In this article, you will learn:
- What is the activity bank?
How to create an activity in the activity bank.
How to use tags.
How to search activities with filters
How to Apply Filters in the Curriculum Authoring Space
What is the Activity Bank?
The Activity Bank is a repository of assessments within a course project. The bank allows an author to create individual questions, tag them, and then assign those questions to practice page formative assessments or summative quiz assessments. The Activity Bank feature in assessments will then pick a question from the bank at random to ask a student, and that question is selected based on filtered criteria chosen by the author.
Creating Activities
Hover over the “Create” icon on the sidebar and select “Activity Bank.” From here click on the “Create New” button on the right side of the screen. This will give you the option to create “check all that apply”, “multiple-choice”, “ordering”, or “single response” questions.
Note: if you have any advanced activities enabled, those will also be available to create.
From there, fill out the question as you would in the curriculum section. You need to select the orange “edit” button in order to edit a question. Once you have finished editing, click the green “done” button to lock your changes.
How to Use Tags
The major difference between typical assessments created within the curriculum and in the activity bank is the “Tags” section. Tags help to filter questions in the bank, and create an additional type of criteria used for item selection. Keep in mind that tags are not learning objectives, as each question should be tagged with a learning objective already. Unit title, module title, or a unit/module numbering system are common tags, but authors are at liberty to create any tags they see fit.
How to Search Activities With Filters
The activity bank offers four criteria in which questions can be searched. This criteria also applies when selecting which questions to use in the curriculum. Criteria can be searched by “contains”, “does not contain”, “equals”, or “does not equal”.
Objectives - all activities should be labeled with appropriate learning objectives
Activity Content - authors can search specific text to find questions with matching content
Item Type - filters activities by type.
Tags - filters activities by tags
How to Apply Filters in the Curriculum Authoring Space
When creating formative or summative assessments using activity bank selection, it is important to select which activities will be selected based on chosen criteria.
First, enter the number of questions you want to be selected.
In order to specify which questions to use for the activity, click the blue “Add Expression” button. The drop down menu will allow the “objectives”, “item types”, and “tag” to be filtered. Adding two or more expressions will prompt the “any of the following” and “all of the following” buttons.
Then, the criteria can be selected based on an AND/OR model.
All of the following - All the indicated criteria must be met for the question to be selected. Creates a narrower pool.
Any of the following - Only one of the indicated criteria must be met for the question to be selected. Creates a wider pool.
The selection criteria follows the same format as shown above in the “Searching with Filters” section, except it no longer has the “Activity Content” section.
Activity bank blocks are automatically saved. When a course is published, students will see an actual activity rather than the selection screen from the authoring environment.
