Releases Q&A: BETA 2021-12-22 New Quizzes Migration

[SuSorensen]

Looking to discuss Beta Release Notes: New Quizzes Migration (2022-12-22)? Post a reply and start a conversation!

Please thread replies as much as possible to keep posts organized.

[nburden]

Hi there! 

I tried testing the new beta course migration option today and encountered some problems.  I know that migrated quizzes are unpublished, but in the course copy migration process all my quizzes were also removed from the modules area, and have a 0 grade instead of the original grade.  Will the tool eventually leave quizzes in their original location in Modules, and keep the grade? Or will users need to republish, re-add to modules and reorder, and correct the grade for every quiz?

Also, the "build" feature says it is down for maintenance, so we cannot review our quizzes or item banks.  The last time I tested an individual quiz migration in Beta the item banks were also not working.  Do you have an update on when that functionality will be restored so migrated quizzes can be reviewed?

[snugent]

I tested this in beta today. There are multiple issues. Note: I turned on New Quizzes migration during course import/copy so my experience is based on this feature preview enabled in the admin. 

I had a test course with several quizzes and some question banks. I was in the process of moving questions from the unfiled bank to more usefully named question banks when I began this import process. I also created two additional quizzes. One with a linked bank question group and another with question group with questions. I also already had some quizzes that were created in New Quizzes in the course. In the documentation it states that all questions banks will be ported. In my process I decided to import into a blank course with the new quizzes option checked. Below are the issues I found. 

1. Linked bank in question group created a quiz with no questions. There are no warning errors like before. Basically instructors will need to add the questions to the quiz which is labor intensive and not helpful because of issue 3 below. 
2. The quiz with the question group with questions directly in it did create a group set in the quiz to an item bank that I cannot find in my item bank list. This is the same issue I encountered with current migration methods. Nobody has answered my question on "Where does this item bank exist??". I can see the questions in student view. 
3. When I look at the item banks list I don't see any of the new item banks that should be there from the course I just imported. Where did they go?? The questions in the quiz can be edited like they are not in a item bank. This is very problematic if this migration path is suppose to maintain question/item bank structure. This will be labor intensive for faculty who want to randomize a large pool of questions since they will have to add questions in the quiz to an item bank by editing questions one by one. A select all in quizzes and item banks would be nice. 
4. As admin I noticed I'm not seeing all item banks that I should be able to see since the June 2021 update. I didn't see any documentation on this change. Can you please direct me to documentation on this change? I only see this in beta. Production is still all item banks. Please create a filter I can enable to see all. I would prefer to not see all item banks by default. 
5. As stated the stimulus question did come over without the media. I also had a question with Studio media that didn't come over at all.  Please tell me this gets fixed when the editor is replaced with the new rce. 
6. I think this is just a beta issue but the existing new quizzes did not import. I just get the spinning wheel of death. I tested in production and existing new quizzes imported just fine. 

 I know it is early days with this migration path so I hope these issues can be resolved before it comes to production. 

[snugent]

Update

It looks like some things are fixed but still having issues with others. 

On #1  the linked question bank in the question group can over perfectly. That is what I am expecting. 

For #2 the question group with questions directly in it came over and created an item bank and I can see the questions in preview but there is no item bank in my item bank list.

For #3 this is still a problem. Where did the item bank go??? It must be somewhere since I can see the questions in preview. See screen cap below.  Also none of the question banks that were in the course and not linked to a question group didn't come over to item banks. On the side note when this does work, how will the migration distinguish all the "unfiled questions" banks? Will the second and third come over with a number attached or by course name? 

For #4 I going to assume this is beta issue since it it seems fine in production. It would be nice to know the beta quirks ahead of time so we know it really isn't an issue. 

For #5 I am still hoping updating the rce will fix this issue. I don't think our faculty use this much or at least I'm hoping they don't. 

For #6 I assuming this is also a beta issue since it is fine in production. 

In beta editing questions in new quizzes

[snugent]

Second Update

I did another migration and this is what seems to be the long standing issues. 

