Moodle Export

Moodle Export

by christy serritella -
Number of replies: 10

I have searched everywhere and have not found an answer.


I have (what I believe to be) Moodle 2.7.  I want to export my quizzes into Canvas (our district moved us over to this this summer).  

Issue: I have uploaded Examview questions to Moodle and have entered additional questions in moodle (most of my tests have banks of over 100 questions).

My problem:  I cannot export my quizzes in the necessary format in order to import them into Canvas.

                         Our version of Moodle only exports in the formats of GIFT, Moddle XML and XHTML, none of which are supported by Canvas.  I tried to convert them with Respondus (downloaded free 30 day trial), but non of the (Moodle) exporting formats will work with Respondus.

Tried to reverse the process and export Moodle questions to Examview, by converting them to RTF. I have tried to convert the GIFT to RFT and that does not work.

I would very much prefer not to have to rewrite all of my questions in Examview to export.


Help!  

Christy 

Cserritella@sandi.net


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In reply to christy serritella

Re: Moodle Export

by Usman Asar -
Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Christy, Unfortunately there wont be much assistance available regarding exporting quizzes/questions out  side of moodle to another LMS, for most if not all the community members have expertise within moodle, best place would  be asking from Canvas support for this  and see  if they have some solution (though you have  already asked them on August 3rd), for they should be responsible for assisting clients embracing their platform.

Even if someone would have been coming from Canvas to moodle and asked the same question, it would have been hard for community members to assist in that eventually recommending to re-do the tasks, I know it will be very hard for you to re-do all that, but for optimum compatibility, it's always recommended to create content using the used platform as imports MAY turn up ugly in long-run when upgrading or using the imports.

Have a look at following pages see if they can assist you.

https://guides.instructure.com/m/4152/l/78277-how-do-i-import-content-from-moodle-into-canvas

http://wikis.evergreen.edu/computing/index.php/Content_Migration_from_Moodle_to_Canvas


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In reply to christy serritella

Re: Moodle Export

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Canvas is not very accommodating importing quiz questions.  Although Usman found a video, this is not how my current copy of Canvas looks.  So I wonder if this importing functionality has been moved.

From my own experience, Canvas is terrible about importing just quiz questions.  Maybe using Respondus as an intermediate translator will work, but you will probably have to buy Respondus.

In my own opinion (until someone can correct me), Canvas is a bit of a wimp compared to Moodle's quiz import/export functionality and overall quiz engine capability.  The video shows that Canvas can only import one type of filetype.

Have you asked your Canvas administrators (or the folks who chose Canvas) to import questions?  What do they say? I think real problem is with Canvas, not Moodle.  Moodle provides three export filetypes.

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Moodle Export

by christy serritella -

Yes. I have contacted Canvas, Moodle (through this avenue), my IT, Google, Bing, Yahoo, Youtube, geek friends. I appreciate all advice.  It looks like I will be retyping everything.  It has been suggested that I hire a teenager.  I type very quickly and since cheating is an issue in my district, I do not feel comfortable doing this.

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In reply to christy serritella

Re: Moodle Export

by Robert Brenstein -
I would set myself a workstation with 2 monitors, open each LMS on the separate screen, and copy-paste text blocks between them. I am surely not so fast typist like you and make typos smile
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In reply to christy serritella

Re: Moodle Export

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Obviously, getting questions into Canvas was not an important factor when your administration decided to go with Canvas.  I hope that they now understand.  At my university, if this were to happen, my administration would simply tell me to do what you are finding yourself doing, type them all in by hand.

By now you can sense my own similar frustration with Canvas and other LMSs that do not provide a wide variety of means of getting textbook questions into the LMS.  This is at least one reason why I really like Moodle - Moodle can import from many different formats.  The odd thing about Canvas is that there seems to be lack of getting questions into it that may be in Blackboard format, a format that has been around for a long time and is still used by many publishing companies.  

Just last month, a new version of one of my textbooks came out.  I went to get the Faculty Resources.  The test bank questions were provided in Blackboard, Angel, and Word format.  Yep, no Moodle or Canvas.  However, I was able to easily import the Blackboard format right into Moodle.  Yep, for 12 chapters with around 75 questions per chapter, this took about 20 minutes and I was done.

(Some administrators think that instructors have all kinds of time available for these chores. It doesn't cost them anything more having you to spend your time doing this, does it?)

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In reply to christy serritella

Re: Moodle Export

by Derek Chirnside -

I see you have posted here Christy:

https://community.canvaslms.com/thread/11779

These guys will be able to help.  If all else fails, hire a teenager to do this manual transfer cut and paste for you.  They type faster than us.

Regards

-Derek

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodle Export

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

Derek, thanks for your post.  This is usually where I end up with Canvas... you do a lot of searching for something that you think should be an elementary need (i.e., importing questions) and end up without a good solution.  The problem actually goes a little deeper.  If one is not using some of the standard question types (T/F, MC, Essay, FITB) you are also out of luck.  For example, I love using moodle's "Calculated Multiple Choice" question type for "math-based" courses.  This question type does not exist in the other LMSs.

At one of the schools where I teach as an adjunct, they have switched to Canvas.  I am still using my own Moodle for my courses.  I found Canvas' Grade Book, Quiz Engine, and Discussion Forums too weak to fit my course needs.  Someday, I plan to do some extensive digging into these within Canvas.  Right now, my Canvas support people are lost too.

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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Moodle Export

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

" hire a teenager to do this manual transfer cut and paste for you."

Depending on the volume of data, this can be a very good idea.

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In reply to christy serritella

Re: Moodle Export

by Dave Emsley -

Hi Christy,

Can you give an example of the format that Canvas supports as it may be reasonably easy to script the changes from one of the Moodle formats.


Cheers

Dave

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In reply to Dave Emsley

Re: Moodle Export

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Sometimes the problem is not the coding to translate but the differences in features between platforms. So for example, if you have a bunch of Moodle Cloze questions it is vanishingly unlikely that another VLE will support the same feature set. 

That is not an argument against investigating writing some code to translate.

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