So, good morning. Thank you very much for coming to hear us talk again. Over there is Luca, who is hastily preparing the demo you will see in about five or ten minutes time. I am Tim Hunt and we're talking about the work that's been going on in the question bank in Moodle Core, particularly the latest changes in Moodle 5. So, the general idea is that, as an introduction and while Luca sets up the demo, I will sort of tell you the story of this project. Then Luca will do a demo of some of the latest features that are coming in Moodle 5, or you may already be on Moodle 5. And then hopefully most of the time of this session will be for discussion. If you are already using Moodle 5, what your experience is, we would like to know. Also, as you will hear, where we've got to now is the end of about five years' work and we're wondering what should we do next? Should we do anything else next? So, we would also like to hear your thoughts about that. So, before I tell the whole story of this project, Luca and I have been coming to Moodle MootDah and other places talking about this for years. Who has heard this story before? A few people. Okay. So, I won't worry too much about telling most of the story. So, this starts a very long time ago. In 2019, Moodle it was about the time they were going to release Moodle 3.9 and then Moodle HQ announced there were some big changes they wanted to make. So, Moodle 4 was not going to be six months later as usual. It was going to be 18 months later. So, suddenly there was an opportunity to make big changes. So, that was one consideration. And also, Luca and Thomas Koerner from Zurich and Bern knew their users were struggling with certain parts of the question bank. So, we knew there was a big problem to solve. And just before this time, they had worked on another smaller project to get funding from a lot of universities, do a sort of crowdfunding and get improved safe exam browser integration, integrated into Moodle core. And they had done that and it had been a successful project. So, the question was, could we now do another similar project to fix the long term problems in the question bank for Moodle 4 18 months later? And they knew I had been working on the quiz and question bank for a very long time. So, they came to me for some technical discussions. So, we talked to each other. We talked to people who might be prepared to back the project. And we thought about what might be done and we came up with a technical proposal that we thought solved the problems we were hearing from our users and from users in the Moodle forums and from the issues in the Moodle bug tracker. It's right along here. Yeah. So, that was the concept. We had this plan of this wonderful change we would deliver in Moodle 4, which was I guess came out in like 2021. And here we are in 2025 and we have just finished it. Because it turns out making big changes in Moodle core is very, very difficult. And also, there were a lot of different changes, a lot of different building blocks that had to be stacked up to make this work. So, in Moodle 4, we made some initial changes. It used to be the question bank was a fixed thing that worked in a certain way. And the normal Moodle style is everything is built out of plugins. So, if you want extra features, you can build a plugin and add features. So, in Moodle 4, the question bank became built out of plugins. So, it was extendable. That was also the point where we introduced versions, storing the version history of questions. Because the problem we really wanted to solve was sharing questions between teachers. And we know from things like Wikipedia and software development, if you want to share and collaborate, you really need the system to keep the history so you know what's happened and who's changed what. We started this following the Safe Exam Project, working with Catalyst IT in Australia. Then the head developer on the project was so good, they left Catalyst and moved to Moodle HQ. So, that was a bit of a thing. Also, we were struggling to work with developers in Sydney, Australia, because that's a ten-hour time difference. So, for that and various reasons, around the time of Moodle 4.2, we switched development to Catalyst in Europe. We're based in England, so that was a much easier time zone. It also turned out that the main developer we were working with is someone called Mark Johnson, who used to work at the Open University. So, I know him quite well, and he's a really good developer. So, then in Moodle 3.4.3, 4.4.5, we finished off the list of features. So, that involves better searching and filtering in the question bank, and also changing how you build quizzes. So, now, in the past, where you could share questions was quite weird and complicated. Now, we have a new way of how you can share questions between different teachers, between different courses, and that's the latest bit that landed in Moodle 5, which is what Luca is about to demo. Are you ready to demo this, Luca? Absolutely, yes. Thank you very much. We've got the switched microphone for the description. Well remembered. But before I hand over the microphone, a very important note. Again, this was a crowdfunded project. Many universities, mostly in Europe, have contributed, so thank you very much. By this