Question management and publishing

Question bank

This feature allows a teacher to create, preview, and edit questions in a course question bank, a database of questions. These questions can then be used in Quizzes. The teacher enters the question bank by creating or editing a quiz activity or through the Administration block.

The initial Question Bank page has tabs that allow you (as teacher) to edit questions, categories, import questions and export questions.

Select a category

Questions are organised into categories. Initially each course has only one category called “Default”. It is good practice to create more categories to organize your questions. This not only makes it easier to find questions, but makes the use of random questions and matching question easier. You can create a hierarchy of categories because you can create subcategories inside parent categories. To add or edit categories click on the “Categories” tab.

The question editing screen shows the questions from the currently selected category. You choose this category from the Category: drop-down menu. Using the tick box below that menu you determine whether to also show the questions from all subcategories.

Add a new question

1. Click the Questions tab to access the Question Bank page, if not there already.
2. From the Category drop-down menu, select a category you want to add a question to.
3. The page will change to show the questions already in that category
4. Select the question type you want to create from the Create new question drop-down menu.
5. Fill in the form for the question type you are creating. Each question type has its own form and has its own options.
6. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the form.

Preview, Edit, Delete, and Move

The first column in the list of questions contains a number of icons and a selection box.

Clicking on the Preview icon will open a preview window in which you can test the question. The Edit icon allows you to edit the question via the same form that you used to create it. The Delete icon deletes the question, provided it is not already in use in some activity. The selection box allows you to select a subset of questions that you can then move to another category using the controls below the list of questions.

Moodle1.9

As of Moodle 1.9 the move icon allows you to move one question at a time.

Tips and tricks

• Put the answer into the question name so you can quickly see the answers when students are asking for answers. This is especially useful if you’re dealing with large sets of questions! (No option yet for viewing category or answer of question in the list of questions.)
• Export questions in GIFT or Moodle XML formats, then import them into a Lesson. (Future versions of Moodle will make Question bank available to both Lesson and Quiz activities.)
• Remember that while some of the same question types can be found in both the Quiz and Lesson modules, they can be very different. Scoring and grading each student’s choice is more robust in a Quiz. On the other hand, each Lesson question answer also has a jump associated it.
• Use GIFT or other export modes to print questions and answers in a category. Hint, clever use of word processor macros, using search and replace, can tidy up a GIFT file for printing.

Categories are shared in contexts since Moodle 1.9

Moodle1.9

Since Moodle 1.9 there are separate question category trees in each different ‘context’ in which questions are shared. The contexts available to you depend on whether you access the question bank from an activity or from a course and depend on the permissions assigned you for access to questions.

Context may be an unfamiliar word. Think of a context as an area within your Moodle site. Each different context has a separate question category hierarchy. So, now you can choose the ‘context’ within which your questions will be shared. And also an administrator can give their users different permissions within different context areas.

See the diagram illustrating the relationship of the different contexts below. Different colours denote different context types. Notice how question contexts contain each other. Notice also that Course category contexts can be nested. In this example we have two contexts nested within each other ‘Humanities’ and ‘Languages’. We could have a third course category ‘English’ and fourth and so on. Course categories can be nested infinitely and so you can set up a very flexible system of question contexts for sharing questions and assigning question sharing permissions.

Question contexts are just as a subset of the Roles and Permissions contexts. A context contained by another context inherits the permissions of the containing context. You can access question categories in any containing context if you have permission to do so. Remember, you can access the question bank in two ways: from within an activity (now only the quiz activity), or from the link in the Course admin menu to ‘Questions’. When you access the question bank from the :

• Activity. If you have permissions you can access question categories in :
  • that activity’s context and containing contexts.
  • the course in which the activity module is contained.
  • the course categories in which the course that contains the activity module is contained.
  • the core system context.
• Course. If you have permissions you can access question categories in :
  • that course.
  • the course categories in which the course is contained.
  • the core system context.

So questions contexts are accessible as follows :

• Activity context : questions only available to one activity module.
• Course context : questions available to all activity modules in a course and within the course from the ‘Questions’ link in the course administration block.
• Course category contexts : questions available to all activity modules and courses in the course category (remember one course category can contain other course categories, you can share your questions in any parent course category).
• Core System context : questions available in all courses and activities on your site.