Printable / PDF-exportable quizzes

Idea created by seth

on Mar 31, 2015

Comment • 125

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As an instructor, I want to be able to export a Canvas quiz as a PDF. This would enable me to easily print quizzes for the purpose of accommodation, for allowing a given student to take a quiz outside the timeframe established for the quiz for all other students, etc.

transferred from the old Community

Originally posted by: Pacific Union College admins

Special thanks for contributions from: Betsy Walker, John Louviere

Community Team Note: This idea remains open for voting. A virtually identical idea was moved forward for consideration in March: Exporting quizzes into Word or pdf documents Contrary to our customary practice, we are allowing both ideas to continue to move forward. Votes and feedback from both ideas will be evaluated.

125 Comments

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Gina Hutchens Apr 6, 2015 10:30 AM
I totally agree with this. Having an option to have a printed copy of the quiz would be awesome for those teachers that have students that must take tests on paper. We have students that have concussions during various sports and are not allowed on a computer and everything has to be printed. At this time a print screen is about the only way to do this without having to do a lot of copying and pasting.
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jeremymay@msdlt.org Apr 6, 2015 10:46 AM
Though I'm not a huge fan of printing, I definitely agree with Gina Hutchens for the medical reason behind this, but also because some students have documented accommodations to take assessments via pencil/paper. It's also helpful in the mass chaos unplanned outages cause. A teacher can run a hard backup for just-in-case situations.
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Kylie Admin Edgecomb Apr 8, 2015 10:32 AM
I receive the requests from instructors each year on how to effectively print their quizzes in Canvas. A printing feature would be helpful for special needs, editing, etc.
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G.Petruzella@mcla.edu Apr 15, 2015 11:13 AM
Especially now that all the new Community pages seem to have the handy-dandy "View As PDF" option ... a similar standard feature on Canvas objects would be welcome.
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Kristin Lundstrum Apr 15, 2015 12:25 PM
I've heard many teachers in my building ask about this functionality as well. While we'd like to be 100% paperless, sometimes students have accommodations to meet. A nice printing feature would be great!
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crafte@easternflorida.edu Apr 20, 2015 7:29 AM
If you have Respondus licensing, you can use that software as a workaround to create paper versions of Canvas quizzes. The following link to a page at the University of Utah (thank you!) provides the steps on how to accomplish the task: Knowledge Article
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Dr. Elizabeth Walton May 5, 2015 8:05 AM
I agree! I've just created a number of quiz banks with the help of my TAs. Unfortunatley, we've discovered a couple of duplications. As this particular bank has 110 questions at the last count, it's really difficult to check this on the screen. A printable version would be much easier.
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Scott Finkeldei Apr 22, 2015 1:04 PM
Yes, this is a must. There are a number of use cases for printing out quizzes on paper including as an accommodation, to allow easy editing or review or to allow an alternate attempt in a low tech situation.

A Print option would:
- format it to break cleanly between questions instead of in the middle
- include the answer options selections in a way they could be answered on paper so for example drop down boxes would turn into a list to select from
- would minimize any images, navigation, headers, footers, etc for efficient printing
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0383197 Apr 28, 2015 8:10 AM
I just assumed that this was possible (to print an exam) especially for an accommodation. I will have to use the Respondus workaround, but it would have been nice to just do it simply from Canvas (as I am a huge fan of the MLS so far.)
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lprather Apr 30, 2015 12:22 PM
I am having the same issue. Right now, I'm having to copy and paste the quiz to Word and then go in and change the page breaks, font, etc because of accommodation issues. For software that has been very user friendly and efficient, not having the print option wastes a lot of time.
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Kyle Beimfohr May 5, 2015 6:16 AM
I completely agree with adding this functionality. We have many students in our district that have the accommodation written in their IEP that all assessments be given on paper. This makes it very difficult for the instructor if they use the drop-down feature. Print Screen does not work in this case.
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AnnMarie Johnson May 5, 2015 2:38 PM
May I ask that this request include both quizzes AND test banks? It doesn't make much sense to print a quiz when the questions come from larger test banks as you won't get all the questions.

BTW, my work around is to create an exam that uses the entire test bank, preview it, copy the whole page, paste it into Word.
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800215513 May 5, 2015 3:13 PM
I was under the impression that this was already possible? My teacher in BA101 prints the quiz each week for the students to take in class, maybe it is through the business book and not through canvas.
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Elizabeth (Online Learning) Jackson @ crafte@easternflorida.edu on May 6, 2015 8:36 AM
This sounds pretty interesting! I just had an instructor this morning ask about printing out one of his question banks in one of his courses. I'm going to try this to see if it works for question banks as well as quizzes. Even if it doesn't, this is still a good resource for our office to use if an instructor needs to print a quiz out of Canvas.

