In this article, we explain what a question bank is and how it can be used.
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What is a question bank?
Please note: a question bank exists independently of a course and must therefore be created separately. Please contact your faculty's functional administrator if you would like a question bank to be created.
A question bank is a central repository for questions and assignments. It allows you to save questions in a structured way and reuse questions from previous tests, preventing duplicate work. Additionally, by using domains and objectives, you can further improve the organisation and effectiveness of your question bank.
Why use question banks?
Question banks support efficient collaboration and provide a secure, central location for storing assessment content. They make it easier to analyse question quality across multiple tests, create new assessments more efficiently, and ensure that questions align with the defined 'objectives'.
In the sections below, we highlight some of the key benefits of working with question banks:
Collaboration
Although instructors can work independently within a question bank, collaboration with colleagues often provides significant advantages. Sharing questions, updating content, and reviewing assessment results together can save time and help keep assessments accurate and up to date.
A publisher has the ability to enrol other colleagues in the item bank as publishers or authors.
Please note: Only functional administrators can create question banks. Contact your faculty's functional administrator if you would like additional colleagues to be enrolled.
What are domains and objectives?
By using domains and objectives, you can improve the effectiveness of tests and provide students with more detailed feedback on their performance. You link domains and objectives to questions to create a better structure.
- Objectives: describe the knowledge and skills students are expected to demonstrate. Objectives can be linked directly to questions.
- Domains: group related learning objectives into a hierarchical structure.
Once domains, learning objectives, tags, and labels have been assigned to questions, they can be used to automatically generate assessments through a blueprint. For more information about blueprints, please refer to the Ans instruction on domains and objectives.
What is a blueprint?
In addition to creating a test manually, you can also generate a test automatically using a blueprint. A blueprint is a composition of questions used in an assignment. Blueprints can be used to automatically generate a written assignment or a digital test.
Blueprints are created using domains, learning objectives, tags, and labels that have been assigned to questions in the question bank. Questions linked to domains, learning objectives, tags, and labels can be selected automatically when generating an assessment from a blueprint.
For more information about test blueprints, please refer to the relevant Ans instruction.
Contact and information
Would you like to learn more about working with question banks? Please refer to our other guides:
Need help? Contact the functional administrator of your faculty.