Canvas: New Quizzes

What is New Quizzes?

Classic Quiz has been the quiz engine in Canvas for a long time. New Quizzes is a new quiz engine that will replace Classic Quizzes. The Canvas guides state, “New Quizzes is a quiz engine that integrates with Canvas as an LTI tool and replaces the classic quizzes functionality currently existing in Canvas. Instructors can use New Quizzes to create quizzes using a variety of questions types.” New Quizzes offers some new question types and efficiency for setting accommodations. But there are limitations as well. New Quizzes does not support ‘quiz-as-survey’ in the way that Classic Quiz did. What follows is a summary of the timeline for transitioning from classic to New Quizzes, recommendations for migrating from Classic to New Quizzes and resources to help you in this effort.

Classic Quiz – New Quizzes Timeline

We need to prepare ourselves to use the new quiz engine. Classic Quizzes is scheduled to be sunset June 30, 2024. So we have a little bit of time, which is good. Instructure is still actively developing New Quizzes. There is some new functionality and previous functionality that is yet to be available. More on that latter point in Known Issues. The other positive side of this is that we have time to practice using New Quizzes and migrate content from Classic Quiz to New Quizzes.

LU Plan for NQ

What follows are the options we have available to us and how we plan to roll out New Quizzes. Instructure has provided three levels of sitewide settings to assist with migration from Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes.
They are:

  • New Quizzes migration during course import/copy
    Enabling this will provide instructors the option to migrate all quizzes in a course to New Quizzes when they import or copy a course.
  • New Quizzes migration enabled by default
    This means that the option to migrate all quizzes in a course will be selected by default, but may be deselected.
  • New Quizzes migration required
    This setting will force all quizzes to be migrated upon import.

Our plan is to enable the first option at the end of Winter term. This will give those preparing for the Spring term who want to try New Quiz the opportunity to migrate current quizzes to New Quizzes. Once these settings are enabled it will also be possible to migrate individual quizzes. Next, on July 1, 2022 we plan to enable the second option to make migration enabled by default. Forced migration will be enabled on July 1, 2023.

The timeline in short is:

  • New Quizzes migration during course import/copy – March 14, 2022
  • New Quizzes migration enabled by default – July 1, 2022
  • New Quizzes migration required – July 1, 2023

What’s New with New Quizzes?

There are a number of new features or enhancements that come with New Quizzes. A list of some of them may be reviewed below.

Creating a Quiz with New Quiz

Creating a quiz with new quiz looks a little different than Classic Quiz. You can follow this link to see how to create a New Quiz. There are a few things I would like to point out about some of the specific differences.

The first difference appears when you decide to create a quiz. If you create a quiz from the Quizzes page you will presented with a pop-up asking you to select your desired quiz engine.

The "Choose a Quiz Engine" pop-up window presenting options to select Classic Quizzes or New Quizzes.
The “Choose a Quiz Engine” pop-up.

From here you can choose which quiz engine you desire to use. Please be aware of the Remember my choice for this course button. If you make a selection by mistake you can reset your quiz engine choice from the Quiz Options menu at any time.

The same choice of quiz engine is available if you create a quiz from within a module.

Instructors may choose which quiz engine they choose when creating a quiz in a module.
Quiz engine choice when Creating a quiz in a module.

After choosing the New Quizzes engine you will see a screen similar to Classic Quizzes for entering the quiz settings such as name, points, due date and such. One difference on this page is the presence of the Build button located in the lower right.

Save options on the quiz settings page. The buttons are listed horizontally left to right in the following order: Cancel, Save&publish, Save, and Build.
New Quizzes Build button.

Clicking the Build button will allow you to add questions to your New Quiz.

New Quiz Build main screen.
New Quiz Build main screen.

This page allows you add a title and over all quiz instructions. There is also a collapsible question navigation menu on the left (expanded in the image below).

New Quiz Question Navigator

Next is Settings. This page allows you to choose from the following options:

  • Shuffle Questions
  • Shuffle Answers
  • One Question at a time
  • Require a student access code
  • Time limit
  • Filter IP addresses
  • Allow Calculator
  • Allow multiple attempts
  • Restrict Student result view
New Quiz Settings pane.
New Quiz Settings

Next, is Reports. There are currently two available: Quiz and Item Analysis and Outcomes Analysis.

New Quiz Reports pane.
New Quiz Reports

Lastly is the Moderate pane. This provides you access to accommodations for students and monitoring attempts. One benefit of New Quiz is that you can set accommodations for a student across all quizzes in a course versus having to set these for each quiz. Please note that this will not apply if you subsequently create a Classic Quiz. You will still need to set the accommodations for each Classic Quiz.

New Quiz Moderate pane.
New Quiz Moderate pane

You can set an accommodation by clicking the pencil icon located in the ‘Accommodation’ column for each student.

Migrating Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes

Instructure is providing a couple different ways to migrate classic quizzes to New Quizzes. Please note that instructors cannot revert from New Quizzes to Classic Quizzes.

Please Note: Quizzes imported into Canvas from a Moodle course backup file will be converted to Classic quizzes and not New Quizzes. If you want those to be New Quizzes you will need to follow the steps in the Migrating an Individual Quiz section below.

Migrating on Course Import/Copy

It is possible to migrate all quizzes from Classic to New Quizzes during a course/Copy or Import. Unless you choose to select specific content all quizzes will be converted to New Quizzes. All Classic quizzes will be removed from the course.

Canvas Course import options containing choice to import existing quizzes as New Quizzes.
New Quiz Migration on Import

Once the import completes you will receive a message containing the following infirmation:

Your Classic Quizzes have been migrated to New Quizzes!
Please note:

  • Text No Question has moved to a Stimulus; please add a question so it can display within the quiz.
  • Classic Quizzes with New RCE audio/video may not have moved completely; these will need to be rebuilt.
  • LaTex equations are currently migrated as images, and the questions should not be edited.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we continue to improve the migration experience!

Migrating an Individual Quiz

If you do not want to migrate all your quizzes at once it is possible to do so one at a time. This may be done by clicking the kebab menu to the right of the desired quiz and then select Migrate.

Quiz edit option showing the Migrate option.
Migrate link in the quiz edit menu.

Choosing this option will only migrate that single quiz. Additionally the originally Classic Quiz version will remain in the course. In this way you could make multiple copies of a quiz if desired.

Question Bank vs. Item Bank

Classic Quizzes can make use of Question Banks. New Quizzes can make use of Item Banks. There currently is not a way to convert a Question Bank into an Item Bank. Canvas is working on a bulk migration option, but currently items must be added to an Item Bank individually. This must be done from within a New Quiz. The steps to do so are below.

  1. Open the quiz and click the Build button.
  2. Click the pencil icon to edit a question.
  3. Expand the Item Banking area.
  4. Click the Add to bank link.
  5. Add the question to an existing or new bank.
Adding a question to an Item Bank, steps 1-4.
Add Item to bank pop-up, step 5.

Known Issues

While there are some benefits with New Quizzes there are also some limitations. Hopefully these will be addressed soon by the Canvas development team.

  • Manually graded questions do not appear in To Do.
    The issue means that essay questions do not appear in an instructors “To Do” section of their Dashboard page. This issue has brought a fairly large outcry from users, but has yet to be integrated. Please feel free to add your voice.
  • Questions must be added to Item banks manually.
    My understanding is the developers are working on a tol to batch import from question banks into item banks but this has not been completed. Items must currently be imported individually. The best way to do this right now is to add all questions from a question bank into a quiz and then migrate the quiz. This will allow an instructor to add them to an Item bank.

Resources

Canvas Updates

I routinely receive updates for changes to various aspects of the Canvas platform. To make it easier for faculty to know what has changed I will be listing those changes/updates here. I will also note which roles (FacStaff, and/or Students) are affected by the change.

June 25, 2021

Gradebook Gradebook CSV Column Order


Summary: The Gradebook CSV assignment columns display in the same order as shown in the Gradebook for an individual user.

Affected User Roles: Instructors

When an instructor or other grader customizes the Gradebook assignment columns and downloads the CSV file, the CSV file assignment columns display in the same order as shown in the user’s Gradebook. Previously CSV files were always ordered by Assignment Group ID and Assignment Order. 

Pages Mark as Done Button Placement


Summary: The Mark as Done button for students has been moved to the bottom of the page.

Affected User Roles: Students

When students are required to read a page and mark it as done, the Mark as Done button has been moved to the bottom of the page. The button can be marked more easily after students have reached the bottom of the page. Previously users must scroll back up to the top of the page to mark the page as done.

Moodle Support Videos and Links

This post will be used to host links to all the Moodle workshop, support videos, and links. Links will be grouped as best as possible by topic. If there is a Moodle support topic you would like to request, please contact Jedidiah Rex.

Course Design

Grading and Assessment

Tools