What is a question pool?

A question pool is a set of questions, identified by a name, which belongs to you (not a course or collaboration site).  You can share a question pool with others, and others can share theirs with you.

When you are ready to create an assessment (a test or quiz), you can pull questions from your pools and also from pools that have been shared with you.  

Question pools serve as the basis for random draw assessments.  To give each student a different question on the same subject, set up a question pool with several equivalent questions on that subject, and then add a part to your assessment which draws from that pool.

To organize your questions, you can subdivide question pools into subpools.

Note: If you include images in the body of test questions using the Rich-Text Editor (inline, *not* as attachments), and store the questions in question pools, the links to images will *not* automatically update when you copy the images from one site to another.  Therefore, if you have images stored in a site of which your students are not a member, the images must be made Public for them to see the pictures in the questions drawn from those pools.

Go to Tests & Quizzes.

Select the Tests & Quizzes tool from the Tool Menu of your site.

Select the Question Pools tab.

Question Pool Example.

Pictured above is a question pool, Questions Grouped by Type, which contains two questions at the top level and several subpools, including Audio Questions, Calculated Questions, and Essay Questions.  Each subpool has questions of its own, and Calculated Questions has two subpools of its own: Advanced Calculated Questions and Simple Calculated Questions.

Tip:  A question pool can contain both questions of its own and subpools.  To reveal existing subpools within a question pool or a higher-level subpool, select the arrow icon (Toggle Tree) to the left of the pool's or higher-level subpool's title.

The Question Pools list includes question pools you have authored and question pools that have been shared with you by other authors.

Note:  Question pools are not identified by a course or collaboration site title, as they are associated with a specific owner.

Contents of a question pool.

Selecting the name of the pool reveals its subpools and questions. Pictured above are the subpools and questions in a question pool named Chapter 1 Questions.

From a question pool's page:

  1. Subpools and questions can be added with the Add Subpool or Add Question links.
  2. Subpools can be removed with the Remove links.
  3. To move, copy, or remove questions from the pool, select the check box to the left of the question, then select Remove, Copy or Move at the top of the list of questions.

For more information on working with question pools, see the following articles: