How to Duplicate a Quiz

[rsardenberg]

Hi, I have a student that requires different quiz allotted time than the rest of the class due to disability. How do I create a duplicate of the quiz? That way I can assign the quiz with more allotted time only to that student... Thanks!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rsardenberg  Welcome to the Canvas Community.  Thanks for posting your message.  Let's have you try these steps:

[NOTE: This is the process for creating a single copy of a quiz. Do not repeat the process, as any subsequent imports will overwrite an existing quiz.]

1. Log in to your Canvas course.
2. Click on the "Settings" menu in your course.
3. Click on the "Import Course Content" button on the right side of your screen.
4. Under the "Import Content" heading, use the "Content Type" dropdown list to select "Copy a Canvas Course".
5. Next, select the same course that you are logged into right now.  (You'll probably see a warning message that you're choosing the same course, but that's okay.)
6. Choose the option for "Select specific content".
7. Click the "Import" button.
8. Under the "Current Jobs" heading, you will see a new line with today's date and time along with a "Select Content" button.  Click that button.
9. You should see a row for "Quizzes" with an arrow to the left of it.  Click that arrow to expand the list of quizzes in your course.
10. Place a checkmark next to the name of the quiz that you want to make a copy of.
11. Click the "Select Content" button.

Once the progress bar completes, you can go to your "Quizzes" page in your course, and you should see a duplicate of the quiz.  You should be able to re-name that quiz and make any changes to it that you need.

I hope this helps!

[bweiss · Accepted solution]

Hi Renata,

You can also add time for that one student under the Moderate Quiz once you've saved the quiz. This will allow you to add time and attempts for specific students without having to duplicate. 

[johndaker · Accepted solution]

You can also just click on the three buttons form the "quiz" view, choose "Copy to.." and then copy to the course you're in and refresh the page

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rsardenberg  Welcome to the Canvas Community.  Thanks for posting your message.  Let's have you try these steps:

[NOTE: This is the process for creating a single copy of a quiz. Do not repeat the process, as any subsequent imports will overwrite an existing quiz.]

1. Log in to your Canvas course.
2. Click on the "Settings" menu in your course.
3. Click on the "Import Course Content" button on the right side of your screen.
4. Under the "Import Content" heading, use the "Content Type" dropdown list to select "Copy a Canvas Course".
5. Next, select the same course that you are logged into right now.  (You'll probably see a warning message that you're choosing the same course, but that's okay.)
6. Choose the option for "Select specific content".
7. Click the "Import" button.
8. Under the "Current Jobs" heading, you will see a new line with today's date and time along with a "Select Content" button.  Click that button.
9. You should see a row for "Quizzes" with an arrow to the left of it.  Click that arrow to expand the list of quizzes in your course.
10. Place a checkmark next to the name of the quiz that you want to make a copy of.
11. Click the "Select Content" button.

Once the progress bar completes, you can go to your "Quizzes" page in your course, and you should see a duplicate of the quiz.  You should be able to re-name that quiz and make any changes to it that you need.

I hope this helps!

[rsardenberg]

Chris, Thank you so much for the detailed and quick response!!

[wsaleem]

Duplicating a quiz should not be this hard - 10+ steps! Why not a simple "Duplicate" option?

[alexander_632]

Yes! Please!

Eliot Alexander

[careysmith]

Agreed, it should not be this hard. 

In my class, I want to give each student a different version of the test to deter cheating. The only difference being a download of a pdf file. (And more than just having some random numbers--actually a different questions.) I originally did this as a regular assignment, and I could use "duplicate" for that, then edit to include a different file. But I want to use Proctorio, which is not available for assignments, only for quizzes. But "duplicate" is not available for quizzes. I want to be sure that the Proctorio settings are the same for everyone. Plus for the next chapter's test, I want the same Proctorio settings, so I want to duplicate the test.

Canvas: Please let us duplicate quizzes and let us add Proctorio for other assignments!

[Jul_Cro]

@careysmith 

Sounds like you could use question banks and randomize which question the quiz picks. You have 25 PDFs, one per question, and then say that it pulls one question from that bank of 25 questions. It is not ensuring that every student gets a different one, but it could be! 

[careysmith]

I found that after I create a quiz and add it to a Module, in the Module view, I can use the 3 dots to "copy to", which makes a duplicate.

