[ARCHIVED] How do you re-order quizzes?

[mark_anderson]

Hi there,

I simply want to re-order the multiple quizzes that I have created within one of my courses, but there is no simple option for re-ordering them. I can't drag and drop, and no obvious way in any drop-down menus to alter the order.

If I wanted "The Vikings" to be at the top, how do I do this?

And why wouldn't you simple be able to drag and drop like Assignments, Discussions, and virtually everything else in Canvas?

Cheers,

Mark

[James · Accepted solution]

 @mark_anderson ‌,

Quizzes are arranged by their due date and then alphabetically when there are more than one due at the same time (or undated). Since you have no due dates listed, they all appear together in alphabetical order.

You can move "The Vikings" to the top of the Quizzes page by renaming it to come before "Columbus" or you can put a due date on it.

Or you can take advantage of one of the other places where you can drag and drop to order. You can also put the quizzes onto the Modules page and then put them in any order that you want them to appear in. You can also drag them into a different position on the Assignments page.

Some faculty hide the navigation tabs for pages with types of ordering they don't want the students to use, so you could hide the quizzes page from the students if the order is really important and you're unable to establish a due date for it.

[tmor1]

Why not simply have a sort button?

[dbp1975]

Agreed. Quizzes do not always have due dates, particularly when used for self-checks and reviews.

[ebonakdarian]

Why not let us drag them to the position we want like with many other items in Canvas? The current setup is not intuitive to me, and in any case, definitely doesn't offer the flexibility I would like to arrange my own items. I hope a future enhancement will bring this functionality to this list as it already exists in others on Canvas. Thanks.

[drm198]

This doesn't work. I have quizzes with different unique due dates and they are not in the right order in the Quizzes tab

[jonathan-mordko]

The above "answer" to the original question does not appear to be correct.  I have a set of quizzes for which the order of available dates, due dates, and alphabetical position are all in sync, but they do not appear in that order on the Quizzes page.  Yes, they appear in the correct order on the Syllabus page (and this does, indeed, appear to be controlled by due date), but the order on the Quizzes page is random and there is no way (that I can see) to fix this and I find it annoying.  - Jt

edit: and before anyone asks: yes, they are in the correct order on the Assignments page ... it is only on the Quizzes page (for both me and in Student View) that they are in a random order

[Stef_retired]

 @jonathan-mordko , please refer to the recent conversation at https://community.canvaslms.com/message/177684-quizzes-out-of-order 

[James]

 @jonathan-mordko 

Stefanie directed you to another thread about this. I updated that thread, but in case you miss it there, Canvas Support sent me a message a couple of hours ago. I can confirm that in my beta instance the sorting is fixed.

Hello, We've deployed a fix for this issue in our Beta environment. If all goes well, it will make it to the live Production environment on March 11, 2020. This ticket will remain in an "On-Hold" status until then. Admins and instructors: Feel free to try out the fix if you have time. As a reminder, your normal login should get you into Beta if you simply add ".beta" to your institution's Canvas URL (i.e. "canvas.beta.instructure.com"). Keep in mind that the Beta environment has outbound notifications disabled (it's for testing only). Apologies to any students who are receiving this message; testing in Beta is most often disabled for students at various institutions. However, rest assured that we are working to have this issue addressed soon. We will notify you of any changes to the status of this fix. We appreciate your time and attention - if you have any questions about this message or this fix, please feel free to contact Support. Keep Learning! Support Panda Notifier of Things

[hhohmann]

The link to mordko is broken and the beta thing is crazy to have to try.

[KelleShiflett]

Anyone know of a fix for this issue? Still unable to sort my quizzes in order I would like; however, everything in other areas is in correct order.

[sandman]

I agree.  This seems like an easy coding fix.  I'd like to be able to order quizzes by where they are in the curriculum, rather by due date or the arbitrary alphabetical order.

[sz8]

It is so frustrating not to be able to order the quiz. It's very random, and not ABC or due date ordered.

