[New Quizzes] Export to or Share in Commons

[abbyrosensweig]

This idea has been developed and is On Canvas Beta •  How do I access the Canvas beta environment?

For more information, please read through the Commons Release Notes (2025-01-18) 

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Problem statement:

Current Instructure documentation states that New Quizzes cannot be imported from Canvas Commons (source: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Canvas-Commons/How-do-I-import-and-view-a-Commons-resource-in-Can....) This limits the usefulness of both New Quizzes and Commons to not be able to share these specific resource types there.

Proposed solution:

New Quizzes and Canvas Commons should be fully compatible. Instructors should be able to share New Quizzes to Commons and then also import items from Commons that contain New Quizzes.

User role(s):

admin,instructor

[DeletedUser]

I did, and Canvas support was able to restore it for me.  Phew!

But after this thing, I realize that New Quizzes exported to a package will only work if the original shell is still on your account.  If you reset the original shell, then importing that package does nothing.  New Quizzes will fail to make copies in this case.  And that is super odd!  You would think exporting the course would make a copy of those New Quizzes.  But I think what it is doing is just looking for the original copy on your account and recopy it from there instead of from the export package -_-

Edit:

And I spoke to soon.  The questions on the build page of the restored New Quizzes are gone again.  It has something to do with the original shell I had it built in.  I reset that one and it makes the questions in the New Quizzes on the restored shell disappear afterwards.

I’m not sure if this is because the shell I used originally was a shell given to me as part of a teacher training program of if it’s the way it is on New Quizzes.  Right now I’m suspecting that whichever shell you built the New Quizzes in originally, it is stored on that shell and on that shell only.  Exporting it to another shell as a saved package or direct export only links back to the original shell.  I don’t know, these are just my guesses.

I also noticed that the item banks never disappeared since that is always on my account.

[DeletedUser]

So after talking with Canvas Support, they duplicated this issue:  New Quizzes does not import/export correctly.  It's broken.

Here are the steps to confirm this:

(1)  Create a new course, add a New Quiz, and create some questions directly in the New Quiz.

(2) Export this course directly to another new course or do it by creating an export package and then import it to another new course.

(3)  At this point, the New Quiz in that export will copy correctly onto the 2nd new course.

(4)  Now, reset both courses you just made using “Reset course content” button.

(5) Then use the export package to reimport that course with the New Quiz and you’ll see that the New Quiz will not make a copy.  All settings on that quiz and questions inside will disappear.

Please edit this behavior.  It’ll cause a lot of problems for a lot of users as well as for the support team.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

@DeletedUser that is too bad that restoring the reset course still caused issues. we recently experienced problems with importing new quizzes but found a workaround.

I think the new quiz still exists with the same ID in the LTI space, which is separate from your course and I believe is not reset by a Canvas reset.  The quiz should still be there.  We've discovered that if you import the same new quiz twice to a course, it sometimes won't work. That might be what's in play here, although the reset course has a new ID number so I'm not completely sure. If you import the original export package to a sandbox, and then import from the sandbox to your newly reset course (you'd need to export from the sandbox again if you need to use an export package and aren't doing a direct import/course copy from the sandbox), I think it might work.  If it does, would you let us know?  Of course this doesn't work between institutions, only in the same one, is yours in the same institution?

These problems need to be fixed. We shouldn't have to go through such steps, and should be able to transfer quizzes between institutions and between courses in the same institution without issues.

[DeletedUser]

@Nancy_Webb_CCSF 
I just read your recommendations, and I'm not clear on what is being asked or how to duplicate the recommended steps.  All I know for sure is the that New Quizzes will NOT export.  It is literally broken.  And this is how you can duplicate and verify the issue:

(1) If you create a new course shell with a New Quiz (containing some settings and questions inside), then any export of that course to another new shell will be successful if the original course shell is still intact.

(2) Now, if you wipe out that original shell or any export of that shell BEFORE importing that to another course shell (by either direct import or by export package), then the course will copy, BUT all New Quizzes (along with settings and questions) will disappear.

