Question Pools

You can specify that a random selection of questions is presented each time a student takes an assessment.

When you create an assessment, you can use question pools to be sure each student receives a different version of the assessment.

Ultra vs. Original Course View assessment terminology

This table lists the names of assessment question features in the two course views.

About question pools

On the Add Question Pool page, you can browse, preview, filter, and select questions from other assessments and question banks in the course you're currently in. You can view the questions, but you can't make edits until you add the question pool to your assessment.

• Use a keyword search to find questions to add.
• You choose the number of questions from a pool to display to students. For example, you can show 3 questions out of 50. The questions are then randomly distributed so each student sees a different set of 3 questions.
• You can display all the questions in a pool. Questions appear in a random order for each student.
• After you make your selections, you set the same points possible for all questions in the pool.
• You can delete questions in a pool. The question is removed from the pool, but not deleted from your course.
• In the student view, questions randomly selected from a pool appear just as other questions do. Students won't know the questions are from a pool.

You can't add question pools to assessments when these settings or conditions exist:

• You've added a rubric to your assessment.
• You've chosen to collect submissions offline.
• Students have opened the assessment.

Add a question pool

In an assessment, select the plus sign and then select Add question pool from the menu. The question pool is inserted at this point in the assessment.

Add Question Pool page

On small devices, the Filter Criteria panel is closed by default.

On the Add Question Pool page, select Filter to open the Filter Criteria panel. Select the assessments, question banks, and question types to include in the pool. As you make selections, the number of selected items appears above the panel next to Filter. Select the X to close the panel and increase the area to view questions. 

In the Filter Criteria panel, you can perform a basic search by keyword. After you enter one keyword, another field appears. Each applicable keyword may increase the number of results. Results include singular and plural forms of a word and tenses such as -ing and -ed. Partial word and contains logic won't work with this basic search.

View questions

On the Add Question Pool page, you can expand questions to view them.

Select questions

As you make selections in the Filter Criteria panel, the number of selected items appears next to Filter. In the active filter area on the right, select the questions you want to add. You can view how many questions you've selected at the bottom of the screen.

Select Clear all to clear the Filter Criteria selections. Selected questions remain selected. 

To remove selected questions, clear their checkboxes. Or use Select all and Clear all to remove all questions at one time.

Notes:

• You can't edit the questions or the points on the Add Question Pool page. 
• Questions with goal alignments appear with trophy icons next to the points. Goal alignments are added with the questions.

Select Add Questions. The question pool appears in your assessment. Enter the points and the number of questions to display to students. The points are assigned to each question in the pool. You can't assign separate points for individual questions in the same pool.

Select Save to add the question pool to your assessment.

Edit points

You can edit the points assigned to each question in the pool even after submissions exist and trigger regrading.

Important edit points scenario:

For example, you grade an Essay question in a pool that's worth 10 points and post the grades for several students. You decide to change the points for each question in the pool to 5. If you previously assigned more than 5 points for some students' Essay questions, those points still apply. You can individually edit each student's points for the Essay question.

Edit question pools used in a test

Before students open an assessment, you can add, remove, and edit individual questions in a question pool. When you remove a question in a pool, the question isn't deleted from your course. You can also delete a pool or move a pool to a new location in the assessment.

1. Select the Drag to reorder button to move a pool row to a new location. The question numbering updates automatically. 

   You can use your keyboard to move an item:

   1. Tab to an item's Drag to reorder button.
   2. Press Enter to activate move mode.
   3. Use the arrow keys to choose a location.
   4. Press Enter to drop the item in the new location.
2. To view questions in the pool, select View questions. You can add, remove, or edit questions. Open the menu and select Edit to make changes to the pool such as the questions' points. 
3. Select the plus sign wherever you want to add another question pool.
4. Select Delete to remove the pool from the assessment.

 On the Question Pool page, the number of questions in the pool is listed in the top-left area. The source assessment for each question in the pool is listed.

When you select Edit/Regrade, a notification appears that states how many other assessments are affected. If you edit a question in a question pool, the edits appear everywhere the question is used. The same is true for edits you make in a source assessment's questions. Those edits affect all the question pools where the question appears.

After students open an assessment or make submissions, you can't add or remove questions from a pool or delete a pool from an assessment. You also can't move the pool to a new location in the assessment. You can edit, regrade, and give full credit for questions when submissions exist. For example, if you change the correct answer, the question is regraded in all assessments where the question is used.

Give full credit option

You can give everyone full credit for a question you didn't explain clearly or doesn't accurately reflect your lecture or textbook material.

You can give full credit for a question from the View questions link in a pool or from a student's submission page. If you apply full credit for a question in a source assessment or in a question pool, full credit is applied to that question everywhere it appears.

After you select Edit/Regrade in a question's menu, you can select the checkbox for Give full credit for question. After you give full credit, you can clear the checkbox to revert to the automatic grade or a previously assigned manual grade.

Your update affects existing attempts, attempts in progress, and subsequent submissions. Student grades are updated, but the new grades or reversal may not appear immediately.

When you give full credit, you can’t change student scores for an individual question. You can override each student’s assessment score to adjust the points.

More on editing assessments and questions

More on overriding grades

Student view of full credit

After grading is completed and you show students the correct answers, they can see which questions you've awarded full credit. Full credit given appears next to the grade pill and is also noted in the answers section.

Existing assessments, folders, and question banks

You can’t delete the source assessments for question pools from these areas:

• Course Content page
• Gradebook views

You also can't delete these items:

• Folders that contain source assessments for question pools
• Question banks used in question pools

What happens to Original Course View questions sets in the Ultra Course View?

Your Original course's question sets and random blocks appear as question pools after conversion. Unsupported question types are removed. If an Original question set or random block only has unsupported question types, the set or block is removed during conversion.

You can only access your Ultra question pools in the assessment they appear in.

When you convert an Original course to Ultra, two decimal places carry over.

ULTRA: Watch a video question pools

The following narrated video provides a visual and auditory representation of some of the information included on this page. For a detailed description of what is portrayed in the video, open the video on YouTube, navigate to More actions, and select Open transcript.


Video: Use question pools explains how to add a question pool to an assessment in the Ultra course view.