New Quizzes FAQ

Provided below are answers to frequently asked questions about New Quizzes. For more information as well as the latest vendor updates, visit the Instructure Community FAQ webpage.

General

What is New Quizzes?

New Quizzes is the latest online testing tool released for Canvas by Instructure and scheduled to replace Classic Quizzes sometime in the future.

When can U-M community members begin using New Quizzes?

Immediately.

New Quizzes can be turned on for a course at any time. As of December 6, 2021, when a new quiz is made in U-M Canvas, New Quizzes will be presented as an option alongside Classic Quizzes.

Who can use New Quizzes?

All faculty, researchers, staff, and students on the U-M Ann Arbor campus.

How are New Quizzes different from Classic Quizzes?

See Canvas | New Quizzes Feature Comparison to compare Classic and New Quizzes.

Can I use the New Quizzes tool along with Classic Quizzes in Canvas?

Yes, both Classic and New Quizzes can be created in Canvas.  

Will New Quizzes eventually replace Classic Quizzes?

Yes. No timeline at this point. 

When will the replacement be final?

As of September 2023, there is no deadline to migrate all Classic Quizzes in a courses.

Can I choose not to use New Quizzes and remain with Classic Quizzes?

There is currently no date attached to the retiring of Classic Quizzes.  While there is no date to retire Classic Quizzes, we recommend looking at ways to use New Quizzes because of the number of features it provides that are not available in Classic Quizzes.

What should my unit do to prepare for the implementation of New Quizzes?

Faculty and staff who use Classic Quizzes should familiarize themselves with New Quizzes.

In addition, you can use the Instructor New Quizzes Readiness Checklist for support when you transition to New Quizzes. Again, there is no new timeline for retiring New Quizzes. 

Additional resources can be found on the Support & Training page.

Accessibility

Are there any known issues with students taking assessment in New Quizzes on iPads?

There are no known issues. If issues do arise, submit a ticket to the ITS Service Center for assistance.

Is the Hot Spot question type fully accessible?

Due to the nature of the Hotspot question, it is not fully accessible. This is the only New Quizzes question type with this caveat.

Accommodation & Moderating

Can I set up accommodations for my students?

Yes.

Go into the “Moderate” tab and set up the accommodations for your student(s). Options are:

  • extra time
  • time limit multiplier (time and a half)
  • no time limit

Canvas remembers these accommodations for the life of the student in your course. You can also “Moderate”, which allows you to reopen an individual quiz for an individual student.

Once a student starts a quiz, can the due date be changed like in Classic and the quiz updates or do you have to reopen the quiz through the Moderate tab?

If a student has not opened the quiz, you can change the differentiated due date like you would do with any assessment/assignment. If the student opens the quiz, and there is a timer, the time will count down. If the student wants to continue the same assessment and not start again, the Moderate tab and “reopen” will need to be selected.

If a student switches tabs, is that information viewable to the instructor?

This function is not the same as Classic Quizzes and it is currently “Open for Conversation” in the Canvas Community.

In the meantime, encourage instructors to check the Quiz Log under the Moderate tab.

Please see the How do I use the Moderation page in New Quizzes? for additional context.

Is it possible to assign double time to a specific student system-wide?

Yes.

This would be a “time limit multiplier” in Accommodations. You would need to set the time limit multiplier to 2, in this case.

You can also moderate the amount of individual attempts and the time given to individual students.

See How do I moderate a student's quiz attempt in New Quizzes? for more information.

Can accommodations be set up at the root level?

Accommodations have to be set at the course level only.

Can accommodations information be set up and imported through SIS information?

Currently, this is a manual process the instructor must complete on the course level.

For accommodations, will settings be applied to students throughout the course if future quizzes are imported in and already exist?

Yes, you can set accommodations for a student to apply to all assessments in a course. See How do I add accommodations for a student in New Quizzes? for more information.

Blueprinting

Is there an option for New Quizzes to be edited and synced from Blueprint courses without having to duplicate and create a new assessment?

The Product team is planning to address Blueprint Support.

Do New Quizzes now work with the Blueprint features?

For the initial sync, yes, it will work.

See Canvas | New Quizzes Feature Comparison for more information.

If a New Quiz comes in from Blueprint unpublished, do instructors have to go through and publish every New Quiz in their course?

Yes.

