If you use the Quiz activity in Moodle, you will likely encounter a situation where a student needs extra time to take a Quiz that you have created. This could happen if they were out sick the day the Quiz was available in Moodle and they can no longer access it. It is also possible that there is a student enrolled in your course with a physical, mental, or emotional impairment who needs extra time to complete your tests as part of classroom accommodations. Providing this extended access is a quick and easy process in Moodle.
Quick video tutorials
View a very short walkthrough of extending quiz availability in Moodle. View more videos in the Moodle Quiz LinkedIn collection here.
You can skip Step 1 of this walkthrough if your Quiz is still available in your course. Hidden/unavailable Quizzes will not appear when Editing is turned off.
1.) In the top-left side of the header, click the green pencil icon to turn editing on
2.) Open the quiz, by clicking on the quiz name
3.) Click the gear icon located, beside the name of the quiz
- A drop down menu will appear.
4.) Click 'User Overrides' in the Administration block on the next page
5.) Click the 'Add user override' button
- User overrides that have already been created will be listed on this page. If you have not created any User Overrides for this Quiz, the 'Add User Override' button will be the only thing on the page.
6.) Enter your override settings on the next page
- Override user: Select the student(s) from the list, or search for them if they do not appear.
- Require password: You can require students to enter a password to open the test. This option is typically not necessary.
- Open the quiz and Close the quiz: These settings allow you to control when the student(s) will have access to the test, and how much time they will have to complete it.
- Attempts allowed: You can also limit the number of test attempts.
If you are extending the test time or availability for a student who has already attempted the Quiz, and the Quiz is currently set to only allow one attempt, you will need to increase the number of attempts allowed to at least two.
7.) Click the 'Save' or 'Save and enter another override' button
- Clicking 'Save and Enter Another Override' will save your current override and reload the page.
Your user overrides will now be listed on the User Overrides page:
- This is the page we visited in Step 4.
- You can Edit, Copy, or Delete an override using the icons in the Action column on the far right.
"Will I have to do this for every Quiz I give in Moodle?"
If it is for a student with documented classroom accommodations, yes. User Overrides for a Quiz will not copy or transfer between other Quizzes. It is worth noting that each Quiz comes with different settings (the dates and times it is available, as well as the time limit for an attempt), and each student may have different needs for accommodations. It would actually be the same amount of work if you had to modify a copy of an override rather than building a new one for each Quiz, so this is not as large a downside as it may seem.