New Quizzes vs Classic Quizzes: Who You Gonna Call?

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Last time, we talked about how Canvas is updating the location and icon for New Quizzes. If you haven’t reviewed how this change will affect you, please take a moment to go and brush up. We’ll wait for you. 

Okay? Welcome back. Now that you’re up to speed, we’re going to look at exactly what the differences between New Quizzes and Classic Quizzes are and give some guidelines for how to choose what best suits your needs. 

If you want to use third-party tools (e.g., Respondus Lockdown Browser)

Currently, only Classic Quizzes support third-party tools such as Respondus Lockdown Browser. If using a lockdown browser is your #1 need, choose Classic Quizzes. 

If you want to use SpeedGrader

You can access SpeedGrader with either New Quizzes or Classic Quizzes. It’s currently fewer steps to access SpeedGrader with Classic Quizzes. However, you can still get to it for a New Quiz, and we’ll cover that process in a future post. 

If you want to determine total points by the assessment (not the questions)

Let’s say you want your total points for the exam/quiz differ from the number of points you have assigned to each question. You may have quizzes where each question is worth one point, and each quiz has a different number of questions. Or, you have an exam that’s 79 points but would love for the students to see a more easily digestible grade. 

In these scenarios (or others similar), you would use New Quizzes. In New Quizzes, you can set a total number of points for the assignment that differs from the sum of the points in the assessment. Canvas will scale the points earned to the corresponding value for the total points set. 

What’s next?

And one last note about the feature differences: just because a particular feature or capability is not available in New Quizzes now, don’t presume it will never be. Canvas is working to bring New Quizzes up to parity with Classic Quizzes, and we’ll keep you updated on the progress. If you want to read about some of the other features not covered here, check out Canvas’ New Quizzes Feature Comparison.

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