Classic Quizzes

What will happen to my Classic Quizzes?

Classic Quizzes will need to be migrated to New Quizzes - no date to migrate at this time. From there, anything in your Classic Quiz will be converted to a New Quiz.

See How do I migrate a Canvas quiz to New Quizzes? for more information.

Will the Classic Quiz content be maintained for future use?

Yes.

Instructure plans on maintaining quiz content as a source in the database. API support for archival purposes will be provided.

Will we have to migrate all Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes in our instance or will Canvas automatically do this? Will question banks all have to be rebuilt when Classic quizzes go away?

With the current 1-by-1 migration, question banks do not migrate to item banks in New Quizzes. Bulk migration tools are being developed to help instructors move all quizzes in their courses over to new quizzes, including question banks and those quizzes pulling from question banks.  

 

Can my unit or department remain with Classic Quizzes if we pay for it?

No.

Once Classic Quizzes retires (no date at this time), the tool will cease to exist.

Will the switch from Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes cost my unit money?

No.

New and Classic Quizzes are available at no cost to university units. It’s essentially a one-to-one swap.

What should my unit do to prepare for the implementation of New Quizzes?

Faculty and staff who use Classic Quizzes should familiarize themselves with New Quizzes.

In addition, you can use the Instructor New Quizzes Readiness Checklist for support during the transition to using New Quizzes.

Additional resources can be found on the Support & Training page.

Data / Reporting

How long does it take for reports in New Quizzes to generate?

At this time, it takes up to 24 hours to populate data.

Is there an update on the time it takes for New Quizzes to gather a report?

It is on the timeline for items under review/update.

Can you download the Outcomes Analysis?

Currently, it is only available to view within a quiz, not download. Instructure is aware of the need for export/download capabilities.

Is there a way to see how many of our faculty, instructors or are using New Quizzes?

Yes, this information can be pulled from the placement data.

Which phase includes the data export option?

Instructure hopes to formally prioritize / give timelines for exporting New Quizzes once we hit some of the major milestones covered in the timeline. This is a focus for them, however, they need to get through some of these major projects before they can project a timeline.

Grading

Can an instructor make changes to student quizzes after students have taken the New Quiz?

Yes, but if any changes are made to the quiz after a student has taken the quiz, the quiz will need to be regraded.

Do the scores appear in SpeedGrader?

Yes.

How do I grade a quiz in New Quizzes? should help illustrate SpeedGrader functionality.

Can you grade one question at a time for all test takers rather than only being able to grade one test taker at a time?

Yes.

See How do I grade a quiz in New Quizzes? for an outline of the process.

Is there a way to adjust scores for an entire quiz?

Grading New Quizzes is similar to grading another assessment or assignment in Canvas.

How do I set a default grade for an assignment in the Gradebook? outlines how to set a default grade in the gradebook when that is helpful.

If an instructor makes a mistake on an answer to a quiz question, how would they go about regrading the assessment for the entire class or for an individual student?

Entire class: Change the answer on the quiz and it will change the answer for all assessments.

Individual: Go into the Moderate tab, assessment attempts, regrade the question. It will give you the option to regrade all submitted responses in the question or provide “fudge points” at the bottom of the assessment.

See How do I regrade a quiz question in New Quizzes? for additional regrade info.

Item Banks

How can I add questions from Question Banks as an Item Bank?

Until the development work is completed for Question Banks to convert to Item Banks, questions can be imported manually into an Item Bank by exporting Canvas quizzes.

In Classic Quizzes:

  • Create a new quiz with the name of a question bank.
  • In the Questions tab, select the Find Questions button. Locate the question bank and select all questions. Click the Add Questions button.
  • Save the quiz.
  • In Course Settings, click the Course Export button.
  • Select the Quiz Export type.
  • Export the ZIP file when completed.

In New Quizzes:

  • Click the Manage Item Banks button in the menu bar.
  • Create a new item bank.
  • Open the Item Bank.
  • In the menu bar, click the Import Content button.
  • Click the Import Content button.
  • Locate the exported ZIP file and import it into the item bank.

Note: Item Banks will not allow additional content to be imported once questions have been added to a quiz. However, individual questions may be added manually.

Why are Question Banks missing in New Quizzes?

New Quizzes uses the term Item Banks instead of Question Banks.

Being able to migrate question banks to Item Banks is a milestone on the New Quizzes timeline.

