Migrate question banks from the old quizzing engine to the new quizzing engine?

[pdaves]

Migrating old quiz banks to the new quiz engine:

I have about 100 different question types, each with 5 versions. These are ones I've made myself--they are not from a publisher's question bank. That makes for 100 question banks--one question type per bank. When I create a quiz in the old quizzing engine, I create a question group, select one of the banks, and it picks one of the versions of that question. So each student gets the same question types but different versions. So how do I import all 100 question banks, each of which has 5 question versions, into the new quizzing engine? On these help pages I've seen things that seem to imply I must create 100 different single-bank quizzes, each of which pulls all 5 questions from a single bank, export each one individually into its own QTI file and then reimport each quiz separately into a new quizzes question bank. x 100.  Is this really the way Canvas wants us to migrate to the new quiz engine? Is there even a slightly more efficient way?#

[lbach · Accepted solution]

It's a giant pain, but this is how I'm migrating multiple question banks. If anyone has found a better way to do it, please let me know because it's driving me crazy.

1. Create a Classic quiz and name it whatever you want the item bank to be named in New Quizzes. One thing to note here - all of the item banks for all the classes I teach are in the same massive item bank area in New Quizzes, so I've started including the course code at the front of the item bank name. I don't know if that's universal or just how my institution has it set up, but it's a little annoying.
2. Move all of the questions for that bank into that quiz. I click on "Find Questions", navigate to the bank I'm migrating, and then click "Select All" and add those to the quiz. Don't do the question group, the migration will fail. I've also tried making one big quiz for export and then sorting out questions into their proper item banks later, but the two big issues I've run into with this method are:
   1. The order of questions might not be maintained, so questions from each topic/chapter may not stay grouped together, making it harder to find the questions for the right bank
   2. There's no way I've found to move multiple questions at the same time in the New Quizzes item banks, so you'd have to repeat all the clicks to move each question individually. Either way, it's endless repetition and clicking on things; for me, I prefer to keep the questions for each bank grouped throughout the transfer.
3. Save the quiz without publishing, since it's really just there for transfer and not for students to take.
4. Go to Settings, then click on Export Course Content.
5. Select Export Type - Quiz.
6. Uncheck everything, then select one quiz to export (I've already tried doing multiple quizzes in the same export, it either fails completely or only imports the first quiz's questions to the new item bank).
7. Export the quiz and download the file from Canvas.
8. Go to any New Quiz in your assignments list or make a new one for importing purposes.
9. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner, then click Manage Item Banks.
10. Click on the +Bank button to add a new item bank (I know, I know, I'm importing a bank so I should be able to just import it, right? Nope. I need to have a bank made in order to import the questions into it).
11. Name the bank whatever you want, it'll get changed to your quiz name when you import the questions.
12. Find the item bank you just made (they're listed in alphabetical order) and click on it.
13. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and then click on Import Content.
14. Find the export file you downloaded and drag it to the popup box to import the questions.
15. Repeat this entire process for every. single. question bank.

There has to be a better way than this. It's maddening. 

Oh, and if you ever used multiple dropdowns or multiple fill in the blanks in Classic Quizzes, make sure to check on those questions in the New Quizzes item bank. The formatting for those questions gets seriously messed up.

[andrew_wilkins]

There are so many ways that I want to use the Quizzes.Next, but I have SO MANY QUESTIONS that need to be redone if I can't transfer the question banks.  Can we make this happen?

[kroeninm]

Banks and Question Groups are a bit clunky right now to migrate.  I see some different workarounds but haven't dived into find the best method yet.  

Off the top of my head if you create one big quiz and add all the questions to it you could migrate it and then add them back into the banks but that is just possibly slightly less clicks.  Not sure.  

In December, the timeline suggests there will be an improved option: "They can simply check a box to add quizzes, banks and outcomes to the course as New Quizzes content." when the course copies so I'm hopeful it would be more streamlined for Banks but am not sure yet about Question Groups as I don't see them addressed specifically.  

New Quizzes to replace Classic Quizzes July 2021 

Melanie

[lshulman]

last semester, not knowing about "migrate" I did a quiz "copy" into the same course. That copy apparently is in the same old quiz version as the original and so, while I did need to re-select the question banks, at least I was able to use the existing question banks without recreating them or migrating them all to Quizzes Next. 

Unless you need or want to use Quizzes Next, I might just do a "copy" instead of "migrate".

