The Tests & Quizzes tool allows instructors to create online assessments (i.e., tests, exams, quizzes, and surveys) for delivery via a web interface to students or other groups. It was designed primarily to administer tests, but instructors may also create assessments to gather survey information or informal course feedback. Assessments are created question by question, or through already prepared text, or through import from a formatted XML file.

The Tests & Quizzes tool offers many settings that allow instructors to control the layout, delivery, grading, student review options, and metadata of the assessment. These settings can be adjusted during the authoring. A bundle of values for the settings defines an Assessment Type, which allows instructors to store and re-use the settings of successive assessments. Common system-defined assessment types are already provided, and new ones can be created and saved.

Assessments in this tool fall into the two categories-- Draft Copies and Published Copies, which represent the instructor and student phases, respectively. Authoring by the instructor takes place in Draft Copies; a new assessment appears in that category.  The act of publication makes the assessment available to students and moves it to the Published Copies category, where submissions and results become available.