Is it possible for Classic Quiz question banks to be migrated to New Quizzes?

Question banks are planned to be able to migrate from Classic to New Quizzes once Instructure finishes building out the migration tool. More info to come soon on what this will look like.

In the meantime, there is a workaround:

  • Migrate the Classic quiz to a New Quiz.
  • Create new item banks.
  • Link newly migrated questions to the new NQ item banks.
When copying item banks from one course to another, are instructors allowed to edit the item banks?

Yes, please see How do I share an item bank in New Quizzes? for how to set this up for others to edit.

Can you use item banks on a stimulus question?

Yes, however, questions attached to the stimulus content are not automatically added to the item bank and must be added manually.

Migration

Can a Classic Quiz migrate to New Quizzes?

Yes.

While New Quizzes migration supports all question types, you should still review your quizzes before assigning them to students.

For more information on quiz migration, refer to How do I migrate a Canvas quiz to New Quizzes?

Can I migrate Question Banks from Classic Quizzes?

Yes, but not directly.

A workaround exists by creating a new Classic Quiz that contains a question group with all questions from a Question Bank.

What migration projects are in development?

The Quizzes team is currently working on the following features:

  • Migrate New Quizzes in course copy and imports
  • Import Canvas Question Banks as New Quizzes Item Banks
  • Set New Quizzes to be the default option for course copy and imports
Regarding the migration of old quizzes, some of our courses are taught every other year. Is there a point where unmigrated classic quizzes will no longer be available to migrate?

Yes, according to the Classic Quiz Sunset Timeline

Look for more information as to when Classic Quizzes will be deprecated.

What happens to New Quizzes as part of the export process?

At this time, New Quizzes cannot be exported out of a Canvas course.

This is something that Instructure is hoping to address in the future. However, the “Copy” and/or Direct Share feature should allow faculty, instructors, and staff to copy New Quizzes from one of their courses to another.

Please see How do I copy a quiz to another course in New Quizzes? for context.

Does the Migration step in the milestone include migration of question banks into item banks as well as full course migration right?

According to the timeline, yes.

Question Types & Features

Are there surveys in New Quizzes?

Instructure plans to separate survey functionality from quizzing functionally.

That being said, there are some workarounds to creating a survey within New Quizzes. Be sure to make the quiz 0 points and “do not mark this assessment towards the final grade”.

Additionally, make sure that Student Result View in the Settings are restricted, so students do not see “answers” for the survey.

Some recommend question types for surveys in New Quizzes:

  • Multiple Answer
  • Essay (can also be used for short answer/response)
  • True/False
  • File Upload
  • Fill in the Blank (free response)

If that is not sufficient for users, encourage them to look at the list of Canvas Partners who provide survey tools that can integrate in Canvas or you could consider an external survey functionality, such as Qualtrics or Google Forms.

Can I do multiple hot spots within one question?

No.

You will need to duplicate the question and change the area the students need to identify.

Are there questions that provide partial credit?

Partial credit grading functionality is supported for Fill-In-The-Blank and Multiple Answer question types. Development for other question types is still under discussion. Likely additional item types for this functionality will include:

  • Ordering
  • Matching

Similar functionality resides in the Multiple Choice question type, which allows points to be varied for individual answers.

Would all of the New Quizzes question types/features still work with the Respondus LockDown browser for students?

At this time, Respondus Lockdown works with New Quizzes. Once public APIs are available, those third party integrations will have the ability to build integrations into new quizzes.

Respondus Product Management plans to support Canvas New Quizzes with Respondus 4.0.

What is the timeline for partial credit with the Matching question type?

Instructure is discussing this issue, but there is no date on the timeline for this specific functionality.

We recommend you provide feedback in the Community forum.

Students are having issues changing their matching response.

Once students have selected their option and want to change it, they will need to delete their initial response so the answer options will regenerate.

Are there plans to allow students to record a response directly into New Quizzes without uploading a separate file?

The full integration of the New RCE should address this issue and allow students to record audio or media from directly within the New Quiz.

For context, please see the New Quizzes Feature Comparison page.

Will categorization or ordering offer partial credit instead of being all or nothing?

At the moment, this is not possible.

Please feel free to post in the New Quizzes Users' Group, as this an active space for administrators and the New Quizzes’ development team.

Can you put images into a Categorization Question?

