Getting Started with Canvas Quizzes

If putting a quiz in a module, you must publish that module for the quiz to be available, even if the quiz is published on the Quizzes page.

When developing your course, you may want to use the Quiz tool for practice activities, assessments, study guides, or any number of other uses. Managing individual Quizzes involves a number of processes.

• To create a Quiz, from the Quizzes Index Page (Quizzes in the Course Navigation menu), you can click +Quiz. See the Canvas guide What options can I set in a quiz? for information about quiz settings including timers, number of attempts, and availability and due dates, as well as editing, and deleting quizzes.
  • Settings:
    • If you’d like students to get automatic credit for submission, you can set it as a Graded Survey. Students will receive full points for any submission (included incomplete submissions).
    • If you’d need to provide extra time or attempts to a student, see Once I publish a quiz, how do I use the Moderate Quiz page?
    • The Assign To feature can be used to provide differentiate times and dates for students in different time zones or students needing accommodations.
    • By default, quizzes are assigned to “Everyone” in the course. If choosing another selection, you will need to click the “X” on the button (which will now read “Everyone Else”) to assign to only your selection.
    • Published quizzes are visible as existing outside of availability dates, but students cannot see the details.
  • Editing
    • If changing the content of a Multiple Choice, True/False, or Multiple Answers question, existing submissions can be regraded by Canvas. (See the What options can I use to regrade a quiz in a course? for more information.)

      If you change the Assign To area from “Everyone” to select students after submissions have already begun, and do not have a second set of dates, submissions from all of the students not included in the list of select students will disappear (but are not lost from Canvas). To rescue these submissions, just add a second set of dates and assign to “Everyone Else”. All submissions will now have returned to the Gradebook.

• To duplicate a quiz, you must create a QTI Export that only contains the quiz you want to duplicate. You must then import this QTI Export into your course (and be sure not to check Overwrite assessment content with matching IDs. See the Canvas guides How do I export quiz content from a course? and How do I import quizzes from QTI packages? for more information on these processes.

  DO NOT use the Import -> Course Copy or the Copy To features to make a copy of a quiz in a course. These can cause issues with student submissions being lost. Be sure to use the processes linked above and remember NOT to check Overwrite assessment content with matching IDs.

• Learn to make time and attempt accommodations for students on a quiz with the Canvas guide  Once I publish a quiz, how do I use the Moderate Quiz page?

Accessibility Tips

• Use the Moderated Quiz function to allow for accommodations like extra time or attempts for a student.
• Make sure Assign To settings provide enough time for accommodated time extensions or extra attempts.
• Make instructions brief and to-the-point. Avoid long paragraphs and sentences.