Set up Question Banks

Question banks allows trainers to create, preview, and edit questions for use in LearningZone. The questions are stored in categories in the question bank. The categories can be limited to being used on the site, course or quiz level. The questions in a category can be added to a Quiz or to a lesson activity via an export process. The trainer enters the question bank by creating or editing a quiz activity or via Course administration > Question bank.

Categories

Questions are organised into categories. Initially each course has only one category called Default. It is good practice to create more categories to organise your questions. This not only makes it easier to find questions, but makes the use of random questions and matching questions easier. You can create a hierarchy of categories by creating subcategories inside parent categories. To add or edit categories click on the Categories link in the Administration menu block.

The question editing screen shows the questions from the currently selected category. You choose this category from the Category dropdown menu. Using the tick box below that menu you determine whether to also show the questions from all subcategories.

Categories are shared in contexts

There are separate question category trees in each different context in which questions are shared. The contexts available to you depend on whether you access the question bank from an activity or from a course and depend on the permissions assigned to you for access to questions.

Category Set Up 

1. Open the question bank.
2. Select Categories
3. Below the list of current categories you will see a form to add a new category.
   
4. Choose the parent category in which your new category will be placed. 
   1. Placing your category in another category makes it a sub category of the parent.
   2. Choosing Topmeans that your category is a top level category, not a sub category. When more than one sharing context is available you can place your category as a top level category in any of the contexts.
   3. You can choose to make your category a top level category in any context that is available to you, or you can choose to add your category as a sub category.
5. Type the name of your new question category in the text box.
6. Add an optional meaningful description in the category info area.
7. Click the Add Category Your new question category will appear in the list of current categories.

Deleting Categories

Categories can also be created or deleted at will. However, if you try to delete a category containing questions, then you will be asked to specify another category to move them to. You cannot delete or move the last category in any context, there must always be one category in a context.

Moving Categories

You can also arrange the categories in a hierarchy so that they are easier to manage.

The up/down arrow icons lets you change the order in which category peers are displayed. These icons are also used to move a top level category between contexts. If you move a category to be the first or last category in a context and then press the arrow key again then it will be moved to the next context.

The right arrow icon allows you to move a category to be a child category of the category listed immediately above it, whereas the left arrow icon allows you to move a category up one category level (to be a peer of its parent category).

Adding questions

Once you have accessed the quiz editing screen you can add questions from a number of locations:

1. Click the Addlink as in the quiz. 
2. When it opens up, choose either to add a new question, to select a question from the question bankor to add a random question.

Add a new question

1. Click the Questions link (in the Administrationmenu block) to access the Question Bank page, if not there already.
2. From the Select a categorydropdown menu, select a category you want to add a question to.
3. The page will change to show the questions already in that category.
4. Select the question type you want to create from the Create a new questiondropdown menu.
5. Fill in the form for the question type you are creating. Each question type has its own form and has its own options.
6. Click Save Changesat the bottom of the form.

Preview, Edit, Delete, and Move

The first column in the list of questions contains a number of icons and a selection box.

Clicking on the Preview icon will open a preview window in which you can test the question. The Edit icon allows you to edit the question via the same form that you used to create it. The Delete icon deletes the question, provided it is not already in use in some activity. The selection box allows you to select a subset of questions that you can then move to another category using the controls below the list of questions. The Duplicate icon lets you copy the selected question. The Move to button allows you to move questions to another category.

Sharing and Managing Question banks

Be default, trainers can manage only the questions in the context of the courses they are in. You can set up a role to allow trainers to share and manager questions on a larger scale.

You can also use this role to create a special system-wide 'Question bank Manager' instead of giving admin level or site-wide Manager access to a person managing the Questions.

Creating a Question bank manager role

1. As an administrator, go to Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define rolesand click the Add a new role button at the bottom of the screen.
2. On the next screen, ignore archetypes and presets and click Continue.
3. Give the role a name and if desired a description and tick the System
4. In the filter, type 'question'.
5. Set the following capabilities to allow: 
   • question:add
   • question:editall
   • question:managecategory
   • question:moveall 
   • question:viewall 
   • question:useall

6. Click the Create this rolebutton. 

Assigning the role to a trainer

1. As an administrator, go to Site administration > Users > Permissions > Assign system roles.
2. You should now see your newly created role here.
3. Assign the role to the required course trainer(s). Note that the users still need to have the teacher role in their courses.
    

You can also assign the role to a user in a course category if you only wish them to share questions in that category.

To assign a role to a user for a course category 

1. Log in as an administrator.
2. From the site's homepage, click on the desired course category.
3. From inside the desired course category, click on Assign rolesin the Administration block.
4. Click on the role you wish to assign to the user.
5. Select and add the user to the role.