Important: This is a single support article covering one aspect of Canvas New Quizzes. For more information about the tool, including support and training, visit our New Quizzes Hub.
This support article covers several different ways that faculty can migrate their Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes. While it’s fairly easy to migrate simple quizzes without question banks, the process can be a bit more complex when attempting to migrate banks or groups. Once you migrate your quiz to New Quizzes, you cannot go back. So, if you are new to quiz migration, or if you just want help, we recommend skipping to the CIRT Migration Services section below.
What is Canvas New Quizzes?
Canvas New Quizzes is powerful and flexible quizzing engine designed to increase learning, which offers a modern and intuitive new interface, designed to engage students with effective and accessible assessments. New Quizzes also brings a host of features and enhancements aimed at empowering faculty.
Limitations of New Quizzes
⚠️ Before migrating to New Quizzes, it’s important to recognize that while the tool comes with a host of exciting new features, because it’s “new,” it also has some limitations worth understanding. ⚠️
- Click here to view the Classic/New Quizzes comparison doc at Instructure
- Click here to view a known list of limitations on CIRT’s New Quizzes Hub
CIRT recommends viewing both of the above sources before continuing with the migration, especially because as New Quizzes evolves, so will these resources. If you are not sure if your quiz is ready to be migrated, please see the CIRT Migration Services section at the end of this article.
The Many Ways to Migrate
The are several different ways that faculty can migrate Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes, all of which are listed below. Remember, no matter which migration option you choose, it is important to preview and closely review each New Quiz before publishing it to make sure everything migrated correctly!
Single Quiz Migration
The process for migrating a quiz varies slightly depending on whether or not that quiz pulls questions from a question bank or a question group. Each of these scenarios is detailed below.
Single Quiz Migration
Use the single quiz migration process to migrate Classic Quizzes that do not pull questions from question banks.
Use the Migrate option from the Quizzes index page of your course. This will create a duplicate, unpublished version of the quiz in the New Quiz format.
1. Click on the Options menu to the right of the quiz (indicated by three dots).
2. Choose the Migrate option.
Some things to note about migrated quizzes:
- Migrated quizzes display underneath the original quiz with a New Quiz icon (a solid or filled-in rocket ship).
- Question groups with manually created questions migrate as item banks in New Quizzes.
- After migration to New Quizzes, Multiple Dropdown questions display as Fill in the Blank questions.
- Text No Question questions migrate to New Quizzes as Stimulus questions. An instructor must add a question in order for it to display in a quiz.
- Practice quizzes from Classic Quizzes can be migrated to New Quizzes. Once migrated, by default, the practice quizzes are displayed as zero points possible and are hidden from the Gradebook and Grades page.
You can learn more about this option from the Canvas Guide: How do I migrate a Canvas quiz to New Quizzes?.
Quizzes with Question Banks
Question banks cannot be directly migrated to item banks within New Quizzes. Instead, please follow these steps to migrate items that are in a question bank.
If you need help, contact us at cirtlab@unf.edu.
Prepping the Question Bank:
- Create a new Classic Quiz titled with the name of the question bank you are migrating. If you are migrating several question banks from the same course, title the quiz with the name of the course.
- Click on the Questions tab and select the Find Questions button.
- Select the desired question bank and click on Select All to select all questions in the bank.
- Scroll to the bottom of the list of questions. Within the Add questions to the question group dropdown menu, select [Create Group]. Then, click Add Questions to add all questions from the bank into the Classic Quiz as a question group.
- Name the group with the same name as the question bank. In the Pick field, enter the total number of questions in the bank. (This number is displayed in parenthesis under the Pick field.) Then, click Create Group.
Note: You can add multiple question banks as separate groups within the same quiz. They will migrate as separate item banks within New Quizzes.
- Save the Quiz.
- Return to the Quizzes index page and use the Migrate option for the quiz you just created. This will create a duplicate, unpublished version of the quiz in the New Quiz format.
