Many faculty have been asking for an online quizzing system for developing Web-based quizzes. The problem, we've been hearing, is that faculty, especially those with huge classes, want to use software that can administer a quiz and grade it immediately, so that students get on-the-spot feedback and instructors avoid hours of grading.

A solution to be offered by the Center for Academic Computing (CAC), is Quiz Wizard, a quizzing tool that will be unveiled for general use this fall, after undergoing beta test over the summer. Quiz Wizard is designed for "low stakes quizzing" situations in which students work on practice homework problems, pretests, low-points quizzes, or practice exams. It is easy to use and has many features, including the ability to create and organize question banks, enter true/false and multiple choice questions, randomize question selection and order, store quiz scores to be emailed to the instructor, and allow the instructor to provide "just-in-time" hints and feedback to their students. The instructor does not need to learn HTML or other specialized syntax in order to use the system.

Students connect to the Web to take a quiz, and once they've answered all of the questions, they click a "Score" button to have the quiz graded and to receive their instructor's feedback. Early trials
indicate that students are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the system. Of the students who have used Quiz Wizard so far, 79% rated it "very easy to use," and the remaining 21% considered it "somewhat easy to use."

Watch for more information on Quiz Wizard in the fall issue of Academic Computing. In the meantime, instructors interested learning more about Quiz Wizard are invited to contact Connie Ingram (cxg209@psu.edu) or Linda Littleton (lrl@psu.edu).