(I had to do this for a disability student who could not use the Lockdown Browser with the assistance app she would be using with the quiz)

[lbach · Accepted solution]

It's a giant pain, but this is how I'm migrating multiple question banks. If anyone has found a better way to do it, please let me know because it's driving me crazy.

1. Create a Classic quiz and name it whatever you want the item bank to be named in New Quizzes. One thing to note here - all of the item banks for all the classes I teach are in the same massive item bank area in New Quizzes, so I've started including the course code at the front of the item bank name. I don't know if that's universal or just how my institution has it set up, but it's a little annoying.
2. Move all of the questions for that bank into that quiz. I click on "Find Questions", navigate to the bank I'm migrating, and then click "Select All" and add those to the quiz. Don't do the question group, the migration will fail. I've also tried making one big quiz for export and then sorting out questions into their proper item banks later, but the two big issues I've run into with this method are:
   1. The order of questions might not be maintained, so questions from each topic/chapter may not stay grouped together, making it harder to find the questions for the right bank
   2. There's no way I've found to move multiple questions at the same time in the New Quizzes item banks, so you'd have to repeat all the clicks to move each question individually. Either way, it's endless repetition and clicking on things; for me, I prefer to keep the questions for each bank grouped throughout the transfer.
3. Save the quiz without publishing, since it's really just there for transfer and not for students to take.
4. Go to Settings, then click on Export Course Content.
5. Select Export Type - Quiz.
6. Uncheck everything, then select one quiz to export (I've already tried doing multiple quizzes in the same export, it either fails completely or only imports the first quiz's questions to the new item bank).
7. Export the quiz and download the file from Canvas.
8. Go to any New Quiz in your assignments list or make a new one for importing purposes.
9. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner, then click Manage Item Banks.
10. Click on the +Bank button to add a new item bank (I know, I know, I'm importing a bank so I should be able to just import it, right? Nope. I need to have a bank made in order to import the questions into it).
11. Name the bank whatever you want, it'll get changed to your quiz name when you import the questions.
12. Find the item bank you just made (they're listed in alphabetical order) and click on it.
13. Click on the three dots in the upper right corner and then click on Import Content.
14. Find the export file you downloaded and drag it to the popup box to import the questions.
15. Repeat this entire process for every. single. question bank.

There has to be a better way than this. It's maddening. 

Oh, and if you ever used multiple dropdowns or multiple fill in the blanks in Classic Quizzes, make sure to check on those questions in the New Quizzes item bank. The formatting for those questions gets seriously messed up.

[pdaves]

Thanks for the detailed information! Awesome instructions! Canvas is losing points on usability. 

[daniel_ryan]

Indeed. It's a really really core bit of functionality and it's treated like some add on feature that not many will use so who cares how easy it is or how robust.   Arrrrrrrrrrrgh.

[brandy_ramos]

Thank you for taking the time to share. I would have never figured this out on my own.

[KaraCoe]

Thank you for this. I use it for every single unit! And it is so complex (and non-intuitive) that I have to go back to your wonderful step-by-step instructions every time. Thank you for spending the time to post this... and for your mastery of Canvas to figure it out in the first place!

[Vlotfi]

Hello,

I was not aware of your method above and spent many many hours trying different things with no success until I finally discovered the above method.  However, in your step 2 above, if you do not "migrate" the created quiz to a "new quiz" the QTI zip file will be empty (at least in my case.)  So, after create the dummy quiz with all of the questions from the classic question bank, I first "migrate" the quiz and then export it.  That seems to work.  

It is such a shame that Canvas has not solved this major problem so that a classic question bank can be readily converted to an item bank.

[cerick21]

I have the same problem. 60 quizzes in one class (and many classes), over 2000 questions over 100 question banks. I would like to use the new quizzes but I can't afford to redo the questions or have them scrambled. 

[bruce_hastie]

I used the migrate function in the original quiz' menu to move a quiz with groups, and the groups were changed into banks with the same random selection functionality.  However, I cannot see where the groups went, or see the questions in the banks.  They exist, because the students see the questions, but I can't find where the new banks live yet...  I can see the list of banks I have created manually in new quizzes, but not the ones the groups created.

[BradMoser · Accepted solution]

I appreciate the previous solution to this problem. Let me offer another option to converting question banks to item banks.  I have also found a way that seems to work and it's pretty quick and easy. Check out my video Converting Classic Question Banks to New Quiz Item Banks video

STEPS:

1. Create Classic Canvas quiz
2. Create and name a "question group" but DON'T link it to a bank
3. Find questions from the question banks and add them to the question group
4. Save quiz
5. Migrate to a new quiz.

