All About New Quizzes & Item Banks in Canvas

Creating an assessment in Canvas involves more than adding questions. Your assessment type, question types, Item Banks, quiz settings, accommodations, and grading options work together to shape how students take an assessment and how their responses are evaluated.

Quicklinks:  Quizzes Are More Than Just Quizzes | Six Steps to Build & Manage Assessments |Know Where to Go | Use Reports to Inform Your Teaching | Common Scenarios | Need Help?

Quizzes Are More Than Just Quizzes

Despite the name, Quizzes is where you build assessments in Canvas. Depending on your teaching goals, you can use Quizzes to create:

  • Exams and tests
  • Quizzes and knowledge checks
  • Practice and low-stakes assessments
  • Graded surveys
  • Ungraded surveys

Whether you're creating a quick check for understanding or a larger exam, New Quizzes gives you the tools to build, configure, and manage your assessment.

New to Creating Assessments in Canvas?

Six-step New Quizzes pathway: choose an assessment, build questions, organize with Item Banks, configure the quiz, set accommodations, and grade and review results.

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  • Step 1. Choose Your Assessment

    Before you begin building, decide whether you need a Quiz or a Survey. This choice determines which features are available later.

    Illustration representing the choice between quizzes and surveys when creating an assessment in Canvas.

    Quiz: Choose a Quiz when students are being assessed on right or wrong answers.

    Use a Quiz when you want to:

    • Identify correct and incorrect answers
    • Assign points to questions
    • Automatically grade supported question types
    • Use Item Banks
    • Randomize questions
    • Provide feedback based on student responses

    Graded or Ungraded Survey: Choose a Survey when you want to collect responses without identifying answers as correct or incorrect.

    A Graded Survey awards points for participation. An Ungraded Survey collects responses without contributing points toward the course grade.

    Learn How to Create a Survey

    Good to Know: Choose Before You Build

    Surveys and Quizzes are different assessment types. If you choose a Graded or Ungraded Survey, you will not have the same right/wrong answer functionality available in a Quiz.

    If you need correct answers, automatic scoring, Item Banks, or randomized question pools, start with a Quiz.

  • Step 2: Build Your Questions

    New Quizzes includes several question types for different assessment needs. Choose the question type that best matches what you want students to demonstrate and how you want their responses evaluated.

    Choose a Question Type

    Question types support different ways for students to select, enter, organize, and apply their responses.

    Consider How Questions Will Be Graded

    Most New Quizzes question types can be automatically graded when you identify the correct answer while building the question.

    Good to Know: Automatic Grading

    Essay and File Upload questions require manual grading in SpeedGrader. You can combine automatically graded and manually graded questions within the same quiz. 

  • Step 3: Organize & Reuse with Item Banks

    Item Banks let you organize questions into reusable collections. Questions stored in an Item Bank can be used across assessments, shared with others, and used to create randomized question sets.

    Where is this in Canvas?
    Open your New Quiz and select Build. From the Build page, select Item Banks to find an existing bank or create a new one.

    Organize Your Questions

    Item Banks can help you build a reusable collection of questions rather than recreating questions for each assessment.

    Consider organizing banks by:

    • Course or subject
    • Unit or module
    • Topic or concept
    • Learning objective

    Best Practice: Name to Make Things Easier to Find 

    Name Item Banks so you can easily identify their contents later. Instead of naming a bank Quiz 1 Questions, consider a name that describes the course, unit, and topic.

    Example: BIO 101 | Unit 1 | Cell Structure
    Benefits of Item Banks

    Randomize Questions:         Item Banks can also be used to create randomized question sets. Instead of giving every student the same questions, Canvas can randomly select a specified number of questions from an Item Bank. For example, if an Item Bank contains 30 questions, you could configure the quiz to randomly select 10 questions for each student.

    Reuse & Share:     Item Banks can be reused across New Quizzes and shared with other instructors when collaboration is needed. This can be useful for coordinated courses, shared assessments, or departmental question collections.

  • Step 4: Configure Your Quiz

    Quiz settings control how students take an assessment, how many attempts they receive, and what information they can see after submitting. Review these settings before publishing your quiz.

    Where is this in Canvas?
    Open your New Quiz, select Build, and then select Settings.

    Control the Quiz Experience

    Use quiz settings to determine how students move through and interact with the assessment.

    New Quizzes Settings page showing options for configuring the student quiz experience.

    • Shuffle Questions — changes the order of questions for each student.
    • Shuffle Answers — changes the order of answer choices when supported.
    • One Question at a Time — displays one question per page and can limit whether students return to previous questions.
    • Time Limit — sets the amount of time students have to complete an attempt.
    • Access Code — requires students to enter a code before beginning the quiz.

    Watch How to Manage Quiz Settings

    Good to Know: Time Limits & Availability

    A quiz time limit does not override the quiz availability window. If the Until date and time is reached while a student is taking the quiz, the attempt may be submitted even if the student's allotted time has not expired.

