This information applies only to the Original Course View. Your institution controls which tools are available.

You can reuse questions from all existing tests, surveys, and pools in your course.

About the Find Questions page

If enabled, be sure to disable the pop-up blocker for Blackboard Learn so you can access the Find Questions window.

On the Find Questions page, you can browse, preview, filter, and select test questions created or imported into your course.

By default the questions list will appear blank. To find questions, you need to browse through the left menu and select the criteria and sources you'd like to use.

Initial view of the questions available to reuse. The list appears empty by default and instructors need to select initial criteria and sources to visualize the filtered list of questions they want

You can narrow your selection, browse based on certain criteria including metadata. The more metadata you add to each question will help you narrow your search.

The Find Questions page consists of the active filter area that displays all the questions that meet your search criteria. The dynamic list changes automatically as you select or clear criteria. The Selected Questions area displays the questions you've already selected, so you don't have to scroll up and down long lists of questions.


Copy and link to questions

On the Find Questions page, you can copy a question from an existing test to a new test or link to the original question in the new test. A linked question shows in any test that contains that question. When you copy a question, your changes only appear in the new copy.

Copy and link questions
  Benefits Disadvantages
Copy a question When you copy a question, you can edit the new copy without concern. Other tests aren't affected. Changes you make to one instance of the question aren't reflected in the other instances.

If you want changes to show in all instances, you must find and edit each copied instance.
Link to original question Changes you make to a linked question in any test are reflected in all tests where the question is linked.

In a test, linked questions are indicated by an icon. When you edit a linked test question, the status message lists other tests that contain the linked question.

When you change linked questions that appear in tests with completed or in-progress attempts, you're warned that your change will affect those attempts.
Changes you make to a linked question appear in all tests where that question occurs. You can't select which tests are changed.

The option to link or copy is only available on the Find Questions page. To remove the link from a question, delete the linked question from the test and add it again as a copy.

You can't add new questions to the tests you've deployed.

Find questions

  1. Access a test, survey, or pool. From the Reuse Question menu, select Find Questions.
  2. In the pop-up window, you can Copy selected questions or to Link to original questions.
  3. In the Browse Criteria panel, expand the criteria sections and select specific criteria. You can search within pools, tests, question types, categories, topics, levels of difficulty, and keywords. All questions meeting those criteria appear. You can also use the Search current results box to type a phrase, word, or part of a word to find matching questions.
  4. Select the check boxes for the questions you want to add. The questions appear in the Selected Questions area at the bottom of the screen. You can expand the area to view your list of questions. Select the red X next to a question to remove it. The question is removed from the collection, but not deleted from your course.
  5. Select Submit. The questions are added to your test, survey, or pool.

About the Browse Criteria section

As you select criteria in the Browse Criteria section, the relevant questions appear in the active filter list.

The selected criteria appear as a reference. The active filter list is empty if no matching questions exist.

Criteria categories:

  • Pools: Instructor-created collections of questions, usually related to each other, that you can include as an entire group in a test, survey, or another larger pool
  • Tests: Includes both tests (graded) and surveys (not graded)
  • Question types: Select one or more of the question types
  • Categories: Select from the assigned categories of questions
  • Topics: Select from the assigned topics of questions
  • Levels of Difficulty: Select from the levels of difficulty assigned to questions
  • Keywords: Select by assigned question keywords

Reminder: The questions you select through this process appear in the Selected Questions area at the bottom of the page.

The questions you can find may be limited based on your specific access permissions.


Other ways to reuse questions

You can also create question sets and random blocks to reuse questions in your tests and surveys.