Within the Question Stem, you can add an image, but not within the Categories’ answers themselves (that will only allow you to add text).

Will the stimulus passage ever offer line numbers, so that questions can be specific (e.g., What do you think the author means in line 24? Identify the lines that contain personification?)

This is currently a planned feature. See Canvas | New Quizzes Feature Comparison for upcoming features.

For stimulus, can you link to an external tool? We use Piazza, so I'm wondering if that's an option.

There is not a specific option to link to an external tool.

In the meantime, add feedback in the Instructure Community or try one of the workarounds.

Some workarounds:

  • If the External Tool has an Embed Code, encourage them to embed the content in the Stimulus part of the question.
  • If there is no Embed Code, encourage users to insert a link, or if it is another type of media (i.e., picture) insert that in the Stimulus part of the question.

Settings

Will the quizzes I create become part of a permanent record?

Yes.

Once the tool is configured in your instance, the data is a part of the permanent course record.

Will New Quizzes have full HTML/Rich Content editor (RCE) capacity?

These items should be part of New Quizzes once we successfully integrate the RCE. Instructure is hard at work adding the new RCE to New Quizzes. ETA is unknown.

Is there a plan to improve the experience for adding audio to questions or to allow for audio submissions in New Quizzes?

Yes, this will be accomplished when the full RCE is brought into New Quizzes.

Can students record a response via a webcam in New Quizzes?

Not explicitly (and it is not on the roadmap), but there are some workarounds:

  • File Upload and upload a previously recorded video.
  • Use extensions like Vocaroo that allow students to record and embed within an Essay question type.
What happens when New Quizzes are course copied? Are they published?

When New Quizzes are copied over, the default is for the New Quizzes to be unpublished.

Is there a plan to integrate a date picker/release date for correct answers?

It is not currently a planned feature.

Is it possible to set student view settings for a whole course rather than per quiz?

Not specifically, unless you create a “Template” quiz with your desired settings and then duplicate the quiz and start to build out from there.

Can a faculty or instructor turn off the calculator option?

Yes, faculty and instructors can make the calculator unavailable in New Quizzes settings.

See How do I manage settings for a quiz in New Quizzes? for more information.

Will the math editor be updated in New Quizzes?

Instructure is working to integrate the Canvas RCE to New Quizzes. However, they have not given us a formal ETA.

Set Up

What about the course template copy option as opposed to Blueprints. Will New Quizzes copy over with the new course template option?

Yes, but it could take up to 24 hours to process into the new course.

Is there a way to reverse the “Remember My Choice” option should an instructor wish to change engines?

Yes.

From the Quizzes tab, click on the 3 dots next to the +Quiz button, you will see the option to “Reset Quiz Engine”.

What is the difference between enabling at the account and course level?

You can enable this at the root account, so it is turned on in all courses. Or faculty and instructors can turn on New Quizzes at the course level.

Other

Can I bring in MiVideo recordings to New Quizzes like I can Classic?

Yes, but the workflow is different.

You will first need to get the embed code from your MiVideo recording (Select the more options menu on the video → Share Media → Create Public Link → Copy the embed code), then go into your New Quiz, select the question you wish to put the video in, and find the RCE and the “Insert Media” button, then select the “Embed” option, and paste in your Studio video embed code.

Is there a way to import QTI’s into New Quizzes?

Currently, QTI imports are supported in New Quizzes.

Instructions can be found at How do I import a quiz from a QTI package in New Quizzes? .

Will New Quizzes allow for a practice quiz?

Yes.

Create a quiz for zero points and mark “do not count this assessment towards the final grade”.

Do note that this option does appear in the gradebook, unlike in Classic Quizzes when a survey/practice quiz does not appear in the Gradebook.

What is the purpose of pinning a question?

Pinning a question allows students to review an item later, with all pinned questions available in the Pinned Questions section.

For an example of this workflow, see How do I take a quiz in New Quizzes?

I am interested in navigation. Can students navigate from New Quizzes to the next page or assignment in a module by clicking next as they currently can in Classic Quizzes?

Yes, that was a workflow update during Summer 2021.

Can New Quizzes be shared to the Commons?

Not yet, but this is a priority that has been shared with Instructure.

Support

Who should I contact if I have questions?

You have several options:

For project administration questions, contact the ITS New Quizzes Migration Team at [email protected].