Quiz and Question Bank Sharing

Faculty who teach different sections of the same course can share question banks and quizzes between Moodle courses. Depending on how quizzes and question banks are shared, changes to a question within one course may cause unintended changes to the same question within another course. This article discusses:

• Quiz and question bank sharing: what to know
• Best practices for copying quizzes between courses

Quiz and Question Bank Sharing: What to Know

• It is possible for instructors to share quizzes and question banks with other instructors so that each person does not need to individually add new questions. Depending on how this is done, some unexpected question behavior may occur. 
• When you initially import a question bank category into another course, the question bank is copied to the new course. Any edits made to the questions in one course will not impact the other course. 
• However, when you import (or backup and restore) a quiz that uses questions from a question bank category that was previously imported, it does not copy the question bank but instead links the original question bank to the new course. As a result, any edits to a question will be reflected in both courses if the quiz has the questions set to the "always latest" version. 

To see this in action, view this screencast. 

Best Practices for Copying Quizzes Between Courses

Retain linked questions

• If you would like to ensure that quiz questions copied between courses remain linked, allowing edits to be reflected in questions from multiple courses, follow these steps. This is a great option if multiple sections of the same course use common assessments to evaluate student learning. 
• First, copy the question bank from one course to another by performing a course reuse. Navigate to "More" > "Course reuse" in the course where you would like to add the question bank.

• Find the name of the course from which you are copying the question bank. Select the course and click "Continue."
• On the "Import settings" window, uncheck everything except "Include question bank." Click next. 

• On the "Include" screen, click "None" to uncheck everything on the list. Click "Next."

• Double-check your selections, and click "Perform import." 
• Create your quizzes in your original course using the question bank. When quizzes are imported into the new course using a course reuse, as long as they contain questions that already exist from the initial import, the questions will be linked to the original course. Edits made in original course questions will be reflected in the new course, making it easier to edit questions for common assessments. 

Ensure questions are unlinked

• To ensure that a copy of a quiz and question bank are saved in a new course, avoid using course backups or course reuse when copying over a question bank to a new course. Instead, export the question bank category as an XML file and import the category into the new course. 

• Navigate to your course question bank and select the category you would like to export. 

• Next, from the drop-down menu on the upper left of the Moodle page, select "Export."

• On the "Export questions to file" page, select "Moodle XML format." Click "Export questions to file."

• A copy of the XML file will download to your computer. 
• To import the questions to your second course, navigate to the question bank of your second course. 
• Select "Import" from the drop-down menu on the upper left side of the window.

• Select "Moodle XML format" from the File format list. 
• Select the file you downloaded in the "Import questions from file" box.
• Click "Import."

• A summary screen of imported questions will appear.