XLSX (Excel) file, a CSV file or a ZIP file. If it’s a ZIP file, then you can import resources together with exactly one Excel or CSV file in the ZIP file at the same time. The rules for preparing XLSX/CSV file are the same for both cases - even if it’s uploaded alone or as a part of the ZIP file.

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To explain the difference between Item data and Criteria data, each item type in Practique contains item-data and criteria-data. For most of item types the criteria data are not available directly but are hidden on the item edit form. For example SBA, SAQ, VSAQ, MTF, EMQ, CPQ, PVSA. On the other side, some item types user can add/edit/remove the criteria directly. That’s for OSCE and MWQ (Multipart written question - available since Practique 7.1).
For example, an SBA item has item number, version, question text, etc and also a “hidden” sba type criterion that holds the possible answers and identifies the correct answer.
Another example could be a SAQ item whose criterion is a ‘text’ type criterion.
EMQ item is an example of a written item with more than one criterion. It has as many criteria as a number of stems.
The OSCE item type is based on user-defined criteria (a marksheet).
Similarly, a “Written question” type (MWQ) has a set of user defined criteria, like the OSCE item type.

Blueprinting, Count as

Any Dimensions applicable to OSCE or Written items can be specified in the header as well.

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As soon as the importer finds a field header with one of the titles specified above, all Dimension names found in the header after that column are considered as “Count as” fields and the tagging is attached to the marksheet criteria instead of the Item.

Data Rows

To be able to support a nested structure item → criteria it’s important to follow the structure of the data rows. Each imported item is defined on at least one row.

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Any data row with an empty Item type column is considered as a continuation row for the previous one and should not define any item-type data.

Required fields

The set of required fields depends on the item type and the row. For example, for an item-type row, the ITem type is required but for the continuation row, it has to be left empty.

Minimal example

There is a minimal example of importing two simple SBA items. These items get the first available item number for SBA item type because the Item number is not defined.

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Item type	Question title	Available answers
SBA	Select the largest animal	Dog;0;Elephant;1;Crocodile;0;Mouse;0
SBA	Select the darkest colour	Yellow;0;Purple;0;Black;1;Green;0;Red;0

Item types

Type code	Item type name
ARQ	Assertion-Reasoning Question
CPQ	Clinical Prioritisation Question
EMQ	Extended matching question
MTF	Multiple True/False
MWQ	Written question (Multipart written question)
OSCE	OSCE Station
PVSA	Prescribing Question
SAQ	Short Answer Question
SBA	Single Best Answer Question
VSAQ	Very Short Answer Question

Criteria types

Written question (MWQ) type and OSCE station type can define different criteria types for the mark-sheet (Type column in the table below). Some item types, like SBA, SAQ, VSAQ, MTF, EMQ, CPQ etc., have the Type fixed and can't be changed. Only MWQ and OSCE should specify the “Type” column. It’s ignored for the other item types.

Type	Notes	OSCE/MWQ
discrete	Single answer only - the possible answers could have a different scoring but the only one can be selected.	both
boolean		both
text	A free text. It cannot be automatically marked so the maximum score should be specified if it makes sense. Can be also used just as a comment field.	both
label	Criterion Stem field is rendered as a label only. It can be used to visually split the mark-sheet to different sections.	both
vsaq	One line answer is expected from the candidate. It allows defining a set of possible answers that can be automatically marked using the Levenshtein threshold value. For example, accepted answer is Meprobamate If the threshold is 1 and the candidate writes Mepromamate then the answer is accepted and marked with full score. because there is 1 letter difference between Meprobamate and Mepromamate	both
cpq	This is a default type for CPQ question type but it can be used for MWQ as well if needed. The possible answers associated with this criterion type defines a correct order of answers to the question Stem and the candidate is supposed to specify a correct order of the answers.	MWQ
mac	Multi answer criterion (multiple correct answers) This allows defining a set of possible answers and the candidate can pick more than one.	MWQ

