This guide pertains to Ultra Course View.
If your course is in Original Course View, see the Original Course View tutorial collection.
Question Bank Overview
Watch A Deeper Dive into Question Banks, Question Pools, and Adding Questions to a Course to learn more. Reusing test questions, creating a new test bank, importing a question bank, and uploading test questions via a Text File will be covered in this video.
A question bank is a collection of questions that is stored for repeated use.
Question Banks can be created in a course in one of (3) ways:
- New (through Question Banks on the Details & Actions menu): Creating test questions from scratch by manually adding them, question by question into the course.
- Import from File (through Question Banks on the Details & Actions menu): Import a question bank from a file that is either exported out from another course or is a test bank provided by a publisher. These will be housed in a zip file.
- Copy Question Banks from One Course To Another: Question Banks located in another course of the instructors can be copied over to a course by clicking the purple plus on Course Content page > Copy Content > course where desired Question Banks are housed > identify Question Bank(s) desired> Copy content.
Once Question Banks reside in the course they can be used across multiple assessments. More on reusing questions in your assessments. Question Banks is a set of questions housed within a course.
Ultra vs. Original Course View Assessment Terminology
Changes to assessment feature names have been made in Bb Ultra to align with current industry standards. The table lists the names of assessment question features in the two different course views.
About Question Banks
When you select bank questions for an assessment, copies of the questions are created and added to the assessment. You can edit the copies in your assessment without concern -- other assessments aren't affected. Changes made to one instance of the question or content aren't reflected in the other instances. If you want changes to show in all instances, you must find and edit each copied instance.
You can import question pools or files from outside resources into your course. Only ZIP files are supported.
Questions imported from a QTI package are only supported in the Original Course View.
Importing Questions Video
Copy Question Banks From Other Courses
Instructors spend a great amount of time building and refining assessment questions. Reusing these questions across courses is of utmost importance. Instructors can copy question banks from Original and Ultra courses. This saves time and provides greater efficiency.
From the Copy Content menu, select the Question Banks folder from the desired course. To copy all banks the instructor may select the checkbox for the Question Bank folder.
Image 1. Question Banks folder option from Copy Content menu
To copy individual banks select the Question Banks folder to open it. Select the checkbox for each bank to copy.
Image 2. List of all Question Banks
Copied Question Banks appear in the Question Banks area. Select Manage Banks in the Details & Actions menu to review all question banks in the course.
Import Question Banks
On the Course Content page, select Manage Banks in the Details & Actions panel. On the Question Banks page, select the purple plus icon and browse for one or more ZIP files to import.
As the file imports, you can view the supported question types. You'll receive a success message when the file imports successfully. You'll also receive a message if the file or some question types weren't uploaded.
The message can take some time to generate. You can refresh the page to see if the import was successful or not. You'll also receive an email when the operation is completed.
The most recently imported bank appears first in the list. An exclamation icon appears with banks where one or more unsupported questions were removed.
These supported question types appear in a question bank after import:
- Calculated Formula
- Essay
- Fill in the Blank
- Fill in Multiple Blanks
- Matching
- Multiple Choice
- Multiple Answer
- True/False
Unsupported question types are removed. If your file has no supported question types, the question bank isn't added to your course.
If you uploaded a file with multiple banks and some items weren't imported, select the View Details link. The Import Details panel opens with more information.
Other messages may appear:
- Unsupported question types were removed: Only supported questions in this file appear in the Question Banks section on the Reuse Questions page.
- The bank wasn't imported as no compatible questions were found: No questions in this file appear in the Question Banks section on the Reuse Questions page. The question bank isn't added to the Question Banks page.
Deleting Question Banks
When you delete a question bank on the Question Banks page, the bank is permanently removed from your course. If you copied questions from the bank into one or more assessments, those questions remain in your assessments after you delete the bank. However, you can't delete question banks used in question pools.
? What happens to Original course question pools when converted to Ultra?
Your Original course's question pools appear as Ultra question banks after conversion. Unsupported question types are removed.
When you convert an Original course to Ultra, two decimal places carry over.
? On the Question Banks page, can I import files from the Original Course View?
Yes, you can import these files:
- Course packages that contain question pools
- Only the question pools are imported and converted to Ultra question banks.
- Question pools exported from the Original Course View
- If you unpackage the file and change it, the import may fail.
? On the Question Banks page, can I import files from the Ultra Course View?
Yes, you can import Ultra Course View packages that contain question banks. Only the question banks are imported.
? On the Question Banks page, can I import files from a third-party or publisher?
Yes, you can import question banks from a third-party or publisher if the package is in a Blackboard Original or Ultra format previously listed.
? What workarounds can I use?
If you have other types of files that work in the Original Course View, you can import the files into an Original course and export them on the Pools page. Next, import the ZIP files into your Ultra course on the Question Banks page.
You can also convert an Original course to Ultra to convert the existing question pools into Ultra question banks.
See Also: Create or Edit Question Banks and Reuse Blackboard Test Questions