Canvas Quiz

Difference between assignment due dates and availability dates.

Quizzes should be made available for the duration of a test sat under normal conditions, with the addition of 15 minutes to cater for the online delivery mode. Below is an example of a 1-hour, 15-minute test, starting at 1pm. Add an additional 15 minutes as a ‘grace’ period in case of technical difficulties but do not publicise this to students as it can lead to confusion. Students that submit outside of the 75-minute test window, but within the 15-minute grace period, will have their submissions flagged as ‘submitted late’.

• Set the availability of the Canvas Quiz by clicking Edit, then scrolling down to Options.
• Leave ‘Time limit’ unticked. We are not recommending that you use this feature for tests as it can override the 15-minute grace period.
• Set your Due date for the end date and time of the assessment, e.g. for 2.15pm NZST, use 14:15 in Canvas.
• Set Available from for 13:00 on the date of the start of the assessment.
• The available Until time should be set to 15 minutes later than the Due time to act as a grace period for any technical issues. Set ‘Until’ for 14:30 for the same day.*
• Don’t forget to Save and publish your Quiz when ready.

If you require different start times for different groups of students, or individual students, please see the other options below.

Note: You may encounter some error with setting up the availability times if the assessment ‘due date is set after the course term ends’. To fix this, you will need to ensure the Term Start and End dates are entered correctly in the course Settings, and the option ‘Students can only participate in the course between these dates’ is checked.

* Ensure that 15 minutes is also added as a grace period for any students with approved special conditions of extra time. Please see the heading below for setting the availability for individuals.

Quizzes should be made available for the duration of a test sat under normal conditions, with the addition of 15 minutes to cater for the online delivery mode. Below is an example of a 1-hour, 15-minute test, starting at 1pm. Add an additional 15 minutes as a ‘grace’ period in case of technical difficulties, but do not publicise this to students as it can lead to confusion. Students that submit outside of the 75-minute test window, but within the 15-minute grace period, will have their submissions flagged as ‘submitted late’.

Online tests will need to cater for students in different time zones. For example, the students in Southwest University in Chongqing have their test time set to four hours later (NZDT), which is 1pm in their time zone. Please note, you are able to determine offshore students in your course and to understand their group ‘section code’ in Canvas.

• Set the availability of the Canvas Quiz by clicking Edit, then scrolling down to Options.
• Leave ‘Time limit’ unticked. We are not recommending that you use this feature for tests as it can override the 15-minute grace period.
• For multiple ‘sections’ (offshore students) that require different start times, click the ‘+ Add‘ button and add these times under the ‘Assign to‘ section.

Quizzes should be made available for the duration of a test sat under normal conditions, with the addition of 15 minutes to cater for the online delivery mode. Below is an example of a 1-hour, 15-minute test. Add an additional 15 minutes as a ‘grace’ period in case of technical difficulties, but do not publicise this to students as it can lead to confusion. Students that submit outside of the 75-minute test window, but within the 15-minute grace period, will have their submissions flagged as ‘submitted late’.

Adding extra time for a test for those with approved special conditions.*

For this example scenario below, a student requires an extra minutes added to the 75-minute quiz.

• Click on the “Quizzes” tab in the course navigation menu.
• Locate the quiz for which you want to grant the time extension and click on its title to access the quiz settings.
• On the quiz page, you’ll see a button labeled “Moderate This Quiz” Click on it to access the moderation options.
• You’ll see a list of students who have taken or started the quiz.
• Find the student for whom you want to provide a time extension and click the “Moderate” button (represented by a pencil icon) next to their name.
• In the pop-up window that appears, you’ll find an option called “Extra time on every attempt” Enter the additional time you want to provide for this student’s quiz attempt. This time will be added to the student’s overall quiz time.
• Click the “Save” button to apply the time extension to the selected student’s quiz attempt.

The Moderate Quiz screen in Canvas showing a list of students. A student’s name was clicked showing a popup window with the option to add extra time for every attempt.

Read full details on the Canvas Instructure site.

In some cases, you may need to add extra attempts for a student on Canvas Quiz.

Note: With the introduction of New Quizzes, students with approved special conditions can be awarded extra time for completing any number of quizzes throughout your course. This can either be a set amount of extra time, or a time limit ‘multiplier.’ See How do I add Accommodations for a student in New Quizzes?

Quizzes should be made available for the duration of a test sat under normal conditions, with the addition of 15 minutes to cater for the online delivery mode. Below is an example of a 1-hour, 15-minute test, starting at 1pm. Add an additional 15 minutes as a ‘grace’ period in case of technical difficulties, but do not publicise this to students as it can lead to confusion. Students that submit outside of the 75-minute test window, but within the 15-minute grace period, will have their submissions flagged as ‘submitted late’.

Assign a different duration for a test for those who requires extension due to a temporary illness or exceptional circumstances*

For this example scenario below, John Smith requires an extra 15 minutes added to the 75-minute test due to an exceptional circumstances. This also shows the 15-minute post-deadline window (grace period).

• Set the availability of the Canvas Quiz by clicking Edit, then scrolling down to Options.
• Leave ‘Time limit’ unticked. We are not recommending that you use this feature for tests as it can override the 15-minute grace period.
• For students with approved extra time, click the ‘+ Add‘ button and add the time extension under the ‘Assign to‘ section.

In some cases, you may need to add extra attempts for a student on Canvas Quiz.

Note: With the introduction of New Quizzes, students can be awarded extra time for completing any number of quizzes throughout your course. This can either be a set amount of extra time, or a time limit ‘multiplier.’ See How do I add Accommodations for a student in New Quizzes?

