QST Online is a free, open-source, enterprise-grade exam management system for creating, delivering, and grading quizzes, surveys, tests, and assessments with an integrated gradebook, designed for educators, institutions, and organizations worldwide.

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🚀 Overview

QST Online is a powerful, self-hosted assessment platform that enables users to build and manage quizzes, exams, and surveys with professional-grade features. It runs on Windows, Linux, or Mac as an online or LAN solution, scaling from small classrooms to large institutions with thousands of users.

What problem does this project solve? Proprietary LMS platforms often trap users with vendor lock-in, high costs, and limited export options. QST provides complete ownership of questions and data, supports imports from dozens of systems (Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard, etc.), and delivers auto-grading, detailed analytics, and secure testing without subscriptions.

Who is it built for? Primarily teachers and instructors handling multiple classes/subjects, educational institutions, government, and private industry needing reliable assessment tools.

Why did you build it? To offer the most feature-rich, high-performance open-source alternative, made in Canada and trusted globally with over 25,000 downloads across 180+ countries.

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✨ Key Features

• Auto-marking with immediate results and actionable student performance analysis to quickly identify issues
• Broad question import/export compatibility (QST XML, Moodle XML, QTI 1.2-3.0, Word, PDF) from 20+ platforms like Canvas, Blackboard, Respondus
• Revolutionary MEMORY feature for active recall testing (hides material after one view, secure without JS/H5P)
• Integrated GradeBook with weighted assignments, stats, CSV/JSON exports
• WYSIWYG editing (Summernote), equations (MathJax/LaTeX), multimedia support, WCAG AA accessibility (ALT tags, screen readers)
• Optional: Adaptive branching, kiosk mode, multilingual, Android app

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🛠 Tech Stack

• Frontend: JavaScript, Summernote (WYSIWYG), MathJax (equations, chemistry)
• Backend: Perl, mod_perl (multithreaded), Perl DBI/DBD
• Database: MySQL
• Auth: Custom role-based (XTRASecure), LDAP, single sign-on
• Hosting: Self-hosted (Windows/Linux/Mac/AWS/Azure/Cloudflare), Let's Encrypt SSL

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👥 Who Is This For?

This project is useful for:

• Teachers who want full control over assessments without vendor lock-in
• Large educational institutions managing multiple classes and question banks
• Organizations building secure, scalable quiz/exam systems

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📸 Screenshots / Demo

• Live demo: https://qstonline.org
• SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/qstonline/
• GitHub (mirror): https://github.com/bobb34/QST

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🔥 Project Status

• 🟢 Actively building

Last updated: 2026-03-24

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❓ FAQ

Is this project free?

Yes / Open Source — Completely free, including for commercial use under GPLv2 (no code release required for services).

Is the source code available?

Yes — Primary repo at https://sourceforge.net/projects/qstonline/ (GitHub mirror: https://github.com/bobb34/QST)

Can I contribute?

Yes — Report issues or suggest features via SourceForge Discussion/Wiki, or email qstsupport@shaw.ca. PRs welcome on GitHub/SourceForge.

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📬 Contact & Links

• Website: https://qstonline.org
• Company: https://qstonline.ca
• SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/qstonline/
• GitHub: https://github.com/bobb34/QST
• Email: qstsupport@shaw.ca

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