DONE! Now you have a new quiz and item bank based on the classic question bank. 

[ErinLewis]

This was the perfect solution and fairly easy compared to any other solution I tried! Thank you!

[jpar]

I've had significant success with "importing" rather than "migrating" with the following steps:

• "Import Course Content" (in "Settings")
• Select the course containing the desired quiz
• "Select specific content"
• In Options, "Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes"
• Click "Import," then "Select Content"
• Select your quiz AND select the related Quiz Banks
  • Note that the "Quiz Banks" will actually transfer as "Item Banks" when they are related to questions groups within an individual quiz.
• Wait for the import to be completed (specifically, check the quiz in "Quizzes" or "Assignments"--the blue spinning wheel runs until it's done)

[MikeSnavely]

I was hoping this would be the solution to my problems.  The YouTube solution above works (and is appreciated) but is impractical for an exam that pulls from many question banks.  As I try your steps, I fail on the "Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes" option.  I do not see the option anywhere during the import process. Am I missing something obvious?  The only place I see that option is when importing a QTI file.  Shaking my head at how effortlessly Canvas converted all of my quizzes and pools from a Blackboard export to perfectly functioning classic quizzes with question banks, and yet, migrating to new quizzes fails to convert correctly (i.e., no questions and no item banks).

[jpar]

I'm including an image of where I'm able to see "Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes" in Canvas.  

It occurs to me that you may need to enable "New Quizzes" in the first place:  Settings --> Feature Options (tab at the top) --> New Quizzes (check the "State" to make it go from an x to a check)

Once "New Quizzes" is enabled, I'm guessing you'll be able to see the aforementioned option when you go to import.  I'm interested to know if this helps.

[MikeSnavely]

I've got new quizzes enabled.  "Migrate" isn't an option without it.  It's just not presenting the option that you highlighted on the screenshot.  My guess is that a system setting is making it unavailable.  This article kind of points me in that direction. I'll take it up with our admins and report back.  Thanks for all of the responses here.

--- 

Update:  We found the feature options to be disabled.  Our Admins turned on the first option in our Beta environment and everything worked as jpar shared on 5/8/24.  See attached for the relevant information.

Why this is not part of the Migrate option completely baffles me.  Very happy to say goodbye to the manual processes that many found to force the migration of classic quiz question banks to new quiz item banks.

Thanks, all.

[Vlotfi]

Hello Mike,

It has been a little while since I have done this.  However, I did write for myself the process of exporting and importing.  (The steps are listed below.)  As for an exam that pulls from many banks, I actually create separate item banks (during the export process) and then force the "New Quiz" to draw a specific number of questions (at random) from different banks.  For example, I separate the multiple choice questions, t/f questions and short answer questions into 3 separate banks. I then edit a given item bank and add my own questions since most test banks are now available for sale on the internet.  This allows me to control how many questions of different type to include and also draw from different chapters of the text, etc.  I may be doing this the long way, but it works for me.  I hope this makes sense to you.  

If you should still encounter a problem, let me know exactly what you want to achieve and I might be able to simulate it at my end and explore a solution.

Good luck.

Vahid Lotfi

Step 1 – to build an export bank

1. Build a classic quiz
2. Name the quiz
3. Click on Questions tab
4. Click on New Question Group
5. Name the group "Export" or something similar
6. Click on Create Group
7. Click on Find Questions
8. Select the classic Question Bank
9. Scroll down to ensure all questions are loaded or click on “more questions.”
10. From the drop-down menu, select the Export group
11. Click on Select All at the top
12. Scroll down to bottom and click on Add Questions
13. Click on Save and Publish

Step 2 – to export the bank

1. Return to Quizzes
2. Find the newly created unnamed quiz
3. Click on 3 dots on the right and click Migrate
4. Wait until migration is complete
5. The item bank is now created
6. Click on Item Banks and rename the bank

[MikeSnavely]

Thanks. That's pretty much the same manual process that Brad Moser's YouTube video in this topic provided. It works. It just feels needlessly manual and doesn't scale well for those of us with many classic quiz question banks.  Apologies, I should have clarified that in my post.

[PatrickCoin]

Looks like a useful discussion. I am faced with the task of migrating several courses with perhaps 1,000 questions in hundreds of question banks. I guess I'll have to give it a try and see if anything can be made to work and give the functionality I want.

I'm really commenting just to be sure I can follow any ongoing discussion on this topic.