Item Banks and Question Groups in New Quizzes

[Carmen_H]

Although I know many users complained about question groups in Classic Quizzes being confusing and a tedious way to shuffle test questions (Yay! Shuffle questions toggle!), there are also users that loved that feature and miss it in New Quizzes. 

Question groups are still a great way to take a few questions from a larger bank to randomize for a specific topic or content piece as opposed to randomizing all questions on a quiz. A workaround was suggested here but is pretty unrealistic if I have a bank of 50 questions I typically use for a midterm and I now have to split that up into another 15-20 separate item banks to be able to randomize by concept (imagining I have 2-3 questions in the bank that would test knowledge of each tested concept).

The easiest solution is to allow question groups in New Quizzes as well. Although not ideal, it would also work to have a hierarchical filing system for the item banks where I could put those concept banks within a midterm bank. If I had to have 20 banks for the midterm and 40 banks for the final listed individually in ONE class, you can image my item bank would be pretty unusable - and that is only if I taught 1 course in Canvas! What if I teach 5 or 6 different classes in Canvas and each of those classes has 80 item banks?

With the overwhelming prevalence of cheating in online exams throughout the pandemic (and digital exams in general) enabling question groups would go a long way in allowing instructors to fight back by making cheating harder. 

🔎 This idea has been archived. While this idea isn't open for comments, it is an important part of Instructure’s idea conversations and development process. Contributions like this are valuable as Instructure prioritizes work on new or existing features.

[Carmen_H]

Although I know many users complained about question groups in Classic Quizzes being confusing and a tedious way to shuffle test questions (Yay! Shuffle questions toggle!), there are also users that loved that feature and miss it in New Quizzes. 

Question groups are still a great way to take a few questions from a larger bank to randomize for a specific topic or content piece as opposed to randomizing all questions on a quiz. A workaround was suggested here but is pretty unrealistic if I have a bank of 50 questions I typically use for a midterm and I now have to split that up into another 15-20 separate item banks to be able to randomize by concept (imagining I have 2-3 questions in the bank that would test knowledge of each tested concept).

The easiest solution is to allow question groups in New Quizzes as well. Although not ideal, it would also work to have a hierarchical filing system for the item banks where I could put those concept banks within a midterm bank. If I had to have 20 banks for the midterm and 40 banks for the final listed individually in ONE class, you can image my item bank would be pretty unusable - and that is only if I taught 1 course in Canvas! What if I teach 5 or 6 different classes in Canvas and each of those classes has 80 item banks?

With the overwhelming prevalence of cheating in online exams throughout the pandemic (and digital exams in general) enabling question groups would go a long way in allowing instructors to fight back by making cheating harder. 

[SamanthaDunn]

Please consider this as something to fix. We have question banks in the hundreds that also need to be incorporated into multiple item banks and into multiple quizzes in multiple courses for specific programs. 

[KristinL]

Hi @Carmen_H and @SamanthaDunn -

I searched the already-existing Ideas, and I wonder if New Quizzes - Shuffling questions in same question group is related. There are many requests for New Quizzes features, and I want to help the Project Managers by combining related requests, when possible.

If you feel that this conversation could be merged with the one linked above, let me know! If not, we can work together to better prepare this idea for discussion. Thanks!

[KristinL]

Hi @Carmen_H -

I'm checking in about this idea! I hope you are doing well.

We know life can get busy, yet if we don't hear from you by March 10, we will merge this thread with the one above so we can better focus on current requests.