point, the project has had over a million Australian dollars of funding, which is what it took to make this happen. So, thank you everyone who contributed. It's a clip. It clips. Good. So, yes, as you might have heard somewhere, or just read in documentation, or you know about our previous talks, technically, a question bank has changed to an activity. So, where are question banks? If I go to a course, this is a completely empty course, this is Sandbox Moodle DemoNet. If you want to join, the username is teacher, password Sandbox24. So, where are question banks? They are activities, aren't they? So, if I go and open the activity chooser, no, there's no question bank. And the reason is, you don't have to go there, they are where they are used to be. They are just over there. But you see, now it's not a singular, but it's plural. It's Fragen Sammlungen. This means that a course can have several question banks, if you wish so. That can be very useful. So, different question banks in your course can have a different set of categories in it. So, this can be worked with. So, I go to question banks. Normally, in a course, there's no question bank. Since you can use questions over courses, it doesn't matter anymore where a question lies. I will show that later. You can say, yeah, from now on, I just want to create courses without any question bank. I will manage all my questions in a central course. They are over there. And my new course doesn't need a question bank. Nonetheless, if you want to do one, you just click that button. It creates a question bank for you. It's empty. It's as you would expect it. Just create a new question, creates a new question in that question bank alone. What do we see otherwise? This is an empty course, just created a question bank. I switch to the other course. Thank you, Christina, my colleague. She created that one. So, in this five course, there is a question bank with also some questions in it. So, she created two questions banks. She named the question bank. And yeah, the question bank can be assigned roles. That is very important. If you, all the teachers that are enrolled in that course have access to the question that is in it. If you want to enroll a person as a teacher without editing rights, then she or he can use the question in other quizzes, but she wouldn't be able to change the question. She can't alter the question. But nonetheless, they can use the questions. The question bank still has categories. There's navigation as we would expect it. The categories are a little bit more modern. This wasn't the last change, but it came all over time. So, I can change the hierarchy. You can drag and drop it, rename it. In place renaming is not yet here, but it will be coming soon. So, allow me to just say I want to create a question. This is very, the same as before. And that question would then exist in that question bank. I call it WF. And that's it. That's the question. Sorry. There. There it is. This line is a bug. It's going to be resolved. It's already resolved, but in 5.03, also this line will be gone. What if I want to move a question? So, moving a question out of that question bank into another question bank in another course is just like over here. Verschieben nach. And here you have the choice of all the courses you have access to and all the question banks there are in that other course. And just move the question and it's moved over there. Say I go back to that original course again. I want to assemble a quiz. How does that work? Also, it works as before. My quiz. I show it. There's no question. Add a question. And now here, add a question from question bank. Normally uses default. You can still do question bank at the activity level inside the quiz alone. That will be still possible. But beware if you do create a question and it's only inside one quiz, you wouldn't be able to share it over to other courses and use it elsewhere. Then it will just stick to that activity, that quiz alone. So, I want to use the question I had moved in that other course, in the demo course two. So, I would just change to another question bank. It shows me what question bank I have access to, where I did recently access. If I don't know what it's called, I can just do a full text search. I think that was a question bank. So, I think I moved it over here. And here's my WF question. I add it. In my quiz, I see by that badge where the question is sitting. Where does it come from? If I click, I get to the question bank where that question is. I think, yes, we just wanted to mention that here also you have new features like this filtering. This has been massively been extended, so we can filter for a question type, for the question name, a time when it was changed. It's also possible to extend this for plugin developers. This modularity Tim spoke about, we basically tore everything apart of question bank, which initially was a huge chunk of code, and reassembled it in a modular way. So, that allows for plugins to be made, extension to be done. In last Moodle mood talk in Vienna, my colleague Stefan, for example, he created a plugin that allows to insert a question as a new version. There is a bulk tag plugin for question banks, and there's the AI quiz creation for new questions plugin by Heckey. So, it