[ARCHIVED] Reorder Questions in Question Bank

[kloughrist]

Hello,

As I am creating questions in the question bank, I realize that I would like them to be in a different order. I know that they will be in a new order when I pull them into the quiz randomly, but as I am working on them, I would like to be able to drag them up and down as you can within a quiz. (I know how to move or copy questions between banks, but not how to move questions within the same bank.)

I see that the question bank automatically alphabetizes them when you refresh the page. In one instance, I began labeling the questions 01, 02, 03, etc. However, I sometimes decide to add a question later on, and I want it to go between questions 45 & 46 for example. My understanding is that this would require me to change the numbering for all the questions (something I would not be willing to do).

This is basically something I want for my own sanity. It helps me know how many questions I've written for each section of my quiz, which order the questions should go in, etc. I basically want to make my question bank nearly identical to the quiz before pulling them in. When I have a lot of questions in a bank, it becomes rather unwieldy. 

Thoughts?

[kona · Accepted solution]

 @kloughrist , greetings! I'm sorry that your question has sat here for so long without a response. I agree that this feature would be wonderful to have! Right now though, Canvas is focused on developing Quizzes.Next - the new quizzing engine. To check out the progress and features for the new quizzes see the following - Priority: Quizzes.Next: General Availability‌. 

Kona

[aashbaugh]

Being able to re-order questions in a Question Bank is also important for me. It's very odd this doesn't exist.  I'm not familiar with the new quiz functionality, but will it include re-ordering in question banks/groups?

[KB6]

It is unbelievable that this simple and intuitive feature is not there. I want to be able to order questions in my question bank from most difficult to least, and in other occasions based on topics. Being able to organize a question bank seems like a must feature for the question bank to be useful. Without the ability to reorder the questions how are we supposed to search efficiently in the bank to pull the questions we want? It makes no sense to me that there is no way to reorder questions within a question bank.

[fkolarz]

It seems silly that reordering isn't an option in the question bank.  I would like to be able to reorder before adding the questions to the quiz.  We need this feature.

[brenda_sirovich]

Agree completely this is beyond silly (although far from the most ridiculous constraint or missing feature on Canvas).

A workaround suggestion, in case helpful to others:  Because question numbers in Question Banks appear to be read as text, it can be helpful to number them in that fashion, using e.g. 3 or 4 digits for each question number, simultaneously leaving large gaps every so often, in which additional questions can be inserted or moved around, e.g. numbering the first 12 questions:  100, 101, 102, 110, 121, 122, 130, 131, 132, 140, 141, 142; this way 7 open slots are available between each set of 3 questions and there are 100 open spots at the beginning – 000, 001, 002.   (Or some variation on this, e.g. 100, 101, 102, 200, 201, ..., or 0100, 0101, 0102, 0200, 0201, ...).  Hope this might be helpful at least until Canvas starts being able to actually ACT on good suggestions instead of relegating them to far flung 'voting' opportunities ...

[SalinaSiddique]

To me what it seems like, you have programmed the field as an alphabetic chronology and you are testing from "left to right" rather than "right to left". My suggestion would be to convert the field into numerical chronology and test it from "right to left". For a programmer's perspective, fixing this issue is just a matter of click. Whereas, to accommodate for this existing ridiculous indiscretion, I have wasted hours - a luxury that I cannot afford as an educator.

[epolomsk]

I also would find this VERY helpful. My question banks are huge, I waste alot of time looking for things in them. 
In addition, only being able to see 30 or so questions at a time , and then having to click on next page  ALOT is very annoying.
My banks are 400 questions large.

[matthew_picha]

Yes this would be a VERY helpful feature.

[rahvzr]

It seems strange that this obviously useful feature, first requested in 2019, has still not been added.  Not exactly great customer service for faculty who rely heavily on Canvas.

[matthew_picha]

Seriously can CANVAS please change this? I update my question banks each quarter and it would be much simpler if they were ordered to my preference. 

[MollieFox]

3 years and still waiting for this to be a feature.  Come on Canvas...you can do it!

[klc137]

I absolutely agree. Question Bank features haven't changed in over 6 years. Being able to re-order the questions with the hamburger drag and drop is basic code at this point.
I would also love to see a time stamp on every question rather than just the question bank and be able to do a sort/ search based off of content in the question. That way, the older versions of questions asking the same concept could be found easily and deleted when you have a bank with years worth of additions.
Even duplicating a question is functionality that is missing that is sorely needed. A true question bank has multiple versions of a question at a university level so that different questions can be asked from semester to semester without duplicating the use of the same question over and over.