Field list

	Field name	Item type	Multivalued	Notes
Item data	Item type	all		One of the available Item types or empty for a continuation row. PVSA and OSCE are not supported at the time of writing.
	Item number	all		Optional item number
	Question title	all		Item title
	Question text	all		Summary text
	Variant	all		Item variant if the variant support is available. Contains a variant code, for example, ‘en’
	Comments	all		The comments are displayed only on the item page
	Examiner notes	all		These are examiner comments. Displayed on the marking page for the examiner and also on Candidate feedback report
	Number of markers	all		Applicable to multi marking only
	Marking method	all		Applicable to multi marking only. Supported values are: criteria total
	Marking resolution	all		Applicable to multi marking only. Supported values are: manual avg sum
	Resource	all	Yes 🚩	It can contain either file name (see Candidate resources below) or an existing resource number from the Resource library.
	Resource title	all	Yes 🚩	Resource title. The title is assigned to the resource defined in the previous column If multiple resources are defined in separate columns and at least one has a Resource title defined, this column must exist for each resource but could be empty if the title should not be defined.
	Resource caption	all	Yes 🚩	Resource caption. The caption is assigned to the resource defined in the previous column. If multiple resources are defined in separate columns and at least one has a Resource caption defined, this column must exist for each resource but could be empty if the caption should not be defined.
	Candidate resource	OSCE	Yes 🚩	Supported only if item import is uploaded as a ZIP file. Must contain a relative file name inside the zip file.
	Candidate resource title	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource title
	Candidate resource caption	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource caption
	Examiner resource	OSCE	Yes 🚩	Supported only if item import is uploaded as a ZIP file. Must contain a relative file name inside the zip file.
	Examiner resource title	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource title
	Examiner resource caption	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource caption
	Marking note for examiners	OSCE	Yes 🚩	Supported only if item import is uploaded as a ZIP file. Must contain a relative file name inside the zip file.
	Marking note for examiners title	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource title
	Marking note for examiners caption	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource caption
	Role player resource	OSCE	Yes 🚩	Supported only if item import is uploaded as a ZIP file. Must contain a relative file name inside the zip file.
	Role player resource title	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource title
	Role player resource caption	OSCE	Yes 🚩	See Resource caption
	… dimension 1 …	all	Yes	Define a list of values for one dimension. Please see the Multivalued columns paragraph below.
	… dimension 2 …	all	Yes	Define a list of values for one dimension. Please see the Multivalued columns paragraph below.
	<-->			This is just a placeholder exported by the Item export feature from Practique. It helps to quickly distinguish between item data and criteria data and is ignored during import.
Criteria data	Stem	OSCE, EMQ, MTF, MWQ		Criterion text.
	Stem comments	MWQ		Comments explaining this stem, like item comments
	Marker notes	MWQ		Notes for markers - like item examiner notes or a Model answer
	Type	OSCE, MWQ		Sheet (criterion) type. See the Criteria types above.
	Answer ordering	Ignored for CPQ and MTF		Applicable to ‘discrete’ criteria type only.
	Weight	OSCE		Criterion weight.
	Mandatory criterion	all		Defines if this criterion has to be answered
	Levenshtein threshold	VSAQ only		Defines the Levenshtein threshold for the automated marking.
	Number of lines	MWQ with ‘text’ criteria only.		How many lines would be rendered on item preview or item paper.
	Indentation level	MWQ		The indentation level allows us to visually specify sub and sub-sub parts of a question on the paper. Defaults to 0 and can be defined as numbers 0,1,2,3 etc
	Maximum mark	SAQ or ‘text’		Defines the maximum mark for this criterion. It’s computed automatically for discrete type but has to be specified for text type because there is no list of scored available answers.
	Angoff	all		Angoff for this criterion
	Difficulty	all		Ebel difficulty - supported values depends on instance settings, but defaults to easy, medium, hard
	Relevance	all		Ebel difficulty - supported values depends on instance settings, but defaults to essential, important, acceptable
	Feedback visible to candidate	all		Boolean value - 0, 1. If not set, then it’s not visible to the candidate
	Available answers	SBA, OSCE ‘discrete’, MWQ 'discrete', EMQ	Yes	It makes sense for item types where the available answers can be defined so usually discrete criteria or VSAQ.
	Correct answer	like Available answers		If defined, the answer would have set a score of 1 mark. If any other mark is required, please use the extended answer definition format
	Resource	all	Yes 🚩	It can contain either file name or an existing resource number from the Resource library. See the “Resource” row in the item part above.
	… dimension 1 …		Yes	Define a list of values for one dimension. This will be used as CountAs for the current criterion. Please see the Multivalued columns paragraph below.
	… dimension 2 …		Yes	Define a list of values for one dimension. This will be used as CountAs for the current criterion. Please see the Multivalued columns paragraph below.

Multivalued columns

Columns marked as Multivalued in the table above can be defined in two variants.

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Alternatively, you can split the three categories above to the three columns with the same header. The escaped semicolon has to be used in any case.

Extended answer definition format

This format of Available answers column is used by item export and can be imported back. It’s detected automatically if

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Yellow;-0.25;Purple;-0.25;Black;1.0;Green;-0.25;Red;-0.25;I don’t know;0

Versions Compared

Old Version 4

New Version Current

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