allows for all that. This was, I think, my demo part. Yes. The only other thing you could maybe just quickly show is adding a random question. And that you've got the same filters there. Yes, exactly. So, I go back to my quiz, maybe. I've got to go to the other course again, where the existing course is. Hopefully, there's no attempt yet. Now, it's good. So, if I want to add a random question, this still would work. And as where do I want the question to be coming from? I want it to be out of that question bank. And it should be maybe for a question type. I would filter it for a question. Sorry. The filter is here. I would just want to have a question of type multiple choice. So, these filters are here, the same as in the list. So, I could say I would multiple choice question. A random multiple choice question. So, yeah. Okay. Are there any questions about the demo? Yeah. I'm using a feature for randomness. And the feature is not giving the amount of questions you want to type out. I want to have the feature giving points and finding the extra questions by points. For instance, you have multiple choices for one point in the category and one for three. And I want to have four or five points or something. Filter, yes. Filter by number of points. No, no. Mix it up by the number of points. Oh, yeah. Yes. That's not going to be possible. That's not how the quiz works. Yeah. What I usually would suggest is say you teach it categories. Two points question category, one point question category. Five point questions. Two of two points, one of one point. That's the workaround, yeah. So, should we go back to my laptop? So, good. Yes. That has always been true. So, for the discussion, we really have two topics we thought we would like to talk about. Of course, we can talk about anything you like within reason. First, we were wondering, how many people, if you know, has your organization already upgraded to Moodle 5? That's about five, six, half a dozen people. And so, what version are other people using it? We're currently using Moodle 4.5. Yeah. That's more people. That's about two dozen. Sorry, about a dozen. Anyone else know what Moodle version they're using? 4.4. 4.4. That makes sense. I guess people might be using 4.1 long-term support release as well. Though I guess that's about to run out. People who are not yet moving, using Moodle 5, do you know if your organization's planning to move to it soon, like say in the next six months or so? Yeah, that's again about six people. So, if you are already using Moodle 5 and have experienced what we've just shown you, if you have any comments, I think we'd like to hear them. And the other thing is, as I said, this was our plan back in the year 2019 into 2020. This was the plan we made, and finally we've got there. Is this enough? Or are there other changes you would like to see in the question bank or in the quiz? We've already heard one suggestion. So, any further questions or discussion? Yeah? I just want to know if there are any thoughts, ideas about changes. And I'm not sure what to recommend. I think that should the quiz board question bank come into play, and then should it also be in the quiz board? Or should the question bank and then the quiz and the quiz? Well, first I will say that is exactly the right question to be asking yourself about your organization. Sorry, for the microphone, I'll just sort of repeat that. You know, we now have this ability to have questions in a central place and use them in other courses, or we can do what we've always done, at least what we've always done at the Open University. We had the questions in the course, and then every semester we make another copy of the course. So, then you end up with many copies of each question, and then if someone notices a mistake in the question, you have to go and find all the copies and fix the problem in the mistake in all those questions. So, the choice then is to move the questions out of the semester course and put them somewhere shared, and then just use them. That has the advantage then that there's only one copy of the question that you have to maintain. The disadvantage is if someone accidentally changes that question, that will affect all the courses, not just the teacher's own course. So, I think, I'm afraid I don't have advice for you, because I think the answer is not obvious, and it depends on what your organization needs. So, it is exactly the right question to ask, but you'll have to work out the right answer for your organization, and it may not be the same for all courses. I think that's the correct interpretation. Yes, it's not a one-size-fits-all, but it gives you options that you did not have before. Thank you. We, as an institution, we were in that version already in February, because this exists since – I've noted it down – 28 November 2024, Moodle did a 4.6 release, which was just a 4.5 plus, additionally. There was a quiz and question bank extension. We went to that in February, so we had a half year of advance, and we see that even teacher teams, they're going to work together to collaboratively manage a question bank, and the French teachers have all the questions, and moved it to the same course, smart categories there, with a logic, and they wouldn't create any new questions