Reading Time: < 1 minuteCanvas recently updated how to access New Quiz settings. With that update, you could easily get to the settings, but you also had to go through some extra clicks to get back to where you started in Canvas. This is now simplified in the update being pushed out April 28. Now when you access the New Quiz settings page, you’ll see three options – “Cancel,” “Save,” and “Build.” “Cancel” will not save any changes made and will return you to your previous page. “Save” now saves any changes and returns you to your previous page instead of pulling you into a page to add/edit quiz questions. And “Build” now saves…
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Why Did Some of My Grades Disappear in My Gradebook?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteLet’s imagine a scenario. You have an assignment in your course. Most of your students completed it, and you graded their work. One student didn’t complete the assignment, but you agreed to give them an extension. You went into the assignment settings, opened the assignment back up to them, and merrily went on your way – until you later went to grade their work and discovered you could no longer see the submitted work from any of your other students. You checked the gradebook, and sure enough, the grades you’d previously entered were no longer there either. Even though this is a scary scenario, this can be…
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How Can I Get a Deleted Item Back in Canvas?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteSometimes you’re working in Canvas, decide to remove an item from your course only to later realize either you did actually want the item in your course or you accidentally deleted the wrong item. Before you panic or start stressing, Canvas does make it easy to restore most items (and it’ll even try to restore the student data)! Go to the Canvas course where you want to restore an item. At the end of the URL, add “/undelete” – it should be right after the course id number. Your URL should look like the following: cedarville.instructure.com/courses/####/undelete. Canvas will take you to a “Restore Deleted Items” page that lists the items you can bring back. Scroll through…
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Canvas Update: Accessing New Quiz Settings
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIn the latest update, Canvas made it easier to access the overall quiz settings for a New Quiz. Previously, you could set the overall points and due date for the quiz when you initially created it, then there was only a single, very specific method to access those settings again. With the update, you can now access those settings from almost anywhere in Canvas. Previously, you’d click on a New Quiz and immediately go to the “Build” page. Now when you click on a New Quiz from the Assignments, Quizzes, or Modules pages, you will be taken to the overall quiz settings page where you can adjust the quiz name, number of points, and due date/time. From…
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Best Practices for Using Essay Questions in New Quizzes
Reading Time: 2 minutesCanvas New Quizzes have many features that are helpful for administering assessments, but there are some quirks to how this tool works. Today, we’re going to look at some best practices that’ll make working with essay questions easier in New Quizzes. Make note of which New Quizzes contain essays or other manually-graded questions. Currently, those assessments do not show up in your to-do list, so you’ll need to check them in order to assign the points for the manually-graded questions in the quiz. Set your New Quizzes to manually release the grades instead of the standard automatic release. New Quizzes automatically “grade” the essay questions by assigning zero points to them until you…
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Canvas Update: New Quizzes and the Modules Page
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn the new Canvas update, you’ll see some new functionality with New Quizzes on the Modules page inside Canvas. Previously, if you tried to add a quiz from the Modules page, your only option was a Classic Quiz. If you wanted a New Quiz, you needed to create it from the Quizzes page before going back to the Modules page and adding it to your module. But with the March 20 update, the content selector for a module will now show you which quizzes in your course are Classic Quizzes and also allow you to create a New Quiz. Let’s take a look at each. Identifying Classic Quizzes In the new Canvas update, you…
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How Do I Create and Edit Questions in an Item Bank and Add Them to a New Quiz?
Reading Time: 3 minutesLast week we talked about the Top Three Things to Know about New Quiz Item Banks. Today, we’re looking at the next step in that process – creating questions in the item banks, editing questions, and adding questions to a New Quiz. Creating Questions From a QTI File If you have a test bank in QTI format (such as a test bank from a publisher), you can import it into a New Quiz Item Bank. Individually If you don’t have a QTI file of questions, the other option is to add the questions manually. For this method, you’ll also want to be in the “Manage Item Banks” view. Editing Questions When you have questions in an item bank, the…
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Top Three Things to Know about New Quiz Item Banks
Reading Time: 3 minutesWith Canvas continuing to move to New Quizzes, today we’re going to look at an important piece of that puzzle – item banks. Item banks are the best way to organize your quiz or exam questions, and they will help you manage your assessments well. We’ll be talking about adding and editing questions next week, but this week we’re going to focus on the bigger picture of item banks. Item banks are accessed through a New Quiz and only through a New Quiz. If you access “manage question banks” through the Quiz page, you’ll get the Classic Quiz question banks. Note that the terminology is different – question banks is Classic Quizzes, item banks is New Quizzes. And with that detail covered, we’re…
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How Can I Send a Piece of Course Content to Another Course or Instructor?
Reading Time: 2 minutesHave you ever been working on a course and realized there was a piece of it that you wanted to use in another of your courses? Or has another instructor asked you for a piece of content and you were left with trying to figure out the best way to get it to them? Canvas has a feature that makes this easy. When you want to transfer a single item (or a few items), you can use the direct share feature to copy or send the item. These two options function a little differently – one sends the item to a user, while the other copies it to…
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How Can Students Respond to my Canvas Announcements?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWe talk a lot about Canvas announcements because they’re such a convenient way to get information out to your entire class. Today, we’re looking at another aspect of announcements – how to handle a situation when you want students to easily be able to respond to what you send out and ask questions or add comments. Canvas makes this simple. When you’re creating an announcement, check the “Allow users to comment” box under the “Options” heading. Canvas will then remember that you checked the box and keep it checked in the future. If you uncheck that box to not allow users to comment, Canvas will likewise remember that and keep that setting as…