Joy Quizzes
Jacinto Man
I have banked all of my test/quiz questions in new quizzes in individual banks for the past couple of years. Everything worked fine last semester but all of a sudden questions do not have the pictures that I embed into them when students go to take the quiz. I can see the pictures but they cannot. I do have the banks shared with my current course and still have this issue.
Whenever someone says "I can see the pictures but my students cannot", my first thought is that there is a problem with the image links in the test, and the image links are actually pointing copies of image files that are stored in a previous course (which you have access to, but the students in your current course do not).
You should at least try running the Link Validation tool ( -Guide/How-do-I-validate-links-in-a-course/ta-p/1001 ), though I'm not 100% sure that it works with New Quizzes and item banks. It should at least tell you if it's able to spot a problem with the image link permissions.
I decided to convert to new quizzes this semester and I have similar issues with the pictures. My students are using Lockdown browser. I am at a loss on how to fix this since for some students all the pictures are showing up, for some only a few are showing up and again for others no pictures are showing up.
This makes me think that it is an issue on the student end but I am not sure how to fix this problem. I have looked at the link validation and they are all good in the course. Any help would be great!
If you have converted existing quizzes to New Quizzes, and are having problems with the images showing up with LockDown Browser, I believe it's best to contact Respondus Support to see if there is a workaround.
This is what Respondus suggested to us in this same situation: "Because re-embedding all the images is quite tedious, other instructors might be interested in this workaround, which happily allowed me to bypass that unnecessary extra work: When I grouped into a single Classic Exam the Classic Quizzes and banks that I wanted to migrate into a New Quiz bank, downloaded that exam as a QTI file, uploaded that QTI file as a New Quiz bank, and created a New Quiz based on that bank, then the images loaded correctly in Lockdown Browser."
I have been investigating this problem. I can explain why it is happening and I would call it a bug. In NQ, when you add a question to an item bank and add links or images to the question, the resulting URL points to the course in which the question was created. For example:
As a result, only the students in that one course can view these items, which is very unfortunate because banks are supposed to work in any course. When new questions with links to course files are added to a bank, there's a warning about this before you save the question, but the warning is not at all helpful.
As you may recall, in Classic Quizzes, it is possible to reuse question banks in any course without this problem. The links work in classic quizzes because all files referenced in the question are copied to a hidden file store and the links are updated when the question is saved. The links for these files are not course specific and students are allowed to view them whereever the bank is used. Here's a sample link from a question in a classic question bank:
It's not clear to me why a similar approach was not implemented in NQ Item banks. One the bright side, when legacy banks are migrated to New Quizzes, the links continue to work because they do not reference a specific course.
I am going to submit a bug report to hopefully draw more attention to this issue. At minimum, the current limitations should be documented in the Canvas Guide, How do I add content to an item bank in New Quizzes?
Just did some additional digging. The broken images seem to be a recent problem. I found examples of embedded images in questions in older banks. The URL for this images include a verifier parameter that is not present when I embed an image in a new bank question. So, I think this may be a relatively recent regression. I reported a bug and willl get back to this group when I hear back from Instructure.
I have been going crazy trying to figure out why this just recently happened. All of the images from the banks I created a few weeks ago are still working, but they have a verifier part where the others don't.
I too see that some images have a verifier parameter, these are the images that work. However, now when uploading an image, or using a course image in an Item Bank question, there is no verifier parameter.
This is a very frustrating issue. Images in Item Banks should not be associated with a course, they should be able to be used in any course. One of the workarounds is to link to images from a public course or website, but surely Canvas can make this work without a workaround.
Yes, uploading to Personal Files does work, but it's not the default workflow for the Canvas RCE, it requires more steps than just uploading images while authoring questions, and faculty who are unaware of this bug will continue uploading to course Files without realizing the links and images won't work in other classes. Hopefully, Instructure will acknowledge and fix this bug very quickly.
Hello Jane,
Thank you for contacting Respondus Support.
This is a known issue that we reported to Canvas. You'll want to contact Canvas Support to inquire as to a timeline on their fix. You can reference Canvas Case 10188336 when you email them.
It seems to occur when a classic quiz is migrated to "new quizzes" format. But a similar issue can also occur for a brand new "new quizzes" exam, depending on how the image was embedded and what file space the image resides in.
Until Canvas can provide a long term fix for this bug, they have supplied the following workaround:
1) Upload the images first to the user's user file space (not the course file space.) I presume they mean the instructor's user file space.
2) Then, embed the images into the question from that user file space (not the course file space.)
3) After doing this, the images should display when using LockDown Browser.
In our testing, this method does work, displaying the images successfully both for a brand new "new quizzes" exam, as well as a "classic" exam that has been migrated into "new quizzes" format.
Regards,
Bob
If this is a New Quizzes type exam, this is a known issue that we reported to Canvas. You'll want to contact Canvas Support to inquire as to a timeline on their fix. You can reference Canvas Case 10188336 when you email them.
It seems to occur when a classic quiz is migrated to "new quizzes" format. But a similar issue can also occur for a brand new "new quizzes" exam, depending on how the image was embedded and what file space the image resides in.
Canvas Support has supplied the following workaround:
1) Upload the images first to the user's user file space (not the course file space.) I presume they mean the instructor's user file space.
2) Then, embed the images into the question from that user file space (not the course file space.)
3) After doing this, the images should display when using LockDown Browser.
In our testing, this method does work, displaying the images successfully both for a brand new "new quizzes" exam, as well as a "classic" exam that has been migrated into "new quizzes" format.
Thank you for your quick response. When I gave my exam last week, older pictures showed up and these files are in the course in an Item Bank. Going forward, do you know if the older photos that came with the course migration will show up in the future New Quiz? Curious of what is the difference. Also, I'm using Respondus.
@JaneWilliams
When I last tested, images in migrated quizzes and banks were working. The only images that were not working were those added to banks after this bug started occurring some time in mid Feb or early March.
I checked my exam from student view and preview before the exam and the pictures were there. However, I will check this out again before our next exam as I'd like to populate new pictures and hot spot questions with pictures.
Yes, thank you! I put a ticket in with Respondus today for an update and will let you all know if I learn anything. The work around is cumbersome but glad you figured it out and made this wonderful doc!
Hello, @NatalieGamble. Yes, this does seem to work. It's unfortunate that the files are not automatically set to public when the image is uploaded to a bank question. But it's definitely easier than uploading the images to user files and redoing the links.
Interesting. I tried the same solution, setting visibility to public, and it did not seem to work for me. But this was also a few weeks ago when the problem was newer. You never do quite know what Instructure is changing behind the scenes.
Instructure has finally owned up to this problem publicly in the New Quizzes End of Quarter Update for Q1 2024 (see the section Q2 2024 Objectives) and I have posted a very lengthy reply. If this bug has been a major painpoint for your or your institutions, please consider adding a comment to this post.
Our CSM let us know a hotfix was applied to our system on May 1, 2024 that addressed our specific use case: NQ images pulled from item banks did not appear to students using Respondus LockDown Browser. Curious to hear if this fix addressed other use cases with NQ and images.
Why are the new quizzes so horrible? How someone could pitch these new ideas on how to improve the old quizzes and not have the whole room throw insults and/or objects at them is mind boggling. The fact that I can't see separate sections and see induvial responses is horrible. Oh, and the fact that I have to go to a different screen to set the due date and points makes me feel great! The random order of students when moderating the quiz is by far the best upgrade!
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