University of Maryland Site License for Respondus

The Academic and User Support unit in the Office of Information Technology has acquired a site license of Respondus. Below, you will find more information about the license, downloading, and using Respondus.

What is Respondus?

Respondus is a tool for creating and managing exams, quizzes and surveys. Once created in Respondus, exams, quizzes or surveys can be printed or published to a number of course management systems including WebCT and Blackboard. You can also do all creation without logging in to your course. Visit the Respondus site or read on below for more details.

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How does the site license work?

Period of License:

The University of Maryland has a 1-year site license for Respondus. This means that if you work on campus and have a valid directory ID, Respondus is free to download and use through July 31, 2004. After which time, we will evaluate purchasing a campus license. If a campus license is not purchased, individuals may purchase a yearly license for $79.00 (educational license).

Support & Updates:

Respondus does not provide direct support to all of campus with this license. When you download the program, instructions on installation will be provided. Those instructions will include support contacts here at the University. After downloading and installing Respondus, updates and patches can/should be retrieved from the respondus site (http://www.respondus.com/support/patches.shtml).

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Features:

• Allows you to create quizzes and surveys off-line and upload them to your course management system.
• Supports six question types, including feedback.
• Import quiz/survey questions from existing word-processing documents (may require a 'save as' first).
• Spell Checking for an entire quiz/survey. Includes multiple language dictionaries.
• Word Processor-like interface for editing questions.
• Insert mathematical and scientific symbols using the Respondus Equation Editor or MathType.
• Include graphics and other media with your quiz/survey.
• Upload graphics with the quiz/survey.
• Create random question sets in quizzes/surveys.

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System Requirements

Desktop Requirements:

Operating System:
Windows 95*, 98, NT4*, ME, 2000, XP.
Memory:
32 MB RAM minimum.
Hard Disk Space:
6 MB of free hard disk space for program files.
Monitor:
800x600 minimum.

*Windows 95 and NT4 users must have Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher installed in order to use the "Preview" task in Respondus. Internet Explorer does NOT have to be the default browser.

Mac users can run Respondus using Windows emulation software such as Virtual PC.

Course Management Systems:

Respondus works as stand-alone software and does not require a course management system. If using respondus with a course management system, Respondus 2 is compatible with the following systems deployed at the University of Maryland:

• WebCT
• Blackboard 5 and higher (Note: Blackboard is not officially supported by the Office of Information Technology)

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Download:

Download Requirements:

Download requires University of Maryland Directory Authentication. To Download Respondus 2.0:

Download Instructions:

1. Click the link below.

   Note: you may be asked to accept a certificate for the directory server www.ldap.umd.edu. In order to continue with the download process, you will need to accept this certificate.

2. Provide your Directory ID and password in the fields.

   Note: If you are uncertain what your directory password is, you may set or change it here using your UMID/PIN. For questions concerning your directory ID/password, contact the help desk (301-405-1500)

3. Be patient as you will be redirected to a page with installation instructions, after a few seconds, the download will begin (You should be prompted to save the file*). You may print the instructions once the download has begun.

*For Netscape Users: Netscape may append a '.cgi' after the 'Respondus.exe' name when downloading/saving. If so, remove the .cgi from the file name and it will work fine.

Click here to begin the download

Download Time:

The file size is approximately 5.9 MB, which should take approximately 12 minutes on a 56K modem and significantly less time with a faster connection.

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Using Respondus/Resources

• Respondus has a FAQ section that provides answers to common questions (http://www.respondus.com/support/faq.shtml) .
• The Respondus User Guides (http://www.respondus.com/products/userguide.shtml) provide important information on all aspects of the software.
• Demonstration and training movies can be viewed from the Respondus Demo Library (http://www.respondus.com/products/demos.shtml).
• The on-line help available from within the Respondus program is also an excellent resource (press the F1 key anywhere in the Respondus program for context-sensitive help; or select Help from the menu bar to choose a topic).
• Software patches (http://www.respondus.com/support/patches.shtml) may also be available for downloading. After installing, patches can/should be retrieved from the respondus site.

Faculty with questions concerning the use of Respondus to create quizzes, exams, or surveys and using them with WebCT may contact Sharon Roushdy <sroushdy@umd.edu>or Jason White <jewhite@umd.edu>.

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