This video describes how to create online quizzes on Canvas, what options to use, and when to use them in an online class.
Watch the video here: (length = 4:27)
Documentation for Creating Quizzes
Documentation for Creating Multiple-Choice Questions
In this video, I'll talk about creating online quizzes and tests on Canvas. For online classes at Biola, we generally encourage other kinds of assessments, rather than doing online tests. Although we do have access to some academic integrity tools like the Lock Down browser, it's usually just easier to design the class without tests. Now, that said, shorter quizzes or open-book, timed tests might work well for your class.
To get started, click on Quizzes, then the "Add Quiz" button. Name the quiz, then type a description.
Scroll down, and you'll see lots of different options. The Quiz Type should be Graded Quiz. A Practice Quiz means students scan see their grade, but it doesn't go into the Gradebook. With Surveys, there are no right answers, but you can choose to give students a grade just for completing the survey, or make it ungraded. You could also make surveys anonymous. Let's stick with the default for now.
The Assignment Group determines where this quiz will show up in your list of assignments.
We recommend always choosing Shuffle Answers. For multiple choice questions, it will mix up the answers each time someone takes the quiz. If you do this, remember to change the wording of an answer that says "none of the above" to say "none of the other answers" instead.
You can set a time limit. You can allow students to take the quiz multiple times, and if so, which score to keep. They can take it as many times as they want unless you place a limit. Next, there are a lot of options about if and when they can see their answers and the correct answers. How you set these will depend on the purpose of the quiz. Just be careful, If you're allowing multiple attempts, you probably don't want to show them the correct answers after their first attempt.
There's an option to show just one question at a time, and even keep them from going back to the previous question.
We generally don't use these quiz restrictions, but they would be useful if we had a proctored test-taking lab on campus.
Finally, at the bottom, there's the standard due date options. By default, the same due date applies to everyone. However, you can add an individual due date for a single student, group of students, or a whole section of the class.
Just a quick side note: Sometimes you'll have students who need some kind of exception for some reason. You can do this after you've finished making a quiz. Click on the quiz then click the "Moderate This Quiz" button, then this "Edit" icon to give a student more tries or more time on a quiz.
Okay, back to creating a quiz. Once you've finished choosing the quiz options, scroll to the top and click the "Questions" Tab.
You can Find Questions in a question bank if you have that set up. And you can set up Question Groups where Canvas will randomly choose a few questions out of a larger pool. But those are advanced options. Usually, you'll just be writing individual questions with this "Add New Question" Button.
The most common type is Multiple Choice. Write the question here, then enter the possible answers below. I like to always leave the correct answer at the top, just to keep things simple. But if you do that, don't forget to click "Shuffle Answers" option in the quiz settings, otherwise, your quiz will be really easy!
Here are some of the other kinds of questions. They're mostly self-explanatory. I sometimes use these Numerical Answer and Formula Question options in my math class. If you choose the Essay Questions, File Upload Questions, or Text options, Canvas will not automatically grade that part of the quiz for you. For all the other question types, it does.
Once you're done entering all the questions, click the "Save and Publish" button so students can see it.
So those are the basics of creating a quiz. It's a bit of work up front, but if you set things up right, the quizzes will just run themselves. When students take a quiz, it automatically gets graded and their score just shows up in the Gradebook without you having to do anything. For example, I remember hearing from an English teacher who was frustrated that her students weren't reading the short stories before class so she set up simple, low-stakes quizzes about the stories that were due right before each class. That motivated students to do the readings, even though the quizzes were easy and worth only a few points. And once they were set up, she didn't have to do anything more.
In my own class, I've used quizzes as a way for students to turn in math homework. They do the homework, then just type in the answers on Canvas, and it's automatically graded for me.
Finally, I should mention that there will soon be a new version of the Quiz tool called Quizzes.Next, coming in 2019 or 2020. So some of the specifics I just showed you may change, but the general principles will be the same. You can see the official documentation for up-to-date details.