Current status of New Quizzes API

[TamasBalogh]

We promised transparency about how things are going with New Quizzes features and a lot of you are waiting for the API releases. As I broke down the iterations in my previous blog post, you have an idea which iteration will cover the needs of your use case. 

Although it’s still early to commit to a timeline, I can give you a status for where we are at this moment and how we see the upcoming, near future. Currently we are working on iteration 1 - Quiz Building and putting together a comprehensive API reference and guides to help you build your integrations. 

Sneak peek at the documentation

To build what’s best for our customers we don’t just implement the API endpoints and release them. We want to make sure they’re easy to use and provide the best experience possible. This is why we are also validating our work with some selected customers before releasing it to the general public. Currently we are finishing up a chunk of work for the first iteration and will start the validation process soon. Based on the feedback gathered, it is possible that we will make some modifications to the GraphQL schema, queries or mutations. 

Why does this take so long?

You are likely wondering why this takes so much time, especially since we had communicated that the API would be released at the end of 2021. The unfortunate reality is that we encountered some technical difficulties which were not foreseen until we started to unfold the implementation of the API. Although solving these problems is not visible to customers, it is necessary to provide a great experience using the API. Without some of these solutions, the API wouldn’t even work, while others are for consistency or simplicity of use. While we understand that the API is behind, that doesn't mean work has stopped. Our team has been consistently working on the API over the last couple of months to ensure that what is being released to production meets our planned initiative and you, the customers' needs.

What’s next?

Our team is actively working on rolling out the items highlighted in the Classic Quiz Sunset Timeline. The development team is committed to integrating the RCE, since it is also a key element in New Quizzes transition and it is essential for the bulk migration tool. While the product team is devoted to working on quiz building use cases and leading the validation process for this first interaction of the API work completed, we will focus engineering capacity on building the RCE integration. With all of these items in play, the quiz building API is anticipated to be finished in Q3.

[TrinaAltman]

@TamasBalogh 

Thanks for the update. Just to clarify, does this mean the RCE for New Quizzes isn't anticipated to be ready until Q3 (July-Sept 2022)? Or will that be ready sooner and the rest of the quiz building API is targeted for Q3? If the latter, what is the ETA for the RCE for New Quizzes at this point?

Thank you,
Trina

[TamasBalogh]

Hi @TrinaAltman,

As we know preparation for the semester starts in the summer and RCE is an essential tool for faculty building their courses and quizzes, we hope to bring RCE to New Quizzes by the end of Q2. 

[fred_bonatto]

@TamasBalogh will the API or NQ natively allow for bulk response export?

[MDBoldin]

The Guide screen shot of New Quizzes GraphQL API that you show is just a template I assume.

Or is there an set fo examples and code to try for iteration 1 - Quiz Building 

Is Q2 or Q3 the goal for any type of API rollout for New Quizzes?

[TamasBalogh]

@fred_bonatto Can you please further explain what do you mean by that? What is your use case?

@MDBoldin It's the real thing 🙂 It's just not out there yet since the API is still under development. 
As I mentioned at the end of the post, Quiz Building part of API is anticipated to be finished in Q3. 

[fred_bonatto]

@TamasBalogh, some further information from past queries I've collated. If you require further detail in terms of requirements, I am happy to ask specific questions to the users if you let me know what you'd like to ask.

I have just seen the announcement on Canvas about the retirement of the classic quiz option. I am very concerned about this, because the old quiz tools are not only far more capable, but they actually allow you as a lecturer to access the raw data.

The new quizzes do not give any access to basic things such as bulk export of responses, and requires you do tediously go one-by-one through the responses in the moderation interface with lots of forced clicking/selection and extra interaction.

Admittedly, this experience is based on my usage of the system last semester (which wasted such an enormous amount of time that I vowed not to use quizzes again until this was fixed), so the situation could have changed. But a brief look on the Canvas forums suggests that this is not the case.

As an aside, I did look into exporting data via their API, but even this is near-impossible. It cannot be an uncommon request!

Looking on the Instructure support form there are three years (!) of requests for this most basic feature. It absolutely beggars belief that they have ignored such a simple thing that is so obviously a core requirement of this tool for anything more than a handful of students.

I would really like to avoid having to use an external tool such as Google / Microsoft forms which brings its own problems in terms of student satisfaction (i.e., grades not easily shown in Canvas), but cannot face the sheer waste of time I experienced last year having to manually copy and paste responses one-by-one.

The bulk download is I suppose the most closely matched to what I want, though the reference to file submission is a little unclear. Essentially, in the old quizzes you could download a spreadsheet of all responses; this is not possible in the new one, and they seem to have no plans to add it.

[TamasBalogh]

@fred_bonatto Thank you. We do plan to make submissions data accessible via API. I'm not sure if there will be a bulk get submission query, but with a single get submission query it'd be easy to download all the submissions for a quiz. 

[lklancaster]

@TamasBalogh do you have any idea of a timeline for when the ability to access submission data will occur?  I agree with @fred_bonatto how vital this tool is for any kind of analysis of exam results.

[TamasBalogh]

@lklancaster No, not at this moment. I'll give you updates via blog posts on the API work.

[JamesSekcienski]

Is there any update on the quiz building API becoming available soon?