Use Question Banks & Question Pools in Learn Ultra

Question Banks are a collection of questions stored for repeated use across assessments. Question Pools ensure each student receives a different version of the assessment.

🏴This information applies only to Blackboard Learn Ultra.

Question Banks

When you select questions from a bank and add them to an assessment, copies of the questions are created and added to the assessment. You can edit the copies in your assessment without affecting other assessments. Changes you make to one instance of the question or content aren't reflected in the other instances. If you want changes to show in all instances, you must find and edit each copied instance.

Import question banks

As the file imports, you can view the supported question types. You'll receive a success message when the file imports successfully. You'll also receive a message if the file or some question types weren't uploaded.

The most recently imported bank appears first on the list. An exclamation icon appears in banks where one or more unsupported questions were removed.

Supported question types

These supported question types appear in a question bank after import:

• Calculated Formula
• Essay
• Fill in the Blank
• Fill in Multiple Blanks
• Matching
• Multiple Choice
• Multiple Answer
• True/False

Unsupported question types are removed. If your file has no supported question types, the question bank isn't added to your course.

If you uploaded a file with multiple banks and some items weren't imported, select the View Details link.

The Import Details panel opens for you to Learn More information.

Create or edit question banks

From the Details & Actions menu, select Manage banks under Question Banks to do the following:

• Create new, empty question banks in your Ultra course
• View and search for questions within a question bank
• Add, edit, and delete all aspects of a question within new and existing question banks
• Copy questions from other banks or assessments into a question bank

Reuse Questions

You can reuse questions and other content from all existing tests, assignments, and question banks.

Sort Question Banks

Use sorting controls to easily navigate question banks. You can sort question banks by name, number of questions in a bank, or by date the bank was last edited.

You can add descriptions to question banks to keep track of the topics or goals your questions cover.

The search bar allows you to easily locate a specific question bank in a course. You can search by name or description.

Copy question banks from other courses

Reusing assessment questions across courses can save time.  You can copy question banks from Original and Ultra courses.

From Copy Content, select the Question Banks folder from the desired course. To copy all banks, select the checkbox for the Question Banks folder.

To copy individual banks, open the Question Banks folder and select the checkbox for each bank you want to  copy.

Copied banks appear in the Question Banks area. Select Manage banks in the Details & Actions panel  to review all question banks in the course.

Other messages may appear:

• Unsupported question types were removed: Only supported questions in this file appear in the Question Banks section on the Reuse Questions page.
• The bank wasn't imported as no compatible questions were found: No questions in this file appear in the Question Banks section on the Reuse Questions page. The question bank isn't added to the Question Banks page.

Delete question banks

When you delete a question bank, it is permanently removed from your course. If you copied questions from the bank into one or more assessments, those questions remain in your assessments after you delete the bank.

Question pools

• You can use a keyword search to find questions to add.
• You choose the number of questions from a pool to display to students. For example, you can show 3 questions out of 50. The questions are then randomly distributed so each student sees a different set of 3 questions.
• You can display all the questions in a pool. Questions appear in a random order for each student.
• After you make your selections, you set the same points possible for all questions in the pool.
• You can delete questions in a pool. The question is removed from the pool, but not deleted from your course.
• In the student view, questions randomly selected from a pool appear just as other questions do. Students won't know the questions are from a pool.

Add a question pool

In an assessment, select the plus sign wherever you want to add a question pool. Select Add question pool from the menu. The question pool is inserted at this point in the assessment.

Add Question Pool page

On the Add Question Pool page, select the assessments, question banks, and question types you want to browse.

The Filter Criteria panel is open by default and all questions appear in the active filter area on the right. The active filter area changes automatically as you select or clear criteria. You can expand and collapse sections. On small devices, the Filter Criteria panel is closed by default.

The information at the top of the panel shows how many total items appear to choose from. If you make selections in the Filter Criteria panel, the number appears above the panel next to Filter. Select the X to collapse the panel and increase the area to view questions. Select Filter to open the panel.

