Question Library

The Question Library allows you to create, edit, and store questions for all quizzes (and surveys) within your course. Creating questions within the question library is required if you are using random questions pools, and can also be useful if questions are used in multiple quizzes, as edits and revisions only then need to be done in the Question Library to update in all quizzes. You can create questions directly in the quiz as well.

Table of Contents:

Accessing the Question Library

1. In the main navigation, click Submit > Quizzes.

2. Click the Question Library button.

3. There are two types of objects you can create with the question library: Sections, and Questions. Further instructions on creating these are in the sections below.

4. After you have created quiz sections and/or questions, you can manage them in the Question Library. The following options are displayed at the top of the Question Library page after you have created sections or questions:

   • Create New Question or Section drop-down list

   • Import questions from an existing quiz or text file  

   • Move selected questions or sections 

   • Delete selected questions/sections 

   • Order selected questions/sections 

   • Edit Values allows you to quickly edit the points and the difficulty level of questions

Creating sections in the Question Library

Think of the sections in the Question Library as file folders in which you can store and organize groups of questions. For example, you might create a "multiple choice" section where you would put all your multiple choice questions, or a section containing all questions related to a specific topic, such as "Theoretical Fundamentals," or a section might be questions for one particular quiz, or if you want to provide the same set of instructions for multiple questions. You may also have sections within sections.

Having your questions organized in sections is also useful when you create a quiz. Instead of importing the questions one at a time you can import a whole section of questions into a quiz at the same time.

• To create a new section, select New > Section.

• The New Section page will come up, add a Section Title.

• If you would like, you can also add a Message, and an Image with a Description in the Section Text box.

• Under Display Options, you will be able to determine if you would like to Hide Section Title from students, and Hide Section Text from students. If you are using sections simply as a way to organize your question library, you will likely want to check these options. If the sections correspond to actual quiz sections that you would like students to be aware of (and that may contain specific instructions for that section of the quiz (e.g., “answer the following questions based on this…”)) you will likely want to uncheck some/all of the options.

• Once you have selected all the options you wish to use, Save your section.

Creating questions in the Question Library

There are twelve possible question types that you can create within the question library. These include: true or false, multiple choice, multiple select, written response, short answer, multi-short answer, fill in the blanks, matching, ordering, arithmetic and significant figures.

Each of the question types has its own features. However, the following features apply to all question types in the quizzes tool:

• All question types have an optional Short Description field. If you do not enter a short description, the system will take the full question text and enter it as the short description. The short description is only displayed in the quiz tool and not to users taking the quiz. To add a short description, click on Options and select Add Short Description.

• All questions have a mandatory Points value which cannot be set to zero.

• Images can be added to the Question Text.

• If you want question feedback displayed to the users, click on Options and select Add Feedback to enter your feedback in the Overall Feedback area.

• To display hints, click on Options and select Add Hint to enter text in the Question Hint field.

• You have access to the preview, and spell-check features in each question text field. Click Preview to view your question as it will appear during use and grading. To access the Preview, click on the full screen button in the Question Text toolbar.

• Click Save to save the question and return to the main page, Save and Copy to save the question and create a new question of the same type and that retains the copied properties, or click Save and New to continue creating questions of the same type.

Importing questions from another format

There are a number of publishers that can provide compatible question bank cartridges that can be imported into Question Libraries for use in Waterloo LEARN.  

To import the generated CSV file, go to Submit > Quizzes and click on the Question Library. Select the Quiz Section where you want the questions and click on the Import button. For Import Source, select 'Upload a File' and click on the Browse Files button. Browse for your CSV file and click Open. Click Save.