[Gregorius]

Yes, it's absurd and ridiculous one can't simply duplicate a Quiz.  I like to retain the formatting and update questions and answers—without having to start again from scratch.

[rsamia]

Ditto. It's also not surprising that Canvas hasn't responded. Or maybe they have in a more recent year. I keep wondering, "Where are their developers and what are they doing to improve this platform?"

Everyone is chiming in on their workarounds - that's a constant we can depend on: others workarounds being the standard. One person even has html for a workaround - really, html? And he teaches math - that's great for math and programmers but what about solutions that are the lowest common denominator?

[Scott26]

That only works before any students take the quiz.  Once you have a grade, Canvas refuses to let you make an independent copy.  It would be nice if every teacher in my district were lock-step and able to ask for resources prior to me offering my quiz, but that is not realty.

Back to somebody else's comment, it should not be this hard.  We still do not have a solution.

[rsamia]

Yes, the quiz copied over, but I encountered the following issues: 1) the quiz copied over live if the quiz was still active, and 2) the copied quiz should have changed its title to "Copy of..."  so that the copied quiz is known by it's copied title, and b) the quiz should be in activated because, after all, it is a "copy" and should be without it being live/active. Others could argue that if it's a copy, then that's why it was published, well I would say then that you like the extra work of unpublishing it and making sure you unpublished the correct copy or to copy when the quiz is not published -- well, I would day that Canvas should develop the copy quiz one way, unpublished and with "Copy of..." to address all concerns.

[brian1441]

I was going to try a different tack.

I have been writing Python programs using the canvasapi library to interact with Canvas courses.  Is there a logical reason why you can’t copy quizzes?  Is there any reason why I shouldn’t write a Python program that copies quizzes?  Looking at the API documentation it appears there is support for both reading existing quizzes and creating new ones programmatically.  Please let me know if you are aware of any caveats or gotchas I should know about.  BTW, We are using only “classic” quizzes where I work.

Thanks

[LeoSpizzirri]

That sure is a lot of steps! It seems like every piece of content should have a "Copy" button in case you want to make something similar (which happens often). 

[Chris_Hofer]

@LeoSpizzirri ...

Most pieces of content now have a "Duplicate" option such as:

• How do I duplicate a module?
• How do I duplicate a module item?
• How do I duplicate a page in a course?
• How do I duplicate an assignment?
• How do I duplicate a New Quizzes quiz?

Unfortunately, this functionality does not exist for current Classic Quizzes.  So, if you are using the New Quizzes interface, you should be able to use the instructions in the last linked Guide I've provided above.  However, for current Classic Quizzes, you'll have to use the instructions I provided back in 2018.  Or, you could use the "Copy to..." option to do something similar to the Import process:

• How do I copy a quiz to another course?

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Sing out if you have any questions...thanks!

[AMYBOEHME]

What did would I search to figure out why there is not a row for quizzes?  I have quizzes in the quizzes section, but when I follow the steps above the row for quizzes is not there.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @AMYBOEHME ...

That's why I stated "Most pieces of content..."  Unfortunately, quizzes don't have the "Duplicate" option available.  However, you should still be able to use the "Copy to" option where you could just select the same course that you are already in to make a copy of a quiz in the same course.  That *should* work.  You can also do something similar using the Course Import Tool...just selecting specific content and selecting the course that you are already in.

• How do I select specific content as part of a course import?
• How do I copy a quiz to another course?
• How do I copy a quiz to another course in New Quizzes?

I hope this helps to clarify things for you.

[bweiss · Accepted solution]

Hi Renata,

You can also add time for that one student under the Moderate Quiz once you've saved the quiz. This will allow you to add time and attempts for specific students without having to duplicate. 

[rsardenberg]

Thank you!

[jemling1]

Suggestions for when an "Available Until" time is set?

[samuel_cheng1]

This 10+ steps procedure to simply duplicate a quiz question does NOT really solve the issue. Canvas by far has the most ridiculous UI of any web app I used in the last decade. I feel like using something created before 2000. If it is not some kind of monopoly, it should have been bankrupted long time ago. 

[clint_carlson]

Would you rather not be able to copy a quiz at all? It's a few extra clicks do something that takes just a few minutes to accomplish. I look forward to seeing your  product that competes with Canvas.

