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Synchronise assignments (beta)

Brooke
  • Updated
error_outline This option is available through beta features, read more about beta features  here.

This feature allows you to link an existing assignment in your course with a question bank assignment. The assignment can then be synchronised with the question bank assignment.

The benefits of synchronising a course assignment to a question bank assignment are:

  • Easily apply changes from your question bank assignment to your course assignment, including changes to, for example, exercises, test instructions and lay-out.
  • Update all exercises in your assignment at once.

This feature can be helpful if your school is creating assignments in your course at a certain point in time (via the API), for example at the start of the year. Your course assignments will not contain any content such as exercises or test instructions yet. The creation of course assignments upfront is necessary if results need to be extracted via the API to another system after the taking of the test. Despite the fact that the course assignment has been created, you will have the possibility to add questions and other elements to the course assignment from your question bank at a later moment.

In this article, we will discuss various steps that are involved in the process of synchronising assignments such as, linking, synchronising and unlinking assignments.

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This feature will always synchronise the latest version of your question bank assignment and it will overwrite the version in your course.


Link an assignment in your course to a question bank assignment

After creating an assignment in your course, you can either link the assignment to an existing question bank assignment or save your assignment as a new question bank assignment. 

Link assignment to an existing question bank assignment 
  1. Navigate to your assignment.
  2. Click  Settings in the menu at the top.
  3. Click General in the menu on the left.
  4. Go to the Actions section and click the dropdown menu Link.
  5. Select Link assignment to existing question bank assignment.
  6. A new dialog will open, select the existing question bank assignment you want to link.
  7. The pop up 'Successfully linked' will appear. You will also see the following: Screenshot 2024-03-12 at 16.29.18.png
Save your assignment as a new question bank assignment 
  1. Navigate to your assignment.
  2. Click  Settings in the menu at the top.
  3. Click General in the menu on the left.
  4. Go to the Actions section and click the dropdown menu Link.
  5. Select Save in a question bank.
  6. A new dialog will open, select your question bank.
  7. You will then be directed to the new question bank assignment.
Link your question bank assignment to your course

If you copy a question bank assignment to your course, the assignment will also be linked automatically.

  1. Navigate to your question bank. 
  2. Click assignmentQuestion bank assignments in the menu at the top.
  3. Select your question bank assignment.
  4. Click Settings in the menu at the top. 
  5. Go to the Actions section and click Copy.
  6. Select the course you want to copy the assignment to and click Save. 
  7. You will then be directed to your new assignment. If you click  Settings in the menu at the top and navigate to the Actions section, you will see that the assignment is linked.Screenshot_2022-10-14_at_12.25.06.png

Synchronising

After linking assignments in your course, you can synchronise the course assignment to the question bank assignment, if it is out of sync.

Synchronise an assignment

Once the course assignment and question bank assignment are linked, they can be synchronised. This means if something is different in the course assignment compared to the question bank assignment, a warning will be displayed to notify you that the assignment is out of sync. You can click Synchronise to synchronise the course assignment to the question bank assignment. This action is irreversible. The button will be greyed out while the course assignment is being synchronised. The page will automatically refresh. If the sync warning is no longer visible, your assignment has been synced.

The following parts of a course assignment can be synchronised and any adjustments will cause the synchronisation warning to display:

  • Changes to exercises and questions
  • Changes to the grading scheme
  • Changes to objectives
  • Changes to flow
  • Changes to general test instructions and layout
  • Changes to the mark calculation
  • Changes to attachments

Synchronise.png

Please keep in mind, certain parts of an assignment cannot be synchronised if an assignment has at least one result. The overview of what is synchronised after an assignment has been taken are described in the following drop down menu.

error_outlineThe flow is tied to objectives and blueprints, and the changes to flow will only be taken into account when the question bank assignment was generated with a blueprint and with 'Randomised per participant' type for the 'Exercise selection'. In addition, making changes in the 'Flow' section of a course assignment will not trigger the out of sync warning, but will be synchronised, when clicked on the 'Synchronise' after a trigger (e.g., after modifying an exercise).

Synchronise an assignment that has results

After an assignment has results, there will be certain parts of the assignment that can no longer be synced. This is in line with the parts of an assignment that cannot be adjusted after an assignment has results.

What can no longer be synchronised:

  • Exercise names
  • Question descriptions
  • Answer options for multiple choice, match, hotspot and order questions
  • Flow*
  • Test instructions & layout

What can still be synchronised:

  • Grading scheme
  • Objectives
  • Criteria
  • Mark calculation
  • Points and feedback for all question types
  • Fill-in question gap options
  • Attachments

Unlinking assignments

If you no longer want an assignment to be linked, you can unlink it.

Unlink a linked assignment

Please be aware that when unlinking, both the assignment and questions are unlinked. This means that they are excluded from the question bank insights. The P-, Rit-, and Rir-values are also removed from the insights of the question bank exercise when decoupled. If you unlink an assignment, the attachments are also unlinked. To unlink an assignment in your course from a question bank assignment, follow the steps below. 

  1. Navigate to your assignment.
  2. Click  Settings in the menu at the top.
  3. Click General in the menu on the left.
  4. Click Unlink in the Danger zone section.Unlink.png
  5. The pop-up 'Successfully unlinked' will appear. 

error_outlineMark calculation formulas with dynamic variables cannot be copied and synchronised between a question bank and a course assignment. Since assignments can be randomly generated using flow groups, syncing variables from this process with an question bank is not possible.

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