Ultimately, this means that you're unable to export New Quizzes.  The export just references back to the previous shell rather than making its own duplicated copy (both settings and questions).  This is also why people said they can't export to another institution:  that's because New Quizzes never exported to begin with, even within the same institution.

I've tagged this @SuSorensen but the response did not indicate that they're going to fix this...which is a MAJOR issue!  And if they don't fix this export issue, it'll will cause major headaches for everybody.  I've already lost a month of work due to this problem, and now I have to manually rebuild every New Quiz that was lost because I just assumed the export would actually make copies of these New Quizzes along with their settings and questions.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Thanks @DeletedUser - so this is an issue only if the original course is reset/deleted, that access to the new quizzes is gone if they haven't already been copied to a new shell?  Even if the originally reset course is un-deleted? The quizzes are still gone?

Yes that needs a fix.  I am sure many schools delete old courses as well as those that are reset due to errors.  Our teachers know how to reset and use it occasionally.

Have you read this thread Priority Gathering for the New Quizzes Roadmap - Canvas Community (canvaslms.com) - I think this issue should be posted there.

[DeletedUser]

That's right, @Nancy_Webb_CCSF .  Ok I'll post it there as well. I've been spamming this same message a few places and I'll keep doing it til they fix this issue.

Edit:  And they locked that forum post...LOL.

[SenskyMoe]

We would like to be able to export a full item bank or select questions from item bank(s) in Canvas. We would like to be able to export the item bank(s) or questions into for example a QTI format or if possible to csv or xls. The use case is in situations that create a need for distinguishing between ownership of questions and being able to manage them outside of Canvas for IPR reasons. We use New Quizzes in Canvas. Currently the only way seems to be to put all the questions into a quiz and then export the quiz, not the question bank in itself.

[KathyPalm]

The ability to import/export item banks (new quizzes) would be very useful for our content creation/maintenance, especially when we have information that is owned by specific user(s).

[adeski]

My role is as a course director and examiner of medical sciences courses.

The recent move from old to new quiz formats came with a switch from a discrete question bank to item banks that can only be accessed by building or editing a quiz. This makes management of the whole item bank, for example for purposes of auditing, item performance monitoring, standard setting, very difficult to achieve individually and impossible when working in a team. It is seemingly also impossible to archive whole banks for purposes of security and/or external review.

Please therefore reinstate functions that allow users to manage large Item Banks directly (as was previously possible in Question Banks). to append additional fields to the default fields (suich as Angoff scores, question performance statistics), and to export/archive whole banks for offline storage and/or inspection.

[KeithConsol]

Was this issue resolved?  Is there a workaround?  We used the school district's Canvas last year.  Our technical college has it's own Canvas instance this year.  New Quizzes do not import / export to courses in difference instances.  I reached out to Canvas Help and was informed this was not possible but to submit an enhancement request.  I did my feature requested was replied to and archived by Stephanie.

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Status changed to: Archived

Thanks for sharing this idea. When instructors export a course that contains New Quizzes into an export package and import the package into a different Canvas instance, their New Quizzes are included in the course import—as long as the different Canvas instance has New Quizzes enabled at the account and course levels. If you experience difficulty with this process, please use the support pathway provided by your school to ask for help (general instructions are in 

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I had my Canvas administrator make a setting to enable New Quizzes in the new Canvas instance.  Importing still does not work. 

HELP! 

[KeithConsol]

Thanks for sharing this idea. When instructors export a course that contains New Quizzes into an export package and import the package into a different Canvas instance, their New Quizzes are included in the course import—as long as the different Canvas instance has New Quizzes enabled at the account and course levels. If you experience difficulty with this process, please use the support pathway provided by your school to ask for help (general instructions are in 

=======================================

I had my Canvas administrator make a setting to enable New Quizzes in the new Canvas instance.  Importing still does not work. 

HELP!