Canvas has released New Quizzes and is phasing out Classic Quizzes by mid-2024. The Canvas developers provide the following documentation:

Canvas Instructor Guides for New Quizzes

More about New Quizzes (from the team at Learning and Teaching Innovation Services)

Migrate Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes

Teachers can migrate existing Quizzes to New Quizzes with a few steps. And if you have used Question Banks to populate your Quizzes, please note that this feature is replaced by Item Banks. A migration tool from Question Banks to Item Banks is still in development, but in the meantime teachers can follow the methods demonstrated:

Migrating Question Banks (instructional video)

Use item banks (collections of questions grouped by specific topics or themes) to create quizzes with randomized sets of questions, so that students receive a unique set of questions every time they take the quiz. This is called question banks in New Quizzes.

• For MCQs, select Shuffle choices (New Quizzes) or Shuffle answers (Classic Quizzes) to allow randomisation of the order of choices. MCQ options that include choices that depend on their position, e.g., “All of the above” can be arranged using the ‘lock position’ option next to that answer.
• For time-limited assessments, e.g., mid-semester tests, leave ‘Time limit’ unticked. Set the availability time and due time to include a 15-minute grace period to mitigate technical difficulties (see above). If you enable the time limit setting and add minutes, it can give a misleading timer countdown to students. The due date and availability must be within course dates.
• Do not allow multiple attempts. ‘Allow multiple attempts’ is unchecked by default, so ensure that it remains unchecked for the assessment. Advise students not to hit the submit button until they have reviewed their answers and are sure they are ready. Example instruction: “You should only click ‘Submit quiz’ when you are sure that you are finished with your assessment and no longer want to make any changes. You only have one attempt at this quiz. Once you hit ‘Submit quiz’ you will not be able to re-open the quiz.”
• Tick Show one question at a time so students’ answers are saved every time they progress to the next question. Not ticking this will allow students to see all questions on the screen at the same time, but introduces the risk that they could lose their work if they have internet connection issues before submitting.
• Do not ‘Lock questions after answering’ so students have the opportunity to review their answers before submitting; this is called Allow backtracking in New Quizzes.
• Do not reveal the answers to the students during the assessment time. Tick ‘Restrict student result view’ (New Quizzes) and leave all subsequent checkboxes blank. In Classic Quizzes, untick ‘Let students see their quiz responses’.
• For pre-lesson knowledge check or practice tests, select the option for “Do not count this assignment towards the final grade”.

Quiz options screen showing two checkboxes that are ticked: shuffle answers and show one question at a time.

Read more about:

• General quiz settings (New Quizzes)
• General quiz settings (Classic Quizzes)

If you require students to view a document in order to complete their quiz, link to the document from your quiz instructions. Upload the supplementary document to the Files area in Canvas, then right-click the document name and select ‘copy link’. Return to the Quiz and paste the link into the instructions. To make sure students cannot access these files prior to taking the quiz, please change the permission settings in Files.

In Classic Quizzes, images and files attached to quiz questions are automatically saved in the “Uploaded media” folder in Files, so change the permissions for these also. This is not an issue for New Quizzes.

If you require students to upload files as part of their answer, you can use the File upload question type. Please note that when marking the uploaded document in SpeedGrader, applying comments and annotations to the document is not possible.

Read about why some content may not display on student’s PDF submission.

Quizzes works in tandem with question banks, enabling students to receive a random selection. However, we urge caution and recommend that any questions in a question bank are of equivalent difficulty to ensure equity and fairness in assessment.

If different students receive different questions, be aware that problems can arise when examiners try to notify students of a question that has an error. This is particularly problematic for time-limited mid-semester tests or final exams. The guidelines for question randomisation in Inspera also applies to Canvas Quizzes.

See item banks (New Quizzes), and this video demonstration on using item banks, or question banks (for Classic Quizzes, deprecated).

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We recommend you communicate with students that they should not click ‘Submit quiz’ until they are completely finished. Some wording that may be useful to use in your instructions:

You should only click ‘Submit quiz’ when you are sure you are finished with your assessment and no longer want to make any changes. You only have one attempt at this quiz. Once you hit ‘Submit quiz’ you will not be able to re-open the quiz.

In New Quizzes, the submit button will ask students to confirm that they wish to proceed.

Students will be more inclined to share answers with their classmates if they know they have answered them correctly. Therefore, make sure Canvas Quiz does not reveal the answers during, or just after the assessment time.

• Tick ‘Restrict student result view’ (New Quizzes) and leave all subsequent checkboxes blank. Or for Classic Quizzes, untick ‘Let students see their quiz responses’.

• Then from your Canvas course, go to Grades, locate the assessment and click the three dots beside the name.
  
• Click on Grade Posting Policy and choose Manual, scroll to the bottom and click Save.
  

We recommend that students have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with Canvas Quizzes via a practice quiz, prior to an assessment that bares a significant weighting. This is particularly important for quizzes that require students to upload a file (e.g., a scanned hand written/drawn document) as part of the assessment.

When students begin the Canvas Quiz they will see a timer, showing how long they have spent on the quiz. We suggest that you advise students that they need to submit the completed quiz before the due time.

Example message for students completing a Canvas Quiz:
“Canvas will show you a timer indicating how long you have spent on this quiz. Please ensure that you have submitted the completed quiz before the due time ([date and time here]).”

Canvas Quizzes are not currently integrated with Turnitin. However, we have developed a workaround which may require some technical expertise to download written Quiz answers for uploading to Turnitin.

Note: So far this has been tested with Classic Quizzes but not with New Quizzes.