• If the classic quiz has a question group where the questions are directly in the group, this does properly convert to an item bank but it is NOT attached to the person who migrated it. It does show up in the admin list of item banks with no one attached to it. This is going to be a huge problem for us. Most people put questions directly in question groups because of the grading issue with linked banks. 
• Also, I think people should be warned that questions in a classic quiz that are not associated with a group will NOT migrate as an item bank. 
• I have some confusion about question banks migrating. Will these migrate if they are not associated with question group in a quiz?
• The migrated quiz did not have points in the "assignment settings". This will definitely confuse people since questions will have points. Maybe this should be noted in warning message that appears after migration??
• The admin list of item banks is hot mess. Please do not show me all item banks by default. I only want to see my item banks by default. Give me a more filters to search item banks. Additionally, I would like to see the item bank owner's name in the list. I don't like having to click the share button to see the item bank owner's name. A search filter option by person would be awesome. 

[elovitt]

So, we have been kicking the tires so to speak since the Beta release became available in late December.

I have LMS admin access and and am trying to understand the purpose of the (Item Banks - manage account) option?  On our instance this is currently only available for the LMS admin.  Should this be also available for others like teachers?

I want the instructors to be able to rename or even delete unwanted item banks but I am not sure if this is the correct way to provide that ability?

I did not see this prior to the migration update?

[SuSorensen]

@elovitt Item Banks- manage account is a super permission. The primary use case we see is when someone leaves an institution and the admin wishes to resurrect the item bank for use by other teachers. It can also be useful in highly collaborative environments where adjusting per Item Bank permission is not necessary. 

When a user with an admin role is granted this permission, item banks created by any user also display in the Account and Course Item Banks pages and can be managed by the admin.

When a user with a course role is granted this permission, item banks created by any user also display in the Course Item Banks page and can be managed by the instructor.

[elovitt]

Thank you for the clarification.  We are just trying to get a better understanding of how all this fits together.  When all the dust settles maybe a video or a step by step process of what happens when we copy one course to another that has existing question banks and what they would look like after the migration to item banks.  I am hoping that instructors will have the ability to rename or delete item banks if needed.

Thanks

Ed

[SJ22]

One big issue my team is having is that there is no option for students to self-mark against general feedback since New Quizzes doesn’t allow for unmarked essay questions. Assigning zero points to an essay question, which we were advised to do to resolve this, also doesn't work because it still requires marking before students can see the feedback. I'm at a loss why Canvas has decided to get rid of this existing feature (as well as surveys).

[SuSorensen]

Thank you so much, Susan for taking the time to try out the migration and document your experience. I am seeing Test Quiz- ch03-1 in your item bank list, so if you could file a support ticket with all the steps you took, that would be so appreciated. 

Let's talk some more about the other items in point 3. "Also none of the question banks that were in the course and not linked to a question group didn't come over to item banks. On the side note when this does work, how will the migration distinguish all the "unfiled questions" banks? Will the second and third come over with a number attached or by course name? "

Trying to make sure I'm understanding 🙂
The course has a question bank but that bank isn't being used in any of the quizzes in the course and you are noting that it didn't migrate to an item bank? 

[snugent]

@SuSorensen I created a ticket, 08416284 with a video describing the issues. Yes it appears none of the question banks that are in the course migrate. The question groups do migrate but the question groups with questions directly in the group do not attach to the instructor that migrated the content. I can see them in the admin list of question groups. 

[SuSorensen]

@elovitt You got it. It's on my list and will be posted here https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Quizzes-Transition/Release-Screencast-BETA-2021-12-22-New-Quizzes...
Thanks for letting me know what you'd like to see in the demo!

[k_oconnor2]

Firstly, apologies if this is the wrong place to post this. We've attempted to migrate a quiz full of (small) question banks over the New Quizzes using the Import Course Content page but we're not having much luck.

After selecting the course to copy from, we choose 'All content' from the Content section, and check 'Import assessment content as New Quizzes' before starting the import.

Once the import is complete, the warning message about known issues appears at the top of the course homepage as expected. However, upon trying to access the quiz, it simply appears as though the question banks haven't copied over. (We re-attempted this with a couple of simple standalone MCQs and they copied over fine.)

On one occasion, we also happened to open the imported quiz immediately after the import was complete, and saw some work-in-progress. The screenshots below show our view of the importing quiz and hopefully goes some way to helping debug what went wrong.

