Quizzes — Advanced Features

A question pool is a collection of questions stored in the Question Library from which Brightspace randomly selects a specified number for each student’s quiz.

Benefits:

• Each student sees a different subset of questions
• Reduces opportunities for sharing answers
• Allows you to reuse questions across terms without students seeing identical quizzes

Example: You create a pool of 20 questions about Chapter 3. The quiz pulls 10 random questions from this pool. Student A gets questions 2, 5, 7, 9… while Student B gets questions 1, 4, 8, 11…

Step 1: Organize Questions in the Question Library

Before creating a pool, you need questions organized in sections:

1. Go to Course Admin > Quizzes > Question Library
2. Click New > Section
3. Name the section (e.g., “Chapter 3 – Intermediate Difficulty”)
4. Add questions to this section
5. Create more questions than you’ll use in the quiz (e.g., 20 questions if you want students to answer 10)

Step 2: Add the Pool to Your Quiz

1. Open your quiz for editing
2. In the Questions section, click Create New > Question Pool
3. Give the pool a descriptive name (students don’t see this)
4. Click Browse Question Library
5. Check the box next to the section you created
6. Click Import
7. Enter the Number of Questions to Select (how many questions each student will see from this pool)
8. Enter Points per Question
9. Click Save

You can create several pools in one quiz to control the distribution of question difficulty:

Example scenario: A quiz with easy, medium, and hard questions

1. Create three sections in your Question Library:
   • “Chapter 3 – Easy” (10 questions)
   • “Chapter 3 – Medium” (10 questions)
   • “Chapter 3 – Hard” (8 questions)
2. In your quiz, create three separate pools:
   • Pool 1: Pull 5 questions from “Easy” section, 2 points each
   • Pool 2: Pull 3 questions from “Medium” section, 3 points each
   • Pool 3: Pull 2 questions from “Hard” section, 5 points each
3. Total quiz: 10 questions, 29 points possible

Each student gets a different combination of questions, but everyone has the same difficulty distribution.

Beyond question pools, you can randomize in other ways:

Shuffle Question Order:

• Go to Timing & Display in your quiz settings
• Check Shuffle questions and sections within the quiz
• Students see questions in random order (useful even without pools)

Randomize Answer Choices:

• When creating or editing a multiple choice or multi-select question
• Check Randomize answer order below the answer options
• Each student sees answer choices in a different order
• Caution: Don’t use this if you have “All of the above” or “None of the above” options

Special Access allows you to provide individual students or groups with different quiz settings than the rest of the class.

Common uses:

• Extended time for students with accommodations
• Different due dates for students with extenuating circumstances
• Additional quiz attempts after technical difficulties
• Earlier or later access windows

1. Go to Course Admin > Manage Quizzes
2. Click the quiz name to edit it
3. Select Availability Dates & Conditions
4. Click Manage Special Access
5. Select Allow selected users special access to this quiz
6. Click Add Users to Special Access
7. Under Timing, check Override time limit
8. Choose one option:
   • Multiplier of original quiz time: Enter 1.5 for time-and-a-half, 2.0 for double time
   • Extra time: Enter additional minutes to add to the original time limit
   • No time limit: Remove the time limit entirely
9. Under Users, check the box next to each student who needs this accommodation
10. Click Save, then Save and Close

1. Follow steps 1-6 from “Providing Extended Time” above
2. Under Attempts, check Override attempts allowed
3. Select the number of attempts from the dropdown
4. (Optional) Set Advanced Attempt Conditions if you want to require students to achieve a minimum score before getting another attempt
5. Under Users, check the box next to each student who needs additional attempts
6. Click Save, then Save and Close

1. Follow steps 1-6 from “Providing Extended Time” above
2. Under Availability, check Has Start Date and/or Has End Date
3. Set the custom dates and times for the selected students
4. Under Users, check the box next to each student who needs different dates
5. Click Save, then Save and Close

Example use case: Most students take the quiz Oct 15-17, but one student has a conflict and needs to take it Oct 18-19 instead.

To view which students have Special Access:

• Quizzes with Special Access show a key icon on the Manage Quizzes page
• Open the quiz and go to Availability Dates & Conditions > Manage Special Access to see the full list

To edit Special Access:

• Click the pencil icon next to the student’s name
• Make your changes
• Click Save

To remove Special Access:

• Click the X next to the student’s name
• Click Save and Close

Release Conditions control when a quiz becomes available based on whether students have completed other course activities.

Common uses:

• Require students to complete a practice quiz before accessing the graded quiz
• Make Quiz 2 available only after Quiz 1 is submitted
• Ensure students have viewed required content before attempting an assessment
• Restrict quizzes to specific groups or sections

1. Open your quiz for editing
2. Go to Availability Dates & Conditions
3. Click Create Release Condition
4. Choose the type of condition:
   • Content Viewed: Student must view specific content
   • Activity Completed: Student must complete an assignment, discussion, or quiz
   • Grade Value: Student must achieve a certain grade on another activity
   • Group Membership: Student must be in a specific group
5. Select the specific item or group
6. Click Create
7. Click Save and Close

By default, students only see their overall score after completing a quiz. You can customize what they see, including:

• Individual question scores
• Correct answers
• Question-level feedback
• Which answers they selected

You can also control when students see different types of feedback (immediately after submission, after the due date, after all attempts, etc.).

