Question Randomizer in Canvas

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

 

My faculty would like to be able to select randomize questions rather than randomize or shuffle answers when they set up an exam or quiz in Canvas. They can set a questions group which will in turn randomize them, but it should be just a simple click to have it shuffle the questions.

Comments from Instructure

This idea was completed with Quizzes.Next User Group

For more information, please read through the How do I manage delivery settings for an assessment in Quizzes.Next? 

:smileyinfo: We are not currently developing within the original quizzing tool.

35 Comments
biray
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

You're right in saying that you can officially randomize the quiz with question groups. How do I create a Quiz with a Question Group to randomize quiz questions?

Just so I understand, you're suggesting creating this functionality within the quiz settings, correct?

blain_c
Community Novice

Correct. Just like we can check a box to shuffle answers; I would really like to have a box to check to shuffle the questions.

Thanks!!

DaleDrees
Community Champion

Just FYI Christine,

We get that request a lot at our school too and yesterday we helped a faculty member with this. You do have to use the Question Bank feature but it is really simple to convert the quiz into a question bank. So if a faculty member has a quiz and wants them to be randomize we tell them that they have to turn that quiz into a question bank (quick process) and what we do is tell them to go to course settings and choose Export Course Content - and then select Quiz and then choose all the quizzes that you want to convert to a question bank and then export the zip file to your computer when it is ready to be downloaded.

Now go into your course settings and choose Import Content into this Course and then under Content Type, choose the QTI.zip file option. Then browse for your zip file and Import (I normally do not choose the option to create a new question).

Now go to your quizzes tab and manage your questions banks and you will see that your quiz is now a question bank. Now all you have to do is go back to your quizzes and delete the old quiz and recreate the quiz by pulling from the newly created question bank.

We had a professor yesterday who had over 50 quizzes to be converted and when we were done with converting them all into question banks and were ready to delete the old quizzes instead of deleting them one by one we created a group under assignments and called it To be Deleted Quizzes and then dragged all of the old quizzes into that group and deleted the whole group. Then it was easy to start creating brand new quizzes that pulled from question banks with the randomizing feature.

Have to give props for Kendi Judy at our school who first came up with this process!

Dale

snugent
Community Champion

This is great idea. I started to write up why I thought this was important and realized I was asking for different functionality so I created a new feature request. My request is related to this one as well as the ones below it.  It should be noted that this feature idea had a bunch of votes in the old community.

My new idea -

If quiz questions are randomized by linking to a question bank, the regrade option should be available.  See

If questions are in a quiz and there is a problem with a question and the instructor updates the question, an option should appear that gives the instructor the option to update the same question in the question bank. See

dstahl
Community Member

In Moodle and Blackboard you simply select "Randomize Questions" from the Quiz Menu.  It's simple and very useful.

mlewis23
Community Champion

Yes, this would be very helpful.  Right now we have to created different question banks with like point values then add them individually to each question group.  Having a 'Shuffle Questions' and a 'Shuffle Answers' would be great.

s_eberhard
Community Novice

Totally agree!

It would be nice for it as just another option to select when creating a quiz, that would make it a more obvious feature rather than hidden under "Question Groups".

hensonj
Community Novice

Its easy to forget that instructors commonly have a lot on their plate. Replacing a multi-step work around with a button is the sort of idea that just makes plain sense!

Thanks blain.c​. This is a great idea.

jclark
Community Novice

This is my first year using Canvas, and all other learning management systems that I have used allows the teacher to simply check a box that will automatically randomize questions or question sets. This function is highly needed, please create one!

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @jclark ​, I hope you will take a moment to add your thoughts to the active and ongoing conversation surrounding Modern Quizzing Engine​, which describes the overhaul of quizzes that is currently underway.