Weirdly, this also causes the Item Banks option on the right-hand nav menu to disappear!

[nburden]

Hi! Last week, in Beta, I was able to successfully migrate a course full of classic quizzes that used question groups. It appeared that all the groups were correctly converted to item banks.  This week, however, when I test the migration process only some of my item banks are being created and not all.  My quizzes are the same setup as last week, so I am not sure why they are not migrating correctly this week, is there an update being done?

[LMacaulay]

You raise so many good questions in this post. I especially want to +1 your last bullet point. Currently, item banks from the admin point of view are just awful!  This is even more of an issue is an admin also teaches and really just wants to see their own banks to get their own courses ready.

[BenJam1n]

Like some others, I have had some problems migrating in Beta. 

• The course copies, but the exams are removed from the modules. 
• Also, when navigated to on the left, the quizzes are new but do not contain any questions after the migration.
• Made four or five times attempts and met with success once.

Today, I tried it again and again, and it eventually worked. 

The exams are still not in the modules, but the quizzes are being converted after about 30 minutes.

Is there a delay we should anticipate?  Also, it seems to be intermittent, is that expected in Beta testing?

Cheers,
Ben

[SuSorensen]

Thanks again for being so willing to get into your beta instances and try out the migration tool. I did make a video, but we have some new fixes coming and it seems better to hold off just a little longer.

Some of your feedback we've already been able to investigate and incorporate changes.  

The next deploy to Beta in February will contain these fixes:
1. Questions containing formulas will convert as expected and not as images. 

2. Migrated question groups will be available to the course

3. When course A uses a question bank from course B, show the bank as shared with the course in the new item bank 

Work underway which will come after that: Rich Content Editing (old) for Fill in the Blank questions; enabling line breaks, fill in the table, incorporation of images with sentences, supporting scientific and mathematical ... etc. 

@BenJam1n Yes, there will be some lag in the beta migration experience due to beta being sized at a smaller capacity. Thanks for bringing my attention to the modules problem. A quick double check looked like this problem is showing on our end too, so I'll investigate. 

[crouch]

New Quizzes in Beta is throwing a 503 - Service Temporarily Unavailable error.  This is the third time this occurred after a beta refresh since the beginning of the year.  It makes it hard to collaborate with an instructor who is willing to test the migration tool in their course.  Can you or Instructure put out a message on Monday morning if the service is unavailable and when we can expect it to be up?  Otherwise, we are wasting time checking it throughout the day. 

Thanks, 

[nburden]

@SuSorensen I have a several questions related to item banks:

1.) I reviewed the video posted here, and I can't replicate the behaviour in my own beta site.  When I migrate a full course, which contains quizzes with inline question groups, none of my item banks show under the "Course Banks" filter, they only show under "all my banks."  Is the feature released for all users in Beta? Or am I misinterpreting the video?

2.) Will a bulk editor be made available to be able to bulk assign or bulk delete?  Although I don’t have the exact number, I suspect we will have around 75,000 to 100,000 item banks to start, and being able to manage them in bulk very helpful.

3.) For item bank deletion, it seems that deleted banks aren’t totally disappearing from the system.  During testing, when my course doesn’t fully migrate and I need to re-do it, some exams have item bank numberings that don’t start at #1.  Presumably because that was one of the quizzes that migrated correctly in the previous try, but if I am deleting that original bank from the system, then I would expect that my new bank numbering would restart at 1. (See the screenshot that shows the banks for this quiz start at #8 instead of #1.) Is this something that will be fixed?

4.) In the documentation for editing questions in item banks it says that you can't edit a question once a student has submitted answers for it, instead you have to edit a copy.  Since most of our exams are setup in randomized groups, we would not want to retain a question in our item bank if it has an error, and we had a duplicate question with the correction.  We would only want the corrected question.  It says here that questions that are deleted from the bank lose their statistical information, which may be problematic for schools that license our courseware. Is there a way to retain statistical information for the question while still removing it from the group?  Could we move it to another item bank for example, and have it live there so the data isn't lost?