[jeff_janzen]

This issue is still not fixed. Very disappointing. This thread started 6 years ago. We just want to sort the order that quizzes are displayed on the Quizzes page. Come on, Instructure.

[jh125486]

These quizzes are at least in chrono order, but not in alpha order.   

Is there nothing I can do on my side to enable proper, deterministic sorting?

I tried prepending a '!' to the Quizzes I wanted at the top of the list, but it only worked for one of them... and did not move the other quizzes.

[JosephKreitzer]

This problem still exists.  I agree.  Six years is a long time to have this issue still hanging around.

Not only to the quizzes refuse to be ordered by their dates, but in Student View my quiz #1 doesn't even appear, even though it is "published", the date is valid, ...

[rcojones]

It's mind-boggling that the ability to simply drag quizzes into the order that you desire is still not available. Not having the ability to have students see the quizzes in the order that you want is not a best practice; it's a worst practice. The only reason I can infer that this simple piece of code has not been written into Canvas in the last 7 years since this thread was initiated is that there is little incentive for the Canvas coders to do so, despite it being a best practice. Perhaps best practices are trumped by other considerations that are not made transparent. Very disappointed to be held hostage by inferior UI.

[Chris_Hofer]

@rcojones ...

I would like to reiterate some of the comments from @James back in February 2017 (see above) ... as his comments still apply today:

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Or you can take advantage of one of the other places where you can drag and drop to order. You can also put the quizzes onto the Modules page and then put them in any order that you want them to appear in. You can also drag them into a different position on the Assignments page.

Some faculty hide the navigation tabs for pages with types of ordering they don't want the students to use, so you could hide the quizzes page from the students if the order is really important and you're unable to establish a due date for it.

---

Have you considered using the "Modules" index page ... as James has suggested?  This way, you can display the order of your quizzes exactly how you want within each of your modules of your course.

Hope this helps a bit.

[rcojones]

Thanks, Chris. Yes, I read James's Feb. 2017 post. Regarding placing quizzes in one of the other places where you can drag and drop to order, e.g., Modules, I don't think it makes sense from the perspective of a student to have to go to Modules to take a quiz. Best practices would advise that quizzes be found under Quizzes, no? Another option would be to enable instructors to hide quizzes once their availability has expired, but there is no option for that either. Rather than accommodate best practices on UI, it seems the Canvas folks continue to want to force users to use the UI the way that they see fit, rather than create a UI that suits student and instructor need. Again, this is frustrating but par for the course with LMSs like Blackboard and Canvas. Clunky with suboptimal UI.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi again, @rcojones ...

I can certainly understand the logic you describe...going to "Quizzes" to access quizzes, going to "Discussions" to access discussion topics, etc.  While some instructors do prefer to keep these menu items visible to their students, I think you'll find that a majority of instructors here in the Community do use the "Modules" index page to lay out their course content for their students.  Then, they hide the "Quizzes", "Discussions", etc. course menu items as James Jones described back in 2017.  [Think of it this way...  the "Pages", "Quizzes", "Discussions", and "Assignments" index pages are where you (the instructor) can design all your course content.  The "Modules" index page is where you can place all the content from those other four areas of your course in an order that you choose for your students.  The "Modules" page is sort of like the "one stop shop" for your students to access all the content you want your students to see...rather than having to sort through four separate pages of content.  Plus, you have things organized by modules.]  As the very first sentence in the light blue box of this Guide states, "Modules control the entire flow of your course and its content."  (See How do I use the Modules Index Page?.)  You might want to watch a few minutes of this video from Ashlee Espinosa (she has a wonderful set of Canvas tutorials on her channel):

Another advantage of ordering your quizzes in the "Modules" index page is that you can set module prerequisites and/or requirements.  So, if you want your students to only move on to the next quiz after they obtain a certain score on the previous quiz, you could do something like that.  Here are a couple Guides with more information:

• How do I add prerequisites to a module?
• How do I add requirements to a module?

Not sure if any of this will be of help to you or not, but I wanted to give you some other resources to look through...for what it's worth.

