Email delivery
Quizzes that work inside the email
Last updated
A quiz arrives as an email, and where the learner's mail app supports it, they answer it right there: tick the answers, press Submit, and see how they did, without opening a browser or signing in to anything.
It sounds like a small convenience. It is the single biggest thing keeping learners going, because every step between reading a question and answering it is a place where people drop off.
This applies to quizzes only. Lessons and assignments are regular emails.
Two versions in every quiz email
Every quiz email carries both, and the learner's mail app shows whichever it can:
Version | What the learner does |
|---|---|
Interactive | Answers the questions inside the email and sees the result there. |
Regular | Presses Start Quiz and answers in their browser. Same questions, same scoring. |
You do not choose between them and there is nothing to switch on. Nobody is ever left unable to take a quiz — the regular version is always there.
Where it works
The interactive version relies on dynamic email, which is supported mainly by Gmail — in the browser and in its mobile apps. Most other mail apps show the regular version.
Gmail only shows it for emails from senders registered with Google. The Inbox Academy platform address is registered.
Sending under your organization's name turns this off in Gmail
Your organization's address is not registered with Google by default. A course sent from it still delivers quizzes, but Gmail users get the regular version with a button instead of answering in place.
Registering your organization's address is a separate step. Get in touch before switching a course that relies on quizzes - see Where your course emails are sent from.
What the learner sees
The quiz opens with a short note explaining how it is marked, then the questions. Every answer is a tick box, because some questions can have more than one correct answer.
After they submit, the email changes in place to show their result:
Whether they passed, and their score
Which answers were right - on quizzes that are not blocking. Blocking quizzes show the result but never the correct answers, so a retake is a real second attempt rather than a copy.
A Try again button, when they are allowed another go
If a submission cannot be recorded for any reason, the email offers a link to finish the same quiz in the browser instead.
How answers are scored
Quizzes use negative marking, and the learner is told so before they start.
Each correct answer ticked earns part of the question's point, split evenly across its correct answers.
Each wrong answer ticked takes away half that much.
Anything left unticked costs nothing.
A question with one correct answer | Points |
|---|---|
Ticks the correct answer | 1 |
Ticks the correct answer and a wrong one | 0.5 |
Leaves it blank | 0 |
Ticks only a wrong answer | −0.5 |
The score is the total across all questions as a percentage, and it never goes below zero. But a wrong guess on one question does pull down the others — so when a learner is unsure, leaving it blank is the better choice, and the quiz tells them exactly that.
Set the passing score with this in mind
A learner who guesses on a few questions can score well below what they actually know. On a blocking quiz with limited attempts — where two failures end their course — a passing score in the 60s or 70s is usually fairer than one in the 90s.
Things worth knowing
The interactive version does not last for ever. Gmail stops showing it some time after the email arrives — Google sets the limit, not us — and the regular version takes over. A learner returning to an old quiz simply gets the button.
Forwarding removes it. A forwarded quiz email arrives as the regular version.
The quiz is personal to each learner. Its link records answers against their enrollment, so it is not something to share.