[nburden]

@SuSorensen I have a few more question related to new quizzes:

1.) Will the matching questions ever get an RCE so that we can add HTML/Images/Audio?  Preferably on both sides of the match, but one side will do.  Multiple dropdowns was our work-around in CQ but that question type is not included in NQ.  Fill in the blank with dropdowns may be a possible solution if you start allowing RCE edits and line breaks (which I think you are, based on a previous post), but our preference would be to use matching.

2.) Currently when I migrate an entire course in beta, my quizzes are stripped of their point value, removed from the modules page and unpublished.  Is there a fix coming to allow them to keep their point value, location, and published status?

3.) When you preview a new quiz the question display does not seem to honour the line break/margin that should appear between paragraph tags used in the question stem, making text difficult to read.  Is an update coming to add the missing white space? (See screenshot, the two questions shown are from the same question group and have similar spacing, but in NQ all the white space is gone.)

[kroeninm]

Hi @nburden not sure it helps but when I did some initial migration test runs last year, one of my notes was that the spacing did not migrate correctly (which will really bother our visually inclined faculty :)).  

But when I was exploring and testing out ALT text, I was inspecting the HTML code and found that the paragraph and line breaks were matching and migrating across accurately.  So it just seems to be a style difference in New Quizzes.  The questions are coming over correctly and match but New Quizzes doesn't display them the same way.  

Try this and it helps explain it:

1. In Classic Quizzes, type some text and then return.  You'll notice a <p> tag generates a double spaced line typical of most editors.  If you use shift-return you get a <br /> which looks like a single space.
   
   
2. In New Quizzes, do the same thing.  The <p> and <br> display identically as as single space.  So New Quizzes does not distinguish a <p> from a <br> in spacing.  

Ideally to map to most typical editors and intuitiveness, the New Quizzes would display a <p> tag as double spaced before most people move over to it...it's probably a style CSS change.  You might submit a feature request.  I'd be more than happy to vote it up!!!  Here's a quick visual.

Classic Quizzes

New Quizzes

Melanie

[nburden]

Hi @kroeninm, thank you for your response. Yes, based on my review, my HTML code is also migrating correctly, it is just how it is displayed in NQ that is different.  That may be an important distinction for Canvas during their review.  🙂

[bcrook]

Hi @SuSorensen !

I'm bringing a conversation over from the Canvas for World Languages fb group.  Apparently when Chromebook users are in New Quizzes and press the Alt key to type special characters for accents (which they need to do a LOT), it kicks them out of New Quizzes.  It's also a big issue when using any sort of Lockdown browser.

Thank you for the open conversation!

[yehuda_davis]

@SuSorensen bringing this over from https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/New-Quizzes-Users/Import-QTI-file-with-question-groups-into-New-Q...

TL;DR: A QTI file that I successfully imported into a New Quiz using the Import Content option from the build page on or around 11/20/2021 now fails to import the questions, despite displaying a message indicating that the file imported successfully.

I've been using the Import Content option to import QTI files for around a year now. On 12/24/2021, I tried to import my quiz, and despite it claiming to have imported successfully, there were no questions in the quiz. Here's what I established through trial and error:

• The quiz title and settings import successfully.
• If there are no question groups in the QTI file, which would normally turn into Item Banks in a New Quiz, the QTI imports correctly.
• I get the same result if I import it at the course level and check the box to import it into a New Quiz.
• There is nothing wrong with my QTI file, as it correctly imports as a Classic Quiz when I don't check the box, and I am then able to migrate it to a New Quiz (my current workaround).
• Furthermore, a QTI file that imported successfully on or around 11/20/2021, no longer imports properly.

I am reasonably confident that a bug was introduced into the Import Content tool, sometime between around 11/20/2021 and 12/24/2021, specifically relating to the handling of converting question groups in a QTI file to Item Banks in a New Quiz.

Happy to provide a MWE.

Thanks!

[mskoch]

I am just catching up on this recent Beta release. After reading the issues reported I did a few quick tests using the Import Course Content tool to import classic quizzes between 2 test courses as NQ. The results are as follow:

1.  Questions added directly into a question group imported as a linked bank and I can access the item bank. The item bank is named according to the group's title in the original (classic) quiz. 

2. Question group linked to a question bank imported as a group linked to the respective item bank if that question bank was selected as part of the import, and I can access the item bank. The item bank is named according to the linked question bank's name. If only the linked question bank is not selected as part of the import, then the migrated new quiz will have no question, and a blank item bank titled "Importing.gxxxxxxxxx......(long code)" was generated in the Item Bank as a result.