[wsaleem]

I would rather that the product that I pay for, make things easy for me. I would understand lack of support if I was doing something esoteric or obscure. Duplicating a quiz does not seem to fall in that category considering the target audience of Canvas.

[Scott26]

When it should be one click and a few seconds.  Lazy programmers.

[johndaker · Accepted solution]

You can also just click on the three buttons form the "quiz" view, choose "Copy to.." and then copy to the course you're in and refresh the page

[wsaleem]

I made several copies of a quiz using the "Copy To" option and merrily edited each of them as desired. In the end, I found that all the quizzes had been set to be the same as the most recently edited copy.

[jeneyg]

I try to use the "copy to..." feature to copy a quiz within my course, but my course is not given as an option, only other courses. I'm unsure what I'm doing wrong!

[audra_agnelly]

Do Not use Copy To. Copy to creates additional bookmarks but not a unique quiz. If you open the original quiz and then open the copy, you will see that they have identical quiz ids in the URL. Editing one version edits the other and you will not have 2 unique quizzes. Copy to should only be used to copy to a different course.

[gwied]

Thanks for this important explanation.

[Chris_Hofer]

@audra_agnelly ...

I know your post was from a couple years ago, but was this for Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes?  I just tested this out in my own sandbox course, and I could not duplicate your scenario where you say the ID numbers do not change.  I used the "Copy to..." option within the "Quizzes" page to make a copy of a Classic Quiz.  The original URL was something like:

• https://SchoolName.instructure.com/courses/1234567/quizzes/8263710

After I used the "Copy to..." option to make a duplicate of this Classic Quiz in the same course, the new URL was:

• https://SchoolName.instructure.com/courses/1234567/quizzes/8448995

In the second quiz, I added the word "red" to a question, saved the question, and saved the quiz.  I then looked at the first quiz, and I did not see the word "red" in that same question.

When I used the "Copy to..." option for a New Quiz in my sandbox course, I also got a different ID number in the URL.

Anyway...that was my experience in my own testing.  Hope this helps.

[mickelkm]

Simple and it worked. (I copied it into a new module with no other content so that I wouldn't have to struggle to find it/assess whether it worked.) Thanks so much!

[freeman1]

This is ridiculous.  Why can't there be a simple "duplicate" option for quizzes?  So annoying...

[carolyn_scheese]

Using the new Quiz option, you can easily duplicate a quiz. https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-duplicate-a-New-Quizzes-assessment/ta-p...

[wsaleem]

Do I have to do anything special to get New Quizzes? I still see the old options.

[MarkRheault]

Settings

Feature Options

Default to New Quizzes 

New Quizzes

Click Update if avalable

[Chris_Hofer]

@MarkRheault ...

This assumes that New Quizzes has been enabled at your school.  At an administrative level, a school's Canvas admin can enable or disable New Quizzes.  There are basically four options for admins as it relates to New Quizzes:

• off by default for all courses within the account with no option to enable per course
• off by default for all courses within the account with the option to enable New Quizzes per course
• on by default for all courses within the account with the option to disable New Quizzes per course
• on by default for all courses within the account with no option to disable per course

So, just to clarify, the steps you've outlined may or may not be there...depending on what your school's Canvas admin has decided to configure at the Canvas account level.  Hope this helps!

[MarkRheault]

Great point Chris! 

I swear I would be 90% more proficient if we didn't use Canvas. It has been the bane of my existence this 9 weeks! 🙂 

[Chris_Hofer]

@MarkRheault ...

I'm sorry to hear that.  The Community is here to help you should you have any questions about how to do things in Canvas.  Just start a new topic, and I'm sure one or more people will try and help you out.

[Chris_Hofer]

@wsaleem ...

If New Quizzes may not be enabled at your school just yet.  This is typically a decision made by your school's Canvas administrators or folks from their Online Learning / eLearning / Distance Education team.  They would be able to give you more information about if New Quizzes has been enabled or what their timeline looks like for rolling out New Quizzes to you and the other instructors at your school.

[irhile]

This is absurd. I like the students to self asses the learning objectives at the end of each chapter. Logically, one would make a template and duplicate it. But, nope, can't do it. So I have to redo the whole survey, which takes so much longer. The lack of basic functionality in Canvas is so frustrating.