Canvas New Quizzes Timeline

[kaba8087]

I've used this tool to make quizzes for my courses and it has been so tremendously helpful! I can say that I rave about this constantly :) Thank you very much for creating it!
Canvas has announced that the "Old quizzes" will be phased out over the next year or so, see here.

My question is that will there be an updated version of text2qti that allows the usage of new quizzes? I've tried to migrate to new quizzes but I've been having a lot of issues with formatting, latex, and answers.

Thank you!

[gpoore]

My university has not yet enabled New Quizzes, so I haven't needed to work with them yet and also can't experiment with them.

Canvas claims that New Quizzes can import QTI, which is the format that text2qti creates, so it sounds like in theory text2qti should just continue to work. However, if you're having issues, that may not actually be the case.

When you have tried to migrate to New Quizzes, are you trying to import QTI files created by text2qti? Or are you trying to migrate quizzes that are already in Canvas that were originally created with text2qti but then imported into Canvas as Old Quizzes? Canvas may handle the two cases differently, and this isn't something I can test since I don't have access to New Quizzes.

I am skeptical that Old Quizzes will actually be phased out within the next few years. As far as I can tell, Canvas hasn't published a specification or API for working with New Quizzes, and is still having bugs with basic functionality like New Quiz export. But we'll just have to see what happens.

[hudcap]

I have been using this amazing package (thank you @gpoore!!) exclusively with New Quizzes, pushing it to the limits, as I am generating 50-question multiple-choice exams where each question comes from a group of 30 randomized versions of the same question. It works fine.
The only issue I've had is that it takes a while to import (not surprising, given that it's 1500 questions), and the import has hung in the past, which I don't think is related to text2qti, because it would work when I tried again with the same file. I haven't had hanging issues this semester yet, so Canvas might have fixed whatever was causing it.

Full disclosure: I don't use LaTeX in my questions, and I do all my formatting with html/css—a little "hacky", but it works fine...

[ururk]

@hudcap Could you let me know what settings you choose to import new quizzes? Our experience (earlier this summer) was that it created a "New Quiz" but the quiz was empty.

[hudcap]

On the Build page of a New Quiz, in the 3-dot menu (top-right) there is an option to Import Content that lets you upload the QTI file.
I don't recall there being any settings when uploading.

[ururk]

Ah! We were going the Import Content route (via the course landing page), not through the New Quiz interface. We'll give that a try.

[hudcap]

Point to note: AFAIK, you can only Import Content once per quiz. If you mess something up, you need to create a new quiz to import again.

[ururk]

Good to know!

[lkcormack]

When you import a New Quiz, does Canvas automatically create a corresponding test bank, like it does with old quizzes? (We don't have the option for new quizzes yet, so I can't check this myself.) Thank you.

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[hudcap]

I'm not really familiar with old quizzes. When I import a QTI into a New Quiz, any question groups are automatically converted into an Item Bank.
I never do anything with them since every edit I make is always outside of Canvas, but I do know that they exist.

Screenshot:

[hudcap]

For anyone relying on the procedure I outlined, it seems that Canvas broke something on their end. Canvas no longer successfully imports QTI files with question groups into New Quizzes, despite reporting a successful import.
My current workaround is to import it to a Classic Quiz and then migrate the Classic Quiz to a new quiz.

I reported this here on the Canvas forums.
If you're having this issue too, please feel free to comment and upvote there to hopefully get the attention of the Canvas devs :-D

[ururk]

@hudcap We noticed the same as well, and are supposed to have a ticket in with Canvas support. "Good" to know it's not just our instance of canvas having this issue.