How do I create a group of questions that depend on the same data?

[pdaves]

1. I'd like to be able to provide a financial statement and then ask several multiple choice questions about it in Canvas Quizzing. I don't see a way to provide common information for multiple questions this way. How is this done?

2. Assuming you can construct a selection of questions that depend on common information in this way, then is there a way to do this within a question bank so I can have, say, 5 different versions of say 3 questions that depend on common data for the 3 questions, but this common data differs for the 5 versions? 

To make this clear, suppose I want 3 different questions to depend on this income statement and balance sheet:

LMS, Inc. Financial statements. I want this to be part of a bigger test, so I don't want to put it in the Instructions section because I may have several different types of questions like this:

           2019      2020

Sales xxxx      xxxx

Cost of goods sold xxx   xxxx

Selling general and admin exp. xxx

....

Assets

Cash .xxx

Fixed assets xxx

...

Liabilities

xxx

xx

1. Calculate free cash flow for LMS, Inc. 

2. Calculate inventory turnover for LMS, Inc. 

3.  Calculate ROE for LMS, Inc. 

What I'd like to do is create 5 or so different versions of this 3-question block and have Canvas give each student 1 of the 5 different versions of this common block when it constructs the (larger) test. So like a question group linked to a question bank, but my understanding of a question bank is that it has a bunch of individual questions--not a group of questions linked to a common set of data. 

[pdaves]

Ok, so you can't do this in Canvas. That's too bad. 

[Stef_retired]

 @pdaves , the Stimulus item type in New Quizzes allows the instructor to accomplish this, for the most part. Instructors can create a stimulus that contains the instructions common to all the questions, and then draw either all or randomly-selected associated questions from an item bank that the instructor has designed for that purpose. How do I insert stimulus content in New Quizzes?‌ is a good place to start.

[pdaves · Accepted solution]

thanks, let me clarify. I'd like to have a stimulus (say financial statements) with one set of numbers and say 4 questions that refer to those numbers. Then another stimulus with slightly different numbers and the same 4 questions that refer to those numbers. Do that x 5 and all of those in a single question bank that has 5 versions of the same 4 questions-stimulus and then Canvas would select one of those blocks for a student. So each student would receive one of those 5 blocks of 4 questions and the associated stimulus. This would be to go along with other question groups (at least that's how they work in the old quiz engine) so every student would receive pretty much a different exam--same questions, just different numbers as the answers.

To summarize, this is just like question groups in the old quizzing engine, but rather than have, say, 5 questions with different numbers in a question group linked to a question bank, I'd like 5 blocks of (say) 4 questions linked to a stimulus where the stimulus is the same for the 4 questions but varies across the blocks. 

[Stef_retired]

 @pdaves ‌, yes, that's why I put in that "for the most part" caveat.   If you'd like to see this specific new functionality added to New Quizzes stimulus items, please share it as a new idea after searching the Ideas forum for existing ones and reading through How do I create a new feature idea in the Canvas Community?

[pdaves]

So if I can't randomize the stimulus/question block among students, can I simply make 3 versions of the exam and randomize the entire exam among students? That should be really easy to implement! I know I can do this in Akindi online but that application doesn't integrate with Proctorio. Can I do it with Canvas quizzing?