Help & Documentation

Using the Moodle LTI Integration

How to use the integration between Moodle and BetterExaminations

Linking a Moodle Course to a course in BetterExaminations


Once an LTI integration has been configured you can create a link between a Moodle course and BetterExaminations. This will ensure that users are automatically enrolled within BetterExaminations and will give you the ability to add Exams from BetterExaminations to your courses in Moodle.

There are two types of links you can follow from Moodle to BetterExaminations.

  • Course links (Resource links)
  • Exam links (Deep links)

Creating a Course link from Moodle to BetterExaminations

Once the BetterExaminations integration has been added by your Moodle Admin, you will be able to add a link to BetterExaminations to any of your Moodle courses.

To add a course link to BetterExaminations from Moodle:

1. Go to the course homepage on Moodle and select 'Turn Editing On' in the top right-hand corner (as shown below)

2. Locate the section you want to add the course link to and select 'Add an activity or resource'. In the example below, we are adding a course link to the BetterExaminations Documentation - Topic 1 section

 

3. From the popup box, select the 'All' tab at the top of the popup and click on 'External tool' (icon shown below)

Note: When setting up your configuration, we recommended that you configure the 'Show in activity chooser and as a preconfigured tool' setting. If you did select this setting, type your integration name into the search bar on the popup box. You can then select your integration directly (instead of selecting External tool) and skip to Step 5

 

4. Give your activity a name, E.g. BE Course Link, and then from the Preconfigured tool dropdown menu, select the LTI integration that you created (as shown below)

5. Important: Once you have selected the integration and given it a name, scroll to the bottom of the page and click 'Save and return to course' (as shown below). Failure to save the course at this point will result in an error when trying to sync your course.

 

6. You should be re-directed back to your course home page and should now see a link to BetterExaminations (as shown below)

Clicking on this link will:

  • Bring you to the corresponding course in BetterExaminations where you can create your exams
  • Sync the users and students enrolled in the Moodle course with BetterExaminations
  • If a student clicks on this link, they will be brought to their student dashboard.

Creating links to BetterExaminations Online exams in Moodle courses

Once you have created an exam in BetterExaminations you can add it as content to your course in Moodle.

To add a link in Moodle to a BetterExaminations exam, please follow these steps

1. Go to the course page and locate the section where you want to add the exam link. Select 'Add an activity or resource'

Please note: In Moodle, every time you want to sync a new exam or multiple new exams, you must add a new resource. If you perform a sync on an already existing resource (by selecting 'Edit settings' -> 'Select content'), this resource link will be removed and replaced by the new synced resources. 

This is a known limitation within Moodle. Once Moodle addresses this limitation, we will update our documentation to reflect the new changes.  

2. From the popup box, select the 'All' tab at the top of the popup and click on 'External tool' (icon shown below)

 

3. Give your activity a name, E.g. BE Exam Sync, and then from the Preconfigured tool dropdown menu, select the LTI integration that you created (as shown below)



4. Click the 'Select content' button underneath your preconfigured tool (see below)

 

5. A popup window will open and show you a list of exams that are within your selected course in BetterExaminations. To add an exam link to Moodle, simply select the exam you want to add from the list and click 'Add selected exams'

Note: You can see already synced exams by selecting 'Click to see already synced exams' below the table

 

6. Important: Once the popup window disappears, scroll down and click 'Save and return to course'.


This will add a Content link in your course that you and your students can use to get to the Exam within BetterExaminations. This process also creates a column in your Gradebook for this exam. (See example exam links below)



Clicking on Deep Links

The previous step will create a link in your Course to an Exam in BetterExaminations. What happens when you click on that link depends on your user type and whether or not the exam is completed.

If a student clicks a Deep Link

If a student clicks a Deep link to an exam, they will be brought to the start page of their exam (assuming a sitting has been scheduled).

If the student is assigned to multiple exam sittings, they will be brought to the start page of the latest scheduled exam sitting.

If the exam is over and results have been released, students will be brought to the feedback page for their submission.


If a non-student clicks a Deep Link

If an Instructor or any other non-student clicks a Deep link they will be brought to the 'Edit Exam' page where they can edit the exam or schedule an exam sitting.

When a non-student follows a Deep link we will also re-sync the enrolments in a course ensuring your Users and Students are always up to date in BetterExaminations.

Syncing Grades from BetterExaminations to Moodle

Once you've finished grading an exam in BetterExaminations, you can sync these grades back to the Moodle Gradebook.

For each submission, BetterExaminations will send the overall score the student received in the exam, as well as the "Overall feedback" that was added to the submission by the marker.

Note: Question level feedback is never sent to Moodle and is only stored in BetterExaminations. This also applies to 'Feedback for all students' provided when releasing results. This feedback is not shared with Moodle. The only feedback shared with Moodle is the Overall Feedback provided by the exam marker on each submission. 

To sync grades from BetterExaminations to Moodle, please follow the following steps

1. In BetterExaminations, select the 'Exam sittings' tab, and click on the exam sitting you want to sync to Moodle

 

2. Select the 'Submissions' tab, click on 'Options' in the right-hand corner, and select Send results to 'My Moodle Integration'. Instead of 'My Moodle Integration', you will see the name of your integration here.

 

Once the grades have successfully been sent to Moodle, you will be shown a success message in the bottom left of the screen.

Note: You will still need to "Release results" in BetterExaminations if you'd like your students to be able to review their exam feedback within BetterExaminations

Overriding grades within Moodle

Once grades have been synced with Moodle, it is possible to override these grades from within Moodle. If you select 'Override' within the grades table on a student, Moodle allows you to edit the grade and feedback on Moodle.

It is important to note that if you override the grades within Moodle, and then resend the grades from BetterExaminations, Moodle will not update the grade to the grade sent from BetterExaminations. This occurs because Moodle keeps track of when a grade is given and considers the overridden grade (the one edited in Moodle after sending grades from BetterExaminations) to be the most accurate grade since it was the most recent grade given.  

If you would like to update the grade to reflect the grade given in BetterExaminations, you must take the following steps:

  • In Moodle, untick the override option on the student's grade and click Save
  • In BetterExaminations, edit that student's 'Overall feedback' and re-save the exam marking.
  • Resend the grades to Moodle as you did previously.

This way, Moodle will consider your BetterExaminations grade to be 'more recent' than the edited Moodle grade and will reset the grade to the one given in BetterExaminations.