in their own courses anymore. They would just create it in the central repository, which is very, very cool. And, yes, the second one is that it was released to the public on April 14th for 5.0. We've got a question up there. If you have a course life cycle, you can use the extension to the course life cycle, right? Then, how do you apply the extension to the new course? How do you use the extension to the old course, or to the new life cycle? So, there are several parts to that question, which is, suppose you're sharing questions from, like, a semester three years ago, and then your course life cycle wants to delete that old course, but the questions are still used. So, the first thing to say, there is code in the system before any question is ever deleted. The system checks to see if it's being used anywhere, and if it's being used, then we won't actually delete the question. There are various possibilities that might happen, but, for example, if you've done this, then you will suddenly find in the system area, there is a question bank, like, questions saved from deletion, and the questions are moved there, and the quizzes continue to work. Or, as you say, you can think about this before you delete the course. I think if you're setting up a structure with shared questions, it might be sensible to make a special course for, like, shared teaching resources, and put your question banks there, and not have the questions in any semester course. So, that might be a better setup, and then that course is never deleted. Yes, but you can always sort of move to that structure later. Andrew? I'm really interested in course reading, reading for bio-typing. So, you have the ability to read the course and questions within it. How does that work? Do you have questions in the question banks? So, what users can do with questions is controlled by permissions. There's, like, a capability, can you add questions, can you edit a question, can you take a question from this question bank and use it in your quiz? So, obviously, use is a read-only capability, and then create an edit question. So, who can change the question, that depends on the question bank, where the question bank is. So, basically, if someone's a teacher for that question bank, they can edit the questions. If they're a non-editing teacher, they can take the questions and use them in their quiz. Or you can set up custom roles. So, I guess if the question bank is in a course that's been frozen, no one will be able to edit those questions. But always, basically, once a question's been added to the quiz by someone with permission to add it to the quiz, that quiz will go on working because not breaking students' work is an absolutely key design idea of the whole system. And the questions are versions. So, when you add questions to a quiz, normally the quiz is set to just take the latest version when a student starts an attempt. But you can, if you really care about an important exam, you can lock all the versions and say, this exam is this version until I tell you something different. Yeah. So, yeah. I think if you've used the quiz in the past, you will be using question banks, whether you know that or not. Because before Moodle 5, if you created a quiz and added the question to the quiz, it actually went into the course question bank. And so, when your Moodle is upgraded to Moodle 5, there will still be a course question bank, and the questions will be shared between the courses in the quiz. And actually, this sometimes confused people because they'd copy a quiz and be surprised that the two quizzes weren't just using, didn't each have their own copy of the question. They'd change the second quiz and then find that change. So, in Moodle 5, if you just create a quiz and add questions to the quiz, you really are not using question banks. The questions are just in each quiz. So, that's probably less confusing for people who just don't want to use question banks. As well as, sorry, I'm going to go on a sidetrack and then come back to your question. But one of our requirements was we wanted to make complex sharing things possible. But another requirement was we wanted to make it as easy as possible for a teacher who just wanted to make a quiz and never use a question bank. So, I think we've achieved both. But now to come back to your question. If you in the past just made a quiz and the questions are just in this quiz, you can go and find them and then move them into a shared question bank, and then they can be used by other quizzes, but your original quiz will still work. I wonder. This is basically from Moodle 5 onwards is what we're talking about. Can I, have I got the demo site open? Well, I was, well, this will also work, I think. Maybe. Thank you. Yeah. If you ask Helen Foster and she knows you are trustworthy, she will sometimes give out the admin password. So, here I will just add a new question to this quiz. And I'll give it a name so we know that it's this question. So, here we have a new question that I've just added to this quiz. And if we go and look within this quiz, there's a private area of questions, which is where that new question has just been. So, it's just inside the quiz. If I now think, you know, I want to reuse this somewhere else, I can go, is move there