Watch this YouTube video for a detailed demonstration of this process. Alternately, if you are familiar with how to export quizzes in QTI format, another option is to import questions from a QTI package into an item bank in New Quizzes.
Bulk Quiz Migration
You can copy course content such as assignments, modules, pages, and discussions from previous Canvas courses into existing courses. You can also use the course import tool to bulk migrate your quizzes to New Quizzes.
IMSCC & QTI Imports
If you have a Canvas course export package from someone else that you want to use in Canvas, or you have previously exported a course, you can import the course as a Canvas course export package. An export package is imported as an IMSCC file.
Notes:
- When imported into a course, course exports have the same limitations as course imports. For more details, learn more about the Course Import Tool.
- When importing a QTI file of a Classic Quiz into a New Quiz, the total points on the Quiz Details page will default to 1 Point, but the point values assigned to each question will be the same as in the Classic Quiz. Instructors should review settings to ensure total points on the Details and Build pages match. Read more about this in our support doc: New Quizzes / Scoring.
- New Quizzes does not include a survey feature. Therefore, surveys migrated from Classic Quizzes come over as standard quizzes in New Quizzes.
- After migration to New Quizzes, multiple dropdown questions display as matching questions.
- Text No Question questions migrate to New Quizzes as Stimulus questions. An instructor must add a question in order for it to display in a quiz.
- Question groups with manually created questions will migrate as item banks in New Quizzes.
- If a quiz is migrated multiple times, Canvas uses smart merging to decipher the question bank content that should be retained. This process helps ensure all content is retained, such as in cases where multiple users may be making edits to a quiz at the same time.
- Practice quizzes from Classic Quizzes can be migrated to New Quizzes. Once migrated, by default, the practice quizzes are displayed as zero points possible and are hidden from the Gradebook and Grades page.
Click here for more detailed instructions on how to use the Course Import Tool to migrate your quizzes.
Important Note on Imports
Using the Quiz Import function is a quick and easy way to migrate Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes, or to copy quizzes between courses. When importing a quiz into a Canvas course, it is imperative to select the Import existing quizzes as New Quizzes checkbox. Additionally, in cases where the import file already includes New Quizzes, it remains crucial to always select this checkbox as New Quizzes might not import correctly if it is not selected.
CIRT Migration Support
CIRT offers both Migration Consultations and Migration Services for faculty who want to transition to new quizzes. Below you can learn the difference between each service.
Migration Consultation (Recommended)
If you choose a Migration Consultation, a member of the Online Learning Team will work with you to access the status of your Classic Quizzes and the migration difficulty. Depending on the complexity of the migration and whether or not you are making use of LTIs in the quiz environment, we may need to engage with third-party tool representatives or a member or the CIRT Instructional Design team. By working closely with us, faculty will not only be sure that their quizzes are migrated correctly, but will learn the ins and outs of New Quizzes throughout the consultation(s).
To request a Migration Consultion, simply email us at cirtlab@unf.edu or call at (904) 620-3927.
Migration Services
Migration Services are available for instructors who feel comfortable with the new engine but simply don’t have the time to migrate the full scope of the previous quizzes into the new engine. This service will be available until mid-summer 2025. To request migration services, simply email us at cirtlab@unf.edu or call at (904) 620-3927.
Support & Training
A wide array of training opportunities are available through both CIRT and Instructure directly. As live sessions become available, links to session information and registration will be updated on the CIRT Events Calendar. 📅
The New Quizzes Hub has been designed as a one-stop-shop for UNF faculty who wish to use New Quizzes, where you can find news and updates on every step of the New Quizzes rollout, as well as support documentation and training materials that will help you dive in and make the switch from Classic to New Quizzes. Along with the information hosted on the Hub, UNF faculty should expect to periodically receive a “New Quizzes Insider” newsletter (sent via email), that will have specific updates about each phase of the transition, information about product enhancements, and upcoming training opportunities.
As always, CIRT is available and happy to help. Feel free to email us (cirtlab@unf.edu) or call (904) 620-3927 with any questions, concerns, or new insights you may gain during your New Quizzes journey!
