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Organize and reuse question banks

Open Question banks to keep reusable assessment content in one place. A bank can belong to the whole site or to a course, depending on your permissions. Folders help you organize questions by topic, outcome, or difficulty.

Create a bank​

  1. Create a bank with a recognizable name and description.
  2. Choose its owner or scope from the available options.
  3. Add folders if the collection needs them. A new folder is created inside the currently selected folder.
  4. Add a question and choose its format.
  5. Complete Content & answers, Scoring & feedback, and Organization.
  6. Use Learner preview, then save the question in the appropriate readiness state.

In a shared bank, describe how questions should be used. “Kitchen hygiene: induction level” is more useful than “Bank 3.” Metadata and readiness filters help automatic pools choose the intended questions.

Reuse questions in a quiz​

Open a quiz lesson and select Use question banks. Choose specific questions when every learner must answer them, or use Selection rules to draw from a matching pool where supported.

Review the selected questions and pool size before publishing. A bank's total question count is not necessarily the number eligible for a particular pool; readiness, filters, ownership, and publication all matter.

Understand versions​

Saving a question creates a new version. Versions & usage helps you inspect its history and where it is used. Existing attempts retain the version they began with, so a later spelling correction or scoring change does not quietly alter submitted evidence.

Changing a question's format resets its prompt, answers, and scoring setup. Use that action carefully, or duplicate the question when you want to keep the original example.

Publish, unpublish, or remove a bank​

  • Published banks can be found and reused by authorized authors.
  • Unpublish removes the bank from authoring searches and automatic pools.
  • Delete moves it to Trash and preserves questions and assessment evidence.
  • Restore returns it to Unpublished so you can review it before publishing again.

Existing fixed placements in quizzes keep their questions when a bank is unpublished or trashed. Automatic pools need particular attention: check that they still contain enough eligible questions after removing a source bank.

Use the directory's search, owner, status, sorting, and advanced filters to find content. If a bank disappears, clear filters and check Trash before creating a duplicate.

For supported formats and scoring choices, see question types. For importing external collections, see import and transfer.