Basic steps:

1. Open your quiz for editing
2. Go to Evaluation & Feedback
3. Click Customize Quiz Results Displays
4. Click New to create a custom view
5. Choose what students can see (questions, answers, feedback, correct answers, etc.)
6. Set when this view is available (immediately, after due date, after specific date, etc.)
7. Click Save

Common configurations:

• Practice quizzes: Show everything immediately so students can learn from mistakes
• Graded quizzes: Show score immediately, withhold correct answers until after due date
• High-stakes exams: Show score only, never show questions or answers

Anonymous grading hides student names when you’re reviewing and grading written response or short answer questions, helping reduce unconscious bias.

How it works:

• Student names are hidden during grading
• Students appear as “Anonymous User 1,” “Anonymous User 2,” etc.
• You can still provide feedback, which is saved as drafts
• Once you publish all feedback, names are revealed

1. Open your quiz for editing
2. Go to Evaluation & Feedback
3. Check Enable anonymous marking
4. Click Save

Quiz sections allow you to organize questions into groups within a single quiz.

Benefits:

• Organize questions by topic, difficulty, or question type
• Apply different randomization settings to different sections
• Give sections different point values
• Create more complex quiz structures

Example: A quiz with three sections:

• Section 1: Multiple choice questions (20 points)
• Section 2: Short answer questions (30 points)
• Section 3: Essay question (50 points)

1. Open your quiz for editing
2. In the Questions area, click Create New > Section
3. Give the section a name
4. Click Save
5. Add questions to this section by clicking Create New > New Question or Add Existing > Browse Question Library
6. Repeat to create additional sections

Using sections with question pools:

• You can create a question pool within a section
• Each section can have its own pool with different randomization settings
• This allows sophisticated quiz structures (e.g., 5 random multiple choice from Section 1, 3 random short answer from Section 2)

Regular expressions (regex) allow you to accept a wider range of student responses as correct in auto-graded quiz questions. This is especially useful for questions where multiple formats of the same answer are acceptable.

Common uses:

• Accepting both Canadian and American spellings (e.g., “colour” or “color”)
• Accepting answers with or without decimal places (e.g., “250” or “250.0”)
• Accepting dates in multiple formats (e.g., “Sept. 5” or “September 5th”)
• Accepting scientific notation and measurement variations

Supported question types:

• Short Answer
• Multi-Short Answer
• Fill in the Blanks
• Arithmetic
• Significant Figures

Here are some frequently used regex patterns:

colou?r – Matches “colour” or “color” (the ? makes the preceding character optional)

250(\.0+)? – Matches “250” or “250.0” or “250.000000”

July (first|1st|1) – Matches “July first”, “July 1st”, or “July 1”

gr[ae]y – Matches “gray” or “grey”

250\s*mL – Matches “250mL” or “250 mL” or “250 mL” (allows zero or more spaces)

1. Go to Course Admin > Quizzes > Question Library
2. Select New and choose your question type (Short Answer, Fill in the Blanks, etc.)
3. Enter your question text
4. Critical step: In the answer field dropdown, change from Text to Regular Expression
5. Enter your regex pattern in the answer field
6. Click Save

Testing your regex:

1. Before using in Brightspace, test at regexr.com
2. Enter your regex in the Expression field
3. Enter test answers in the Text field
4. If your regex works, the text will highlight in blue
5. After adding to a quiz, preview the quiz and grade preview attempts to verify auto-grading works correctly

Brightspace provides detailed analytics about quiz performance at both the individual and class level.

Three types of statistics available:

• User Stats: Score distribution, class average, individual student grades
• Question Stats: Average score, standard deviation, discrimination index, and point biserial for each question
• Question Details: Detailed analysis showing which answers students selected and how many times

To access statistics:

1. Go to Manage Quizzes
2. From the quiz dropdown menu, select Statistics
3. Click through the tabs: User Stats, Question Stats, Question Details

Quiz reports allow you to generate and share anonymous quiz data with specific audiences.

When to create a report:

• You want to analyze quiz data offline (export to Excel or CSV)
• You need to share anonymous quiz statistics with colleagues
• You want to release specific data to students at specific times

Five report types available:

• Question Statistics: Average scores and statistical measures for each question
• Question Details: Shows which answers students chose and how frequently
• User Statistics: Class average, score distribution, and individual grades
• Attempt Details: Detailed information about each attempt including completion time
• User Attempts: Shows scores and attempts for each student

To create a report:

1. From the quiz dropdown menu, select Setup Reports
2. Click Add Report
3. Enter a report name
4. Select a Report Type
5. Choose which data to include using the checkboxes
6. Set a release date (optional)
7. Select which roles can access the report
8. Click Save

To view a report:

1. From the quiz dropdown menu, select View Reports
2. Click on the report name
3. Choose your format: CSV, Excel, or HTML