Thanks for the resource!
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ccalderon@ewu.edu May 6, 2015 11:01 AM
This is a request we frequently receive, for a variety of purposes such as those listed above. Currently, it can be handled through Respondus, but as many of our instructors are on Macs, this option is not available to them.
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Patrick Mceachern May 7, 2015 10:11 AM
This is probably the question I get most often from faculty. They ask, "How do I print out my quiz in a nice format?" When I give them the answer, I get "What, you have to be kidding." I would love to see this feature in Canvas. Having the ability to print out an answer key would be nice as well.
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Josh Strigle May 7, 2015 10:46 AM
I get lots of requests for easier quiz printing.
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Robert Sparrow May 8, 2015 10:47 AM
When we were in our legacy LMS (Sakai) this was one of the features that the faculty really enjoyed: while the PDFs from that system were a bit clunky (spacing / formatting wise), it was extremely helpful in the event that a student needed to come in and take a test for accessibility reasons or for makeup purposes. This feature would greatly impact our Disability Student Services office as they administer paper and pencil tests from Sakai to our students on a regular basis--they just print the PDF from the course's Sakai page. Thanks so much for opening this feature to voting!
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anakaerts@kcc.edu May 11, 2015 9:49 AM
I think the print feature would be very helpful! Even the ability to just export to a PDF would be fantastic!
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Laraine Moellendorf May 12, 2015 8:14 AM
Please make this happen. We have needed this feature since we have been on Canvas.
Thanks
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Elisabeth Greenwood (UCF-CDL) May 14, 2015 7:49 AM
Our faculty frequently ask for this as well, mostly for their own uses but sometimes for accommodations.
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anthonem@seattleu.edu @ Patrick Mceachern on May 21, 2015 9:55 AM
I'll echo Patrick Mceachern in his request for the ability to also print out the answer key for a quiz.
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allison@instructure.com May 29, 2015 8:33 PM
Hello Canvas Community!

Clearly, this is a much-wanted feature and though we can't commit to prioritizing this project during the next six months, it is something I want to explore deeply, with your help. I have two questions and an open invitation to get things started.

1. THE WHY

As you might expect, the first thing I need to understand is WHY Canvas users need to print quizzes. After reading comments from this thread as well as the old community, I came up with a starter list that looks like this:

As an instructor, I want a printed copy of a Canvas quiz so that:
1. I can have a hard copy to accommodate students with different needs (i.e. blind students, students with special needs).
2. I can have a low-tech alternative when the internet at my school goes down, my students forget their devices, or their computer malfunctions.
3. I can answer student questions during class without having to navigate to the quiz online.
4. I can have a paper backup in personal file just in case I lose access to Canvas in the future.
5. I can easily check quiz questions and answers against the sources I used to author the quiz.
As an instructor, I want to print a student quiz submission so that:
1. I can share student work samples with my administration when required (i.e. accreditation, end-of-term documentation, individual education plans, IEPs).
2. I can review the quiz results with my student on paper.
What I'd like to do next is publish a short survey along these lines so I can get a handle on which of these use cases are most common. Before I do though, I could really use your help refining these two lists, either by restating suggested scenarios, suggesting I delete unimportant scenarios, or adding new ones I haven't captured here. Please leave your suggestions on this thread or feel free to email me: allison@instructure.com I plan to publish a public survey on this thread by the end of May.

UPDATE: Based on user feedback, I have created a survey to gauge the frequency of three different use cases among our active community participants.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE "WHY" SURVEY

2. THE HOW

My second question relates to the degree to which the printed quiz needs to be editable or "outputable" in different formats. Some of your comments seem to suggest that there is a need to edit and format quiz questions, print quizzes with (or without) correct answers, print standalone answer keys, and even print entire question banks. Help me understand what your needs are by answering the following 3-question survey:

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE "HOW" SURVEY

3. NEXT STEPS

With the help of our awesome Community Team, I've just launched a ~~Canvas Focus Group~~ dedicated to discovering more about the Quiz Printing problem. Our goal is to learn more so that we can address your most important needs simply and cleanly-- you know, the Canvas way!

So let's get this Canvas Quiz Printing Party started! I look forward to your responses and to collaborating with those of you who decide to participate in the focus group. USUAL DISCLAIMER: there is no guarantee that we will build this feature, but 200+ votes is a very compelling reason to explore our options.

Have a great weekend all.
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Litao Wang May 28, 2015 10:25 AM
The printable feature is highly preferred!
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powellj@tcc.fl.edu May 29, 2015 7:42 AM
Thanks for the survey, Allison!

I did complete the survey, but wanted to also share here one of our reasons for needing this option. In several of our Divisions, the faculty are required to have a copy of their final exam on file at the Division Office. If the test is pulled from a Question Bank, all possible questions must be included, and the correct answers must be indicated.

Although we do also have a need at times for a printed copy for student accommodations, it only comes up once in a while, whereas the Division office requirement happens to all faculty each semester (or whenever their final exam changes).
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