A simple student examination open-source web software?

Question

I need a (possibly simple and web-oriented) open-source software to ask a class of students some "open" questions (i.e., with open answers, not a "quiz"...), to be able to evaluate the level of their knowledge about a specific topic.

• It doesn't need to be account-based, I just need to some way link every answered form to a student's name (I trust my students :-)

• For answers evaluation I think to a simple table (".ods", ".csv", ".xml"...) with answers, one row per student

• Exams will be timed, of course, but not so strictly (students will have to answer before next week, for example)

Answer 1

I think that Moodle is a great option. You can create online courses and give access only to your students. Features such as badges are also available. I have used it as a student and not as a teacher. I cannot answer if it is easy to moderate it, but I think that I am enthusiast about it from the part of studying with it.

On the main site, you will find also the option of a demo without creating any profile.

As for the questions, Moodle supports the following question types:

• Calculated
• Simple Calculated
• Calculated Multichoice
• Description
• Essay
• Matching
• Embedded Answers (Cloze)
• Multiple Choice
• Short-Answer
• Numerical
• True/False
• Third-party question types

Another desirable feature about Moodle is that it has very few server requirements It'll work with PHP 5.3+ and smaller installs can get by with 512MB - 1GB of memory).

Answer 2

Google Forms is a free service that allows users to create unlimitted number of forms/surveys/questionaires. The form owner and editors are required to use a Google account but respondents are only required to sign-in in case that the number of responses is limited to one by respondent.

Google Apps for Work/Education/Government or the legacy edition could require users from their Google organization to sign-in to allow to answer.

Responses can be downloaded as a CSV file or to submit them automatically to a Google spreadsheet.

Google Forms doesn't include as a built-in feature the option to set a deadline for submitting responses but this could added by using an add-on or a Google Apps Script.

It's worth to say that Google Forms used by a lot of teachers that share tips and tricks about using it in the classroom and that there are some free add-ons designed to be used by teachers like formLimiter that:

automatically sets Google Forms to stop accepting responses after a maximum number of responses, at a specific date and time, or when a spreadsheet cell contains a specified value.