In the Filter Criteria panel, you can perform a basic search by keyword. After you type one keyword, another field appears. Each applicable keyword may increase the number of results. Results include singular and plural forms of a word and tenses such as -ing and -ed. Partial word and contains logic won't work with this basic search.

View questions

On the Add Question Pool page, you can expand questions to view them.

Select questions

If you make selections in the Filter Criteria panel, the number appears above the panel next to Filter. In the active filter area on the right, select the checkboxes for the questions you want to add. You can view how many items you've selected at the bottom of the screen.

Select Clear all to clear the check boxes in the Sources section. If you already chose some questions to add, those items are still ready to add. In the active filter area, clear the check boxes for the questions you no longer want to copy. You can also use Select all and Clear all to choose all and remove all questions.

You can't edit the questions or the points on the Add Question Pool page. Questions with goal alignments appear with trophy icons next to the points. Goal alignments are added with the questions.

Select Add Questions. The question pool appears in your assessment. Type the points and the number of questions to display to students. The points are assigned to each question in the pool. You can't assign separate points for individual questions in the same pool.

Select Save to add the question pool to your assessment.

Edit points assigned

You can edit the points assigned to each question in the pool even after submissions exist and trigger regrading.

Important edit points scenario:

For example, you grade an Essay question in a pool that's worth 10 points and post the grades for several students. You decide to change the points for each question in the pool to 5. If you previously assigned more than 5 points for some students' Essay questions, those points still apply. You can individually edit each student's points for the Essay question.

Edit question pools

Before students open an assessment, you can add, remove, and edit individual questions in a question pool. When you remove a question in a pool, the question isn't deleted from your course. You can also delete a pool or move a pool to a new location in the assessment.

1. After you save the question pool, press the Drag to reorder icon in a pool's row to move it to a new location. The question numbering updates automatically. Open the menu and select Edit to make changes to the pool such as the questions' points. Select Delete to remove the pool from the assessment.

You can use your keyboard to move an item.

1. Tab to an item's Drag to reorder icon.
2. Press Enter to activate move mode.
3. Use the arrow keys to choose a location.
4. Press Enter to drop the item in the new location.
2. You can view the questions in a pool and add, remove, or edit questions.
3. Select the plus sign wherever you want to add another question pool.

To view questions in the pool, select View questions. On the Question Pool page, the number of questions in the pool is listed in the top-left area. The source assessment for each question in the pool is listed.

When you select Edit/Regrade, a notification appears that states how many other assessments are affected. If you edit a question in a question pool, the edits appear everywhere the question is used. The same is true for edits you make in a source assessment's questions. Those edits affect all the question pools where the question appears.

After students open an assessment or make submissions, you can't add or remove questions from a pool or delete a pool from an assessment. You also can't move the pool to a new location in the assessment. You can edit, regrade, and give full credit for questions when submissions exist. For example, if you change the correct answer, the question is regraded in all assessments where the question is used.

Give full credit option

You can give everyone full credit for a question you didn't explain clearly or doesn't accurately reflect your lecture or textbook material.

You can give full credit for a question from the View questions link in a pool or from a student's submission page. If you apply full credit for a question in a source assessment or in a question pool, full credit is applied to that question everywhere it appears.

After you select Edit/Regrade in a question's menu, you can select the check box for Give full credit for question. After you give full credit, you can clear the check box to revert to the automatic grade or a previously assigned manual grade.

Your update affects existing attempts, attempts in progress, and subsequent submissions. Student grades are updated, but the new grades or reversal may not appear immediately.

When you give full credit, you can’t change student scores for an individual question. You can override each student’s assessment score to adjust the points.

More on editing assessments and questions

More on overriding grades

Student view of full credit

After grading is completed and you show students the correct answers, they can see which questions you've awarded full credit. Full credit given appears next to the grade pill and is also noted in the answers section.

Delete existing questions

You can’t delete the source assessments for question pools from these areas:

• Course Content page
• Gradebook list or grid view

You also can't delete these items:

• Folders that contain source assessments for question pools
• Question banks used in question pools