    Manage Multiple Attempts

    If students are allowed more than one attempt, you can control how those attempts work and which score Canvas keeps.

    • Set the number of attempts allowed
    • Require time between attempts
    • Allow students to build on their last attempt
    • Choose which score is kept when multiple attempts are completed

    Depending on your settings, Canvas can use the highest, average, latest, or first score from multiple attempts.

    Remember: Quiz Results and Grades Are Different

    New Quizzes settings control what students can see about their quiz results. Your Gradebook posting policy separately controls when students can see their grade.

  • Step 5: Set Accommodations & Moderate

    New Quizzes provides options for supporting individual student needs. Use Accommodations for adjustments that should apply across New Quizzes in the course, and use Moderate when you need to make an adjustment for a specific quiz or attempt.

    Where is this in Canvas?

    Open your New Quiz, select Build, and then select Moderate. From the Moderate page, you can review students and manage accommodations or quiz-specific adjustments.

    New Quizzes Moderate page showing where to select a student for a course-level accommodation or the pencil icon for a quiz-specific adjustment.

    Set an Accommodation

    Accommodations are useful when a student needs the same adjustment across New Quizzes in your course.

    Depending on the accommodation, you can adjust settings such as:

    • Additional time
    • A time-limit multiplier
    • Removing the time limit

    For example, a student who receives time-and-a-half on assessments can be assigned a 1.5× time-limit multiplier.

    Moderate an Individual Quiz

    Use quiz-specific moderation when a student needs an adjustment for a particular assessment or attempt.

    You can use Moderate to:

    • Provide additional attempts
    • Provide additional time
    • Remove a time limit for a specific quiz
    • Reopen a student's most recent attempt when appropriate

     

    Learn About Moderating Assessments

    Remember: Check Your Availability Dates

    Accommodations and moderation do not necessarily change when a quiz is available. Review the quiz's availability dates to make sure the student can access the assessment when needed. 

  • Step 6: Grade & Review

    After students complete a New Quiz, Canvas provides several ways to review responses, grade questions, and examine quiz results. Where you go depends on what you need to do.

    Where is this in Canvas?

    Use SpeedGrader to grade and provide feedback, Moderate to review individual attempts and make student-specific adjustments, and Reports to examine quiz and question performance.

    Grade in SpeedGrader

    New Quizzes can include both automatically graded and manually graded questions. Use SpeedGrader to review student submissions and grade questions that require instructor evaluation.

    In SpeedGrader, you can:

    • Grade Essay and File Upload questions
    • Review individual student responses
    • Adjust scores when needed
    • Provide comments and feedback
    • Review individual attempts


    Learn how to Grade a Quiz in Speedgrader

    Good to Know: Some Questions Need Your Review

    A quiz may appear to have a score even when it contains questions that still require manual grading. Review submissions with Essay or File Upload questions before considering the assessment fully graded.

    Review Attempts with Moderate

    The Moderate page provides an overview of student quiz activity and attempts. Use it when you need to review an individual student's assessment or make an adjustment after an attempt.

    Review Quiz Performance

    New Quizzes reports can help you look beyond an individual student's submission and review how the assessment performed overall.

    Use reports to examine quiz and question performance, identify patterns in student responses, and consider whether particular questions may need additional review.

    Learn How to Pull a Quiz Report

  • ā¯—Important Note: Make Sure Your Points Match

    In New Quizzes, the total points for the quiz in Canvas must match the total points assigned to questions inside the Build area.

    For example, if your questions add up to 50 points, make sure the quiz is also set to 50 points. If these totals don’t align, the quiz score and the score shown in the Canvas Gradebook may appear inconsistent.

    Before publishing: Add up your question points in Build, then confirm the quiz’s overall point value matches.

Know Where to Go in New Quizzes

Not sure which New Quizzes tool to use? Start with what you want to do. Use this quick reference to find the right place in Canvas.

Quick reference showing where to go in Canvas New Quizzes to complete common assessment tasks.
I want to Go to  What it's for
Add or edit questions Build Create questions and add content to your assessment.
Change how students take the quiz Settings Manage shuffling, time limits, multiple attempts, results, and other quiz behaviors.
Reuse or randomize questions Item Banks Store questions for reuse or randomly select questions for an assessment.
Give a student an accommodation across quizzes Moderate → Student Name Set an accommodation that applies across New Quizzes in the course.
Make an adjustment for this quiz only Moderate → Pencil Icon Provide extra time, additional attempts, or another quiz-specific adjustment.
Grade or provide feedback SpeedGrader Review responses, manually grade questions, and provide feedback.
See how the quiz performed Reports Review overall quiz and question performance.

Use Reports to Inform Your Teaching

New Quizzes reports can help you look beyond scores and use assessment results to inform your teaching, support individual students, and reflect on progress toward your learning goals.

