Question Mark Guardian (also called Network Guardian) was an add-on companion to Question Mark Designer for Windows which allowed you to control who has access to exams, tests, surveys and quizzes – including:
- Maintain user records for testing
- Limit access to particular users
- Limit access to groups of users
- Generate unique passwords
- Provide time-windows for tests
- Limit number of times for a test
- Ensure tests are taken in sequence
- Import user names and passwords
According to contemporary documentation, Question Mark Guardian helps you resolve your security problems. With Guardian you can:
- Give users or groups of users access to certain question files, and prevent others from accessing the same questions;
- Prevent people from giving a false name when they answer questions, by assigning a password to each user;
- Stop users from being able to take a test more than once;
- Stop people from running a test before it is released or after it has expired;
- Ensure that users cannot attempt an advanced test without passing a simpler one first;
- Keep a record of who does what and what their score is, thus preventing unscrupulous users from attempting a test and trying to hide this from you;
- Assign users to groups within Question Mark Guardian so that you can look at results on a group basis.
Evidence of its release and availability:
- Questionmark.com press release describing Guardian being shown at ASTD show(June 1995)
- Questionmark.com press release(August 1995)
- Wayback Machine copy of this press release(August 1995)
- Description of Guardian on Wayback Machine (1997)
Evidence of its functionality:
The first version of Network Guardian was called version 2.1. The user manual was printed in May 1995, ISBN 1 872089 13 5. The user manual has been uploaded to this site with the permission of the copyright holder.
- Zip of user manual in its original Word Perfect format and also in Word format.
- Scan of user manual from a printed copy as a PDF
Feel free to post any questions on Question Mark (Network) Guardian, and I will try to answer.
John Kleeman, May 25, 2012