Moodle XML format - MoodleDocs

Source: moodle.org

The XML Format is a Moodle-specific format for importing and exporting questions to be used with the Quiz module. The format has been developed within the Moodle Community but other software may support it to a greater or lesser degree.

A word about validity (and CDATA)

The XML parser assumes that the XML file is well formed and does not detect or report errors. If it is not you are very likely to get unexpected errors. If you are hand-coding the XML file it is strongly recommended that you pass it through some sort of XML verifier before importing into Moodle. A simple way to do this is to open the XML file using Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Note particularly that embedded HTML fragments should be within CDATA sections. CDATA example:

<questiontext format="html">       <text><![CDATA[              Now I can include any HTML that I               wish. Without the CDATA, the HTML tags would break              the XML!!              ]]>        </text> </questiontext>

Overall structure of XML file

The file is enclosed by tags as follows. It is important to make sure the xml tag only is really the first line of the file. A blank first line, or additional tags on the first line will confuse the Moodle XML parser.

<?xml version="1.0" ?> <quiz>  `
...
</quiz> 

<question type="category">
<category>        <text>$course$/XXXX</text>    </category>
</question>

Where XXXX is the new category name. If the category exists, the question(s) will be added to the existing course; otherwise a new category will be created. This only works if you have "Get category from file" checked.

Multiple categories can be specified in the same file. Just add another dummy 'category' question each time you would like to establish a new category and the questions that follow it will be placed there.

The file must be encoded in UTF8

Moodle XML import and export are balanced in functionality, so if you need to understand the format you can simply create some questions and export them to see what it looks like.

Tags common to all question types

A question is written as follows.

<question type="multichoice|truefalse|shortanswer|matching|cloze|essay|numerical|description">  `
<name>         <text>Name of question</text>     </name>     <questiontext format="html">         <text>What is the answer to this question?</text>     </questiontext>     .     .     . ```  `
</question>

"Format" selects the Formatting options for the question text. The options are html (the default), moodle_auto_format, plain_text and markdown. The choice effects the way in which the text will be displayed.

• tags (non-hierarchical keywords)
• penalty
• generalfeedback
• defaultgrade
• hidden

Even though question tags (non-hierarchical keywords) are not fully supported in the question engine, they can be imported and exported via XML.

` <question ...>

``` ... <tags> <tag> <text>keyword1</text> </tag> <tag> <text>keyword2</text> </tag> ... </tags> ... ```

</question>

In the following question type examples the common parts of the question are not shown to improve clarity. It's a good idea to export some examples yourself to see a full example.

Multiple choice

• single (values: true/false)
• shuffleanswers (values: 1/0)
• correctfeedback
• partiallycorrectfeedback
• incorrectfeedback
• answernumbering (allowed values: 'none', 'abc', 'ABCD' or '123')

``` <answer fraction="100"> <text>The correct answer</text> <feedback><text>Correct!</text></feedback> </answer> <answer fraction="0"> <text>A distractor</text> <feedback><text>Ooops!</text></feedback> </answer> <answer fraction="0"> <text>Another distractor</text> <feedback><text>Ooops!</text></feedback> </answer> <shuffleanswers>1</shuffleanswers> <single>true</single> <answernumbering>abc</answernumbering> ```

</question>

True/false

Two answer tags are given, one which is true, and one which is false. The fraction attribute of the answer tag identifies which option is correct (100) and which is false (0). Feedback is supported. The following example shows the format when true is the correct answer and false is wrong.

<question type="truefalse"> <answer fraction="100">    <text>true</text>    <feedback><text>Correct!</text></feedback> </answer> <answer fraction="0">    <text>false</text>    <feedback><text>Ooops!</text></feedback> </answer>
</question>

Short answer

``` <question type="shortanswer"> <answer fraction="100"> <text>The correct answer</text> <feedback><text>Correct!</text></feedback> </answer> ``` ``` <question type="shortanswer"> <answer fraction="100"> <text>The correct answer</text> <feedback><text>Correct!</text></feedback> </answer> <answer fraction="100"> <text>An alternative answer</text> <feedback><text>Correct!</text></feedback> </answer> ```

</question>

Numerical response

The following is a simplified version of the Moodle XML format for numerical responses.

``` <question type="numerical"> <answer fraction="100"> <text>23</text> <feedback><text>Feedback</text></feedback> </answer> ```

</question>

Matching

``` <question type="matching"> <subquestion> <text>This is the 1st item in the 1st pair.</text> <answer> <text>This is the 2nd item in the 1st pair.</text> </answer> </subquestion> <subquestion> <text>This is the 1st item in the 2nd pair.</text> <answer> <text>This is the 2nd item in the 2nd pair.</text> </answer> </subquestion> <shuffleanswers>true</shuffleanswers> ```

</question>

Essay

An example of the essay type question...

``` <question type="essay"> <answer fraction="0"> <text></text> </answer> </question> ```

There isn't an answer and there isn't a grade in this case.

Other question types

Cloze

Description response type

Random matching

Moodle has a question type which consists of taking short answer questions in the same quiz and displaying them as a pair matching exercise. However Moodle is neither able to export nor import this question type.

Text formats

If the format is not specified for the questiontext, then html is the default. If the format is not specified on any other part of the question, then the format of the questiontext is the default.

(This default changed around November 2011. Before that, the default was moodle_auto_format whenever the format was not specified.)

Useful utilities

• Cross XML format This input format plugin is a handy utility that converts question from one question type to another.
• Online Moodle XML converter Convert from existing text files glossaries and quizzes to Moodle XML format. Also can convert from Moodle XMl to text.
• R script for converting spreadsheet quiz questions into Moodle XML - This is an R script to turn a spreadsheet with quiz questions into a Moodle XML file. I included an example spreadsheet. I wrote up a quick start guide, but I can only upload two files. Feel free to modify for personal use. If you make useful modifications, please share them with me. I have only written support for multichoice (single correct answer), shortanswer, or truefalse question types. I have only tested this with Moodle 3.7
• R/exams is a one-for-all exams generator that can export Moodle XML (among various other output formats) from potentially dynamic exercises written in R/Markdown or R/LaTeX. A brief tutorial for Moodle is available at: E-Learning Quizzes with R/exams for Moodle and OpenOLAT.
• getmarked is a quiz export tool that can be used to move quizzes from Google Forms to Moodle. According to this post "To move your Google Form quiz into Moodle, give getmarked permission to access your forms through OAuth, then you export it as a Moodle XML. If you want to move your Moodle question bank to Google Form, simply do the reverse by exporting your Moodle questions as Moodle XML, upload to getmarked and they can generate a Google Form from it.In addition, they can also import and export to QTI, Zoom, kahoot, quizizz and many other platforms too, it's really amazing!"

See also

• Aiken format
• Import and export FAQ
• Frank Ralf/Moodle XML1 (work in progress)

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