Formatting Word Documents for Respondus

This article is intended for instructors looking to create Word Documents to import into Respondus.

General Formatting

Each question must begin with a number followed by either a period or parenthesis
There must be at least one space between the question number and question wording
Titles can be added to questions by typing “Title:” above the question followed by the desire title

Title: Question 1
1. Question Text

Instructors can also download a Respondus Word Sample File for more information

Multiple Choice Questions

This assumes you have disabled auto-numbering in Word to allow you to place the asterisk at the beginning of the answer. Instructors should refer to Disabling the Auto-Numbering for Lists in Word for assistance with configuring Word.

Multiple Choice questions must follow all of the formatting rules above
Answers should be lettered a to t, followed by either a period or parenthesis
Correct answers can be designated either by placing an asterisk (“*”) before the letter with no space in between, or by placing a answer list at the end of the file
Title: Question 1 1. Question Text a. Answer 1 *b. Correct Answer c. Answer 2 d. Answer 3
For True/False Questions, the answer True must come first for the system to import the question as True/False, otherwise it will be imported as a multiple choice question
Further information on formatting Multiple Choice questions, along with examples can be found the in Respondus Documentation of the standard format for Multiple Choice Questions.

Other Question Types

For all other question types, instructors must specify the type of question using the keyword “Type:” followed by a space and the type designation from the table below before the question title.
Further information on formatting questions, along with additional examples can be found in the Respondus documentation on the standard format for other question types.

Question Type	Respondus Type Designation

Question Type	Respondus Type Designation
Essay	E
Multiple Answer	MA
Fill in the Blank	F
Multiple Fill in the Blank	FMB
Matching	MT
Ordering	ORD
Jumbled Sentence	JUM

Essay questions must follow all the general formatting rules
Instructors can place an answer following the question by typing “a.” or “a)” followed by at least one space and the answer
Type: E Title: Question 1 1. Question text a. Correct Answer

Multiple Answer Question must follow all the general formatting rules
Multiple Answer questions should be formatted in the same manner a multiple choice questions, except the instruction must use the type designation “Type: MA” to allow students to select multiple answers, and mark multiple answers as correct

Fill in the Blank question must follow all the general formatting rules
Instructors can only specify one answer for a Fill in the Blank, but can specify multiple forms of that answer

Multiple Fill in the Blank Questions must follow all the general formatting rules
The question text must including the wording and the words to be filled in located in square brackets
There can be a maximum of 10 words to be filled in
Each can have a maximum of 20 answers

Matching Question must follow all the general formatting rules
Each answer to a matching question is a pair, with each part of the correct match joined by a equal sign
Similar to multiple choice, the answers should be lettered a to t followed by a period or parenthesis

Providing Feedback for Answers

Instructors can provide general feedback within the Word Document.

Feedback should be placed after the question text, and before the answers
Feedback for correct answers is designed with the tilde (“~”) character
Feedback for incorrect answers is designed with the “@” character
There must be at least one space between the tilde or “@” character and the question feedback

Instructors seeking assistance using Respondus 4.0 should contact Education Technologies at edtech@uconn.edu or by phone at (860) 486-5052 between Monday and Friday, 9 am to 4 pm.