3. Initially all the classic quizzes I used for testing were unpublished and I could not replicate the issue of the point value not showing in assignment settings. Then I published one of them and repeated the process, and it imported without point values in the shell's settings page (see image). It would appear that the published status is related to the point value not imported into assignment settings correctly. 

More tests are needed but it is encouraging to see questions in question groups converting to item banks that we can now access. This is a good.

[mbmacdonald]

Hi,

I am a relatively new user and just started digging into the New Quizzes features in Beta. I have some very elementary questions (compared to what most of you are asking):

• Currently, in production, you can migrate Classic Quizzes to New but NOT if the quiz draws from Banks, correct?
• The new functionality in Beta is that when you migrate a CQ (that draws from banks) to NQ, the linked banks are also migrated, correct?

Am I understanding this correctly, or is there more to it? If it's as simple as that, then my feedback is: this worked for me fine! 

Next question: what this feature does NOT do is allow you to simply migrate a CQ Bank into an NQ Bank, correct? 

If that is true, then my feedback is that I would prefer that we be able to do that. It seems much neater. Also since New Quizzes has so much more functionality, instructors may want to re-build quizzes from scratch in NQ with a mix of new questions and questions pulled from Banks. If they are forced to migrate their Classic Quizzes "As-is" in order to get their banks migrated, I think it encourages them to maintain the status quo in terms of the quiz experience. Of course, they SHOULD be able to migrate their quizzes, but I just wish migrating banks was going to be just as easy, and that the migrations could be done independently.

[SuSorensen]

@mbmacdonald That's an interesting take. We've mostly been hearing that teachers want as little interruption as possible, but I can see how this might give more granular control. Thanks for sharing!

[SuSorensen]

We have discovered and are addressing issues with: 

-images not migrating
-migrated quizzes not retaining the published state of the Classic Quiz
-unpublished quizzes not showing the assignment points associated with the quiz

[mauriciolopez]

Hi @SuSorensen 

I'm working on migrating from the classic quizzes to the new ones, and I miss a feature found in CQ, when we have two question banks created and we need to copy/move some of the questions from question bank 1 to question bank 2 , you can select multiple questions (or all of them) and execute the process in bulk.

This option is found in NQ, however, only one question can be moved at a time, which in many cases implies that errors can be generated when executing the process, or if it is interrupted, it is necessary to verify that Questions had been migrated and what questions were pending migration.

Is this functionality intended to be developed or installed in NQ?

[kda106]

Using the Bulk Migration methods, in addition to the issues already reported about graded and practice quizzes migrating with 0 points in the Quiz settings (even though there are points still associated with the questions), we have also found:

• when you do the bulk migration via Course Copy (as opposed to qti or imscc export/import) Practice Quizzes availability dates are dropping.

[kda106]

Is anyone else finding that the bulk migration methods in beta are dropping your surveys questions and not migration them to New Quizzes?

This is what we are finding:

• Using Import -> Copy a Canvas Course, if you select to "Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes", surveys are imported as Classic Quizzes (not migrated) and all of the questions are lost during import.
• Using Canvas Course Export Package (either IMSCC or QTI), if you select to "Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes", surveys are again imported as Classic Quizzes (not migrated) and all of the questions are lost during import.
• BUT if you just do the individual/manual migration of an existing Classic Quiz survey, with the questions in it, then it migrates fine.

According to How do I migrate a Canvas quiz to New Quizzes?, "You can also migrate a survey from Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes. However, the survey will be migrated as a standard quiz as New Quizzes does not include a survey feature." 

This issue is not included in the Beta Release notes Known Issues, and I am unable to add a post, ask a question, or provide feedback in the release notes or any other areas of the New Quizzes groups. But I am assuming this is not intended behavior.

[MPioRoda]

Hi Kate, @kda106 ! I'm going to have the team take a look at this one. I'll update you on what we find. Thanks!

[jw2546]

Are the feature options for allowing migration during course import/copy available at the sub-account level? For instance, if we have a program (all in one subaccount) that does not want to allow migration yet, can that account disable this feature option?