What patterns are emerging in student responses?

Canvas New Quizzes Quiz and Item Analysis report showing assessment performance metrics and a score distribution chart.

Use Quiz & Item Analysis to identify patterns in how students responded and consider what those patterns might mean for your teaching and assessment.


Look for Patterns

  • Many students missed the same question. This may point to a concept students are struggling with or a question that deserves another look.
  • Many students chose the same incorrect answer. This may reveal a common misconception you can address through feedback or future instruction.
  • Students were divided between answers. Consider whether students are distinguishing between closely related concepts or whether the question may be unclear.

Turn the Data into Action

  • Revisit the learning. Provide another example, explanation, practice opportunity, or resource.
  • Address misconceptions. Use common incorrect responses to decide what to clarify or reinforce.
  • Review the question. Consider its wording, answer choices, difficulty, and alignment with what students were asked to learn and practice.
  • Keep an intentional challenge. A difficult question is not necessarily a problem. Questions that ask students to apply or transfer their learning may appropriately be more challenging.

Remember: A surprising result is a reason to investigate—not automatically a reason to change the question. Use the report alongside your learning goals and knowledge of your students to decide what to do next. Consider asking students for feedback if needed.

What you'll find in the report: Item Difficulty, Answer Frequency, Discrimination Index, and Corrected Item-Total Correlation.

Try This: Export the Quiz and Item Analysis CSV and sort the Incorrect column to identify the questions students missed most frequently.

What might help this student move forward?

Use Student Analysis to look more closely at an individual student's responses and identify where a conversation, additional practice, or other support may be helpful.

Learn More About Student Analysis Reports


Use the Report to Prepare for a Conversation

  • Look for patterns. Are there particular concepts or types of questions the student may need extra support on?
  • Connect students with support. Consider additional course resources, practice opportunities, office hours, peer support, tutoring, or other University resources.
  • Identify a next step. Help the student leave the conversation knowing what they can do next and where they can go for help.

Remember: Start a Conversation, Not a Conclusion

Assessment data provides one view of a student's learning. Use response patterns to guide questions and conversations.

What you'll find in the report: Student responses, points earned, number of correct and incorrect responses, and attempt status.

Try This: Before meeting with a student about an assessment, review their Student Analysis report and identify one or two patterns you want to ask about. Use those patterns to frame the conversation around learning and next steps rather than the score alone.

Are students demonstrating the learning I intended?

Use Outcomes Analysis to connect assessment performance with the broader learning goals you've aligned to your quiz. Rather than focusing only on quiz scores, this report can help you consider whether students are demonstrating the knowledge and skills you intended.

Look Across the Learning

  • Identify areas of strength. Which outcomes are students demonstrating successfully?
  • Look for areas that need reinforcement. Are there outcomes where students may benefit from additional practice or instruction?
  • Review opportunities to practice. Consider whether students had enough opportunities to develop the knowledge or skills before being assessed.
  • Check your alignment. Look at whether your learning activities, assessment questions, and intended learning outcomes are working together.

Remember: Outcomes Must Be Aligned

Outcomes Analysis is most useful when Canvas Outcomes have been intentionally aligned with your assessment. If Outcomes have not been added or aligned, the report will not provide meaningful outcome-level data.

What you'll find in the report: Outcome performance data connected to the Outcomes aligned with your New Quiz.

New Quizzes Considerations & Common Scenarios

Not sure how to approach a particular assessment need? Explore these common scenarios and considerations when working with New Quizzes.

Common New Quizzes scenarios with considerations for selecting the appropriate Canvas tools and settings.
Common Scenario Consider This
I want every student to receive a slightly different quiz. Build a larger Item Bank and use a random set of questions. Keep questions in the pool aligned to similar learning objectives and levels of difficulty.
I want students to learn from their mistakes and try again. Consider using multiple attempts with feedback. Decide what students can see after each attempt and how you want subsequent attempts to work.
A student needs extra time. First determine whether the adjustment should apply across New Quizzes or only to this assessment. Use an Accommodation for an adjustment across quizzes and Moderate for a quiz-specific adjustment.
I want to reuse these questions in another assessment. Add reusable questions to an Item Bank and use descriptive bank names that will make sense when you return to them later.
I want some questions automatically graded and others reviewed by me. Mix question types within the same quiz. Supported question types can be automatically scored, while Essay and File Upload responses can be reviewed manually in SpeedGrader.

Need Help?

If your quiz is not working the way you expect, start by checking Build, Settings, and Moderate. Question setup, quiz settings, availability dates, attempts, and accommodations can all affect the student experience.

For additional support, connect with the Learning Platforms team or Canvas Support:

  • Find more relevant resources and specific workflows from Pandabot 
  • Select Help from the Canvas Global Navigation menu to access 24/7 Canvas Support 
  • For additional information or to request support during the transition, please contact the Learning Platforms team at lpt.it.miami.edu/contact.

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