Take care...be well.

[rcojones]

Perhaps the "majority of instructors here in the Community do use the 'Modules' index page to lay out their course content for their students" is because they're forced to do so. I have an idea: Allow instructors to choose whether they want their students to see the 'Quizzes' in course menu item, then we can reassess and see whether a "majority of instructors here in the Community do use the 'Modules' index page to lay out their course content for their students". I just don't get why this has to be an issue. How difficult could it possibly be to allow instructors to order the quizzes under the 'Quizzes' course menu item to what best practices recommend? It's poor IU and poor pedagogy. Add to that the fact that there have been a number of us requesting this basic feature for years speaks to the lack of responsiveness to instructor input and the apparent paternalism of Canvas administrators. I guess the creators of Canvas know better what instructors need than do instructors.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @rcojones ...

---

I have an idea: Allow instructors to choose whether they want their students to see the 'Quizzes' in course menu item, then we can reassess and see whether a "majority of instructors here in the Community do use the 'Modules' index page to lay out their course content for their students".

---

This is already possible.  Again, I refer you to the reply from James Jones.  In his last paragraph, he stated, "Some faculty hide the navigation tabs for pages with types of ordering they don't want the students to use, so you could hide the quizzes page from the students if the order is really important and you're unable to establish a due date for it."  If you were to hide the "Quizzes" course navigation menu from your students (so that you would see a crossed out eye icon next to the "Quizzes" name), your students would never see the "Quizzes" course navigation menu in their course, and they could then access the entire layout/content of your course all through your "Modules" screen.  See How do I manage Course Navigation links? for more information.

I do understand what you are saying, Robert.  And again, I can see how the way you describe the course setup could be helpful to you and your students.  Without knowing exactly what your curriculum looks like and how you typically set things up, it can be challenging at times to know how best to provide assistance.  With that being said, I'm going to make some assumptions here...  I'm assuming that you have other content in your course besides just quizzes.  And, I'm assuming that you have some sort of layout for your course using the "Modules" screen.  (For example, in my former role as a Canvas administrator in higher education, we had "Learning Plans" as our course modules.  But other schools might have "Lesson Plans", "Lesson #", "Chapter #", "Module #", or they even might name the module according to the specific topic within the class...such as "Building a Camp Fire", etc.)  If you kept the "Quizzes" course navigation menu visible to your students, then they would need to go to that screen every time there was a quiz to take.  On the "Quizzes" screen, you can't make modules like you can on your "Modules" screen.  So, you'd have to name each of your quizzes so that your students could easily find them in the list.  By hiding the "Quizzes" course navigation menu and adding those quizzes directly to the appropriate module(s), you're providing an easy way for students to find the module and the quiz that they are supposed to take.

Some of your students may be taking other courses at your school, and those other instructors may be using the "Modules" screen to organize their content.  Or, some of your students may have taken other courses at other schools that have also used Canvas where the "Modules" screen was also the common way they accessed all course content.  So, you might want to keep that in mind as well...as they may be looking for a similar layout to something they've experienced in the past.

In my earlier responses to you, I didn't directly mention this...though it was explained in one of the linked Guides that I provided... if you use the "Modules" page, you can have your students "check off" things that they have completed.  Again, this is documented here:

• How do I add requirements to a module? (Instructors)
• How do I mark a module item as done for a module requirement? (Students)

You may also be aware...but you do have the option to submit ideas here in the Community...if you would like to see enhancements to the way that Canvas currently functions.  This can be done in the recently revised "Ideas and Themes" (formerly Feature Ideas) space here in the Community.  Please take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the Guides listed under "Ideas and Themes" located here: Community - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com).

I don't know if any of this will be of help or not, but I wanted to give a few more resources for you...and $0.02 ... for what it's worth.  Thanks.

[TeacherM418]

Being able to put the quizzes in order on the Quizzes page would also help the instructor keep track of work completion / submissions without having to go to each quiz individually in Modules and "Moderate" it.