Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by Luca Bösch -
Number of replies: 7
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Dear forum readers

I'm following up on the two threads https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=401987 ("duplicating the quiz does not duplicate the questions in the category") and https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=400545 ("When I import one quiz from course to course, all categories all imported too! Why?").

The https://docs.moodle.org/38/en/Quiz_FAQ#Copying_a_quiz section in the MoodleDocs is very welcome. Maybe that could be extended, and that is where my issue drops in.

I've got a group of lecturers who organize a question pool for their topic in a course they're all editing teachers in (let's call this the 'question pool course').
The questions are on course context level.
Questions are in use in quizzes.

What I need now is an advice on how to:
Proceed to export/import in my own course with the ability to then change/suppress questions in my own course (let's call this the 'own course').

What lecturers experience now is that a warning appears when they try to delete a question they don't necessarily want to see ("Question is in use in a quiz") and deleting is not possible.

We also like to assure when editing questions in the 'own course' of a lecturer then, it remains unchanged.

I'd love to have a document/resource

1) explaining the reasoning for this behaviour to happen.
2) showing a workaround on how to proceed to safely delete/modify questions imported in my course.

Best,
Luca

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Luca Bösch

Re: Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by Tim Hunt -
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If the question was recently exported, then imported, then it cannot possibly be used in a quiz.

Did you look in the database, and in the logs, to see what was actually going on in the case where Moodle thought the question was in a quiz?
In reply to Luca Bösch

Re: Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by Dominique Bauer -
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Hello Luca,

The message is "Questions marked with an asterisk are used somewhere, for example in a quiz. Therefore, if you proceed, these questions will not really be deleted, they will just be hidden." This is a warning that the questions are used somewhere... that is to say in a certain context : Quiz, Course, Course category or System.

I suggest you look at Question contexts. Make sure the questions are in a Course context, not in a Course category context or in the System context.

If you copy questions from the Course_1 context to the Course_2 context, the questions in the two courses become separate entities. You can delete/modify questions in the Course_2 context without affecting the questions in the Course_1 context. Therefore, subject to what Tim said, you should not get the above message when you delete questions in the Course_2 context unless, of course, they are used in a quiz in Course_2.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Luca Bösch

Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by John Provasnik -
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Hello -- In the past, I have avoided copying quizzes from one course to another. Instead, I'd create a new quiz in my course, then I'd go back to the course where the questions live and create copies of the questions I want to use in my course (through the question bank interface). I'd then move those copies into my new course's quiz (through the question bank interface). This ensures they are unique copies, and the 'course banks' do not all get imported into my course.
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If your teachers are all creating a pool of potential questions at the Course Level -- were the questions created directly here in the question bank (by navigating to Course Administration - Question Bank - Questions) , or were they created in directly in the interface of a Quiz?

If you're creating them directly in the course question bank, then can I recommend that when a teacher wants to use one of those questions in their quiz, that they go to the course question bank, duplicate the question (make a copy), and move the copy into their quiz - then when this copy is edited, it will not change the original.

If you've already added the questions into the quiz, you can remove them from the quiz (provided there are not attempts) and instead add copies of those questions. Then each quiz has self-contained questions that you can edit/delete without affecting the original pool of question as the course level.

As Dominique said, if someone does delete a question that is in use (star), it will simply make the question 'hidden ?' in the bank -- there is a restore button that can 'unhide ?' it. Moodle does a good job at protecting its questions from accidental deletion.
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If you don't know where to begin... it's been practice in my school to put the title of the quiz in front of the quiz question. Then if we see that quiz title appear in another course's quiz questions then we know it's a copy from another course, remedied by making a copy of that question and moving the copy into the other quiz.
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I hope these job aids I've put together for my staff give you some insight/direction

Moodle's Question Bank Structure*:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13kPI3Ry2oLlqp39rv5yVikBIdIuRbVmi09BVQ46U4bs/edit?usp=sharing
*Screenshots from Moodle Docs / MoodleDemo.net

Creating Quizzes and Questions:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BUVfcu-OdENeXDhpsJm92wGTjfjnjxA_xsKRX37n0TI/edit?usp=sharing

Question Bank Clean Up:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uyU2K15wI7scew6lzmevkj0zBUFvgl8k_9OUr6uG6tc/edit?usp=sharing

Importing a Question Bank:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MnRQgbTW3DQd_PnxLC7TDJ6pBMVl0JKitynYaDtT9CA/edit?usp=sharing
In reply to John Provasnik

Re: Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by Ahmad Amer -
Dear John

If I access the Question bank via the course administration, there is no way to see the quiz context (default for quiz). Right?
In reply to Ahmad Amer

Re: Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by John Provasnik -
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Correct - that context can only be seen in the individual quizzes. And while in one quiz, you cannot see the context of another quiz. 

But you can always see "up" so I use my course category context as a holding ground when moving questions from one quiz to another. 

though the quiz question import/export feature can probably handle this better, I chose not to use that method in my job aids. 

In reply to John Provasnik

Re: Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by Ahmad Amer -
Dear John

Would you please explain the following:
"But you can always see "up" so I use my course category context as a holding ground when moving questions from one quiz to another. "
In reply to Ahmad Amer

Re: Management (editing/deleting) of questions imported from an other courses question bank

by John Provasnik -
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"Up" as in up the hierarchy- 

At the system level, when you click on Questions - Categories in the admin block, you can only see the system question banks.

At the category level, you can see the category's  banks and the system banks. 

At the course level, you can see the course's banks, the category's banks, and the system level banks. 

And finally at the quiz level, you can see the quizzes's banks, the course's banks, the category's banks, and the system question bank. 

The Moodle Docs will cover this more thoroughly.