Canvas Classic Quizzes: Use Cases for Quizzes and Surveys

Table of Contents

Classic Quiz Options

Note: Practice quizzes and ungraded surveys do not display in the Syllabus Course Summary, Calendar, or Gradebook, but will appear on the student’s To Do list if it is given a due date.

• A graded quiz is the most common quiz, and Canvas automatically creates a column in the Gradebook for any graded quizzes you build. After a student takes a graded quiz, certain question types will be automatically graded. You can also view quiz results for graded quizzes in SpeedGrader or from the quiz results page.

• A practice quiz is ungraded and can be used as a learning tool to help students see how well they understand the course material. Practice quizzes do not appear in the syllabus, calendar, or Gradebook. Practice quizzes are not a graded quiz type. Students do not receive a grade for practice quizzes, even though the quiz results display the number of points earned in the quiz. Practice quiz results do not display on the student grades page and must be viewed from the submission details page. You can also view quiz results for practice quizzes.

• A graded survey allows you to give students points for completing the survey; however, it is not graded based on right or wrong answers. Graded surveys have the option to be anonymous. You can also view survey results for graded surveys from the quiz details page or in SpeedGrader.

• An ungraded survey allows you to obtain opinions or other information from students; however, students do not receive a grade for their responses. Ungraded surveys do not appear in the Canvas syllabus, calendar, or Gradebook. With ungraded surveys, you can make responses anonymous. You can view survey results for ungraded surveys. *Ungraded surveys, when complete, do not show up in the student's view of their gradebook. So, if an instructor wants to have a survey that is NOT graded, but DOES want to provide feedback to the student via the survey (overall activity comments or comments after each question), then the survey can be a GRADED SURVEY for ZERO points. Be sure to include the "show responses and show correct answers" options if the instructor is providing feedback on specific questions.

Canvas Guides: What quiz types can I create in my course? or How do I create a survey in my course?

Not sure whether to use a quiz or a survey? Use the guiding questions below.

Features of Each Quiz Option

How should I set my quizzes to allow students to see results?

There are several options associated with allowing students to view quiz responses:

Open

Option 1: Checking Let Students See Their Quiz Responses shows students their responses for each question on the quiz.

When you have only this option selected, the incorrect answers are shown immediately after students finish the quiz. Quizzes default to this option, so if you do not want students to see incorrect quiz responses, deselect the checkbox.

• Students will not be able to see the correct answers if Let Students See the Correct Answers is not selected.

• The feedback you placed in the quiz, as well as incorrect responses, will be displayed.

• The dates selected below do not impact this feature.

Option 2: Checking Let Students See Their Quiz Responses and Let Students See the Correct Answers

This option will allow students to see their responses and the correct and incorrect answers. 

• To show correct answers immediately after a quiz is submitted, leave the Show and Hide fields blank.

• To create a date range to display the correct answers, set a start date in the Show Correct Answers at field and an ending date in the Hide Correct Answers at field.

• To always show correct answers after a specific date, set a date in the Show field only.

• To hide the correct answers after a specific date, set a date in the Hide field.

Option 3: Leave Let Students See Their Quiz Responses unchecked until AFTER all students have completed the quiz.

This option will hide their responses and correct and incorrect answers until after all students have finished the quiz. This is the safest way to restrict students from sharing information after taking the quiz, but it requires that you go back into the quiz to release the answers.

• After the quiz has closed, check the Let Students See Their Quiz Responses and the Let Students See the Correct Answers

• Either leave the Show and Hide fields blank or add a specific date range

Option 4: Checking Only Once After Each Attempt allows students to only view results immediately after completing the quiz.

With this option, students will only be able to view the results immediately after they have completed the quiz. Results include their responses but not the correct answers. As soon as they close the quiz, they can no longer see the results. This option may not be appropriate for quizzes that require manual grading, such as essay questions, where students would require additional views to see the updated results.

Which Tool Should I Choose?

• Low-stakes module quizzes you want students to take multiple times for practice

  • For Credit: Create a Graded Quiz with unlimited attempts and keep the highest score. Hide Quiz results or use a large question bank for more challenge

  • For Practice Only: Create a Practice Quiz with unlimited attempts - students will not get a grade

• Student Background Survey

  • For Credit: Create a Graded Survey worth a set amount of points

  • Not Required for Credit: Create an Ungraded Survey

• Syllabus Quiz

  • For Credit per Question: Create a Graded Quiz with unlimited attempts and keep the highest score

  • Credit for Completion: Create a Graded Survey with a set number of points

• Self Assessment

  • For Credit: Create a Graded Survey with a set number of points

  • For Personal Reflection only: Create an Ungraded Survey

• Mid-Course Survey

  • For Credit: Create a Graded Survey set to anonymous worth a set number of points

  • For Feedback Only: Create an Ungraded Survey set to anonymous

Decisions on How to Use Each Option 

• Does it need to be graded for points on each question?

  • ✅Yes - Create a Graded Quiz 

  • ❌ No - Create a Graded Survey worth the total points and make each question worth zero points

• Does it need to be tracked for completion, but not a grade?

  • ✅Yes - Create a Graded Survey that is graded as complete/incomplete

  • ❌ No, it needs a grade - Create a Graded Survey or Graded Quiz

• It doesn’t need a grade, but I want students to see my feedback? 

  • ✅Yes - Create a Graded Survey worth zero points or complete/incomplete

  • ❌ No - Create an Ungraded Survey

• Is it intended for practice?

  • ✅Yes - Create a Practice Quiz with unlimited attempts

  • ❌ No - Create an Ungraded Survey

• Do I want to give extra credit for completion?

  • ✅Yes - Create a Graded Survey worth zero points and manually add the extra credit points when grading

  • ❌ No - Create an Ungraded Survey

• Do I want the survey to be anonymous?

  • ✅Yes - Only surveys can be anonymous

  • Please note: The anonymous option can be enabled or disabled before or after a survey has received submissions, allowing a user with sufficient permissions to see a student's identity and responses. To collect fully anonymous survey responses, you may want to use a third-party survey tool.

• Does it need to be tracked for completion?

  • ✅Yes - Create a Graded Survey that is anonymous. You will see students receive points or credit for completing the survey, but you cannot associate student names with their responses.

  • ❌ No - Create an Ungraded Survey that is anonymous

How to create a survey environment in New Quizzes 

When you migrate your surveys to New Quizzes you will note there is no longer a survey option in this tool. To recreate the survey settings

• With all "surveys", be sure to "restrict student result view" in quiz settings so students don't see correct/incorrect answers so they are not confused by something being marked “wrong” on a question that has no wrong answer. The only options that can be used in a survey are Show items and questions, Show student response, and Show item feedback.

• For graded surveys, choose the overall points for the assignment and make all questions worth zero points.

• To make an ungraded survey or practice quiz, either exclude the assignment from the gradebook in the assignment settings or set the assignment point value to 0 points.

• To grade the survey as complete/incomplete automatically: “The best workaround we could figure is to make the quiz worth at least one point, and put that point on (and only on) a question students will, by design, get "correct". If the point is on a multiple choice question, under options, you can check "Vary points by answer" and give all answer options the same maximum points. If the point is on a fill in the blank, you can set the text match to "close enough" and make the placeholder text and the Levenshtein Distance the maximum number of characters you want to allow; be sure to let students know the character limit in the instructions. All other questions should be worth 0 points.” (New Quizzes survey workaround and complete/incomplete) explanation from the Canvas Community.