Migrating a Classic Quiz Question Bank to a New Quiz Item Bank

This guide will walk you through the steps to migrate a question bank from Classic Quizzes to an item bank in New Quizzes.

• Identifying Classic Quizzes vs. New Quizzes
• Terminology
• Verifying You Have an Existing Question Bank to Migrate
• Migrating Question Bank to an Item Bank
• Adding Questions from an Item Bank to a New Quiz
• Additional Resources

Identifying Classic Quizzes vs. New Quizzes

In Canvas, there are two quizzing interfaces available for instructors: Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes. You are probably most familiar with the Classic Quiz interface which has been a part of Canvas for many years. Although the New Quiz interface is newer, it has been around for a number of years as well, and new features/updates continue to be developed for it. (The Classic Quiz interface no longer receives updates.)

Terminology

The terminology that Instructure uses for quiz banks can be confusing. To summarize:

• Classic Quizzes ➡️ Question Banks are a place to house questions that can be added to quizzes across courses or accounts.
• New Quizzes ➡️ Item Banks can be used to store questions for use in other quizzes. You can use your item banks in any course where you have permission to create and edit a quiz using New Quizzes.

Verifying You Have an Existing Question Bank to Migrate

Follow these steps to ensure that you have an existing Classic Quiz question bank to migrate to a New Quiz item bank:

1. In Course Navigation, click the Quizzes link.
2. On the upper right-hand corner of the screen, click on the three-dot kebab button next to the + Quiz button.
3. Select Manage Question Banks.

4. Verify that you have at least one question bank listed under the heading Course Question Banks.

Migrating Question Bank to an Item Bank

The steps to migrate a Classic Quiz question bank to a New Quiz item bank are quite involved. The full instructions with illustrations to complete this process can be found at: How do I move a Classic Quizzes question bank into a New Quizzes item bank?

In general, you will complete the following steps:

1. Create a Classic Quiz containing the question bank items.
2. Export the quiz.
3. Create a New Quizzes item bank.
4. Import the quiz content into the New Quizzes item bank.

Let’s take a deeper dive into these four steps:

1. Create a brand new, blank Classic Quiz in your course. This can be of the type “Practice Quiz” so that it does not appear in your Gradebook for students. It can also remain in an unpublished state. Add any details you wish to this quiz shell. It won’t be seen by your students. (For example, you might name it the same as the name of your question bank so that you can easily identify it later.) When finished, Save your quiz rather than Save & Publish. Click on the ✏️ Edit button to edit the quiz you just created. Click on the Questions tab, and then click on the 🔍 Find Questions button. In the Find Quiz Question window that appears, click on the name of your question bank on the left, and then click the Select All link. Click the Add Questions button. Finally, click the Save button. Your questions should now be loaded into the quiz.
2. It is now time to export the quiz. Click on the Settings course navigation menu item on the left-hand side of your course. Click on the Export Course Content button on the right side of your screen. On the next screen, select the Quiz radio button option, and then place a checkmark next to the quiz that you want to export. Click the Create Export button to begin exporting the quiz. When the export has finished, click on the New Export link to download the *.zip file to your computer.
   • Your exported file will look similar to the following: CourseName-quiz-export.zip where CourseName is the name of your Canvas course. Once downloaded to your computer, you can re-name this file to help you easily identify which quiz you exported.
   • An e-mail will also be sent to your CCS e-mail account letting you know the export is ready for download.
3. Click on the Item Banks course navigation menu item on the left-hand side of your screen. Click on the + Bank button. Give your item bank a name, and click the checkbox next to Share with [course name]. Click on the Create Bank button.
   • You may wish to name your Item Bank the same as the question bank you exported in Step #2.
   • If Item Banks is not visible in your course, you can enable the button by following the steps in: How do I manage Course Navigation links?.
4. It is now time to import your Classic Quiz question bank *.zip file into the New Quiz item bank. Click on the name of the new item bank you just created in Step #3. Click on the three-dot kebab icon at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Select Import Content. Find the file you exported in Step #2 to upload, and then click the Import button. Click Done when Canvas tells you the file has been successfully imported.

Adding Questions from an Item Bank to a New Quiz

1. Navigate to your New Quiz. Be sure to click on the Build button at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen when after clicking on your New Quiz.
2. Click on the 📂 Item Banks button at the top right-hand corner of the screen.
3. Select the item bank you wish to use in your New Quiz.
4. Click the + All/Random button. This will add all questions from your item bank to your quiz.
5. Click on the ✏️ Pencil icon for the item bank that was added to your New Quiz. Here is where you can select either Use all questions or Randomly select questions. If you choose Randomly select questions, you will be able to specify a certain number of questions to display to students. For example, if an item bank contained 50 questions, you could specify to only randomly display 30 of those questions to your students.

Additional Resources

• How do I add an item from an item bank to a quiz in New Quizzes?
• How do I edit an item bank item in New Quizzes?
• How do I add all items or a random set from an item bank to a quiz in New Quizzes?
• How do I move or copy a question from one item bank to another in New Quizzes?
• How do I duplicate an Item Bank?
• How do I view where an item bank is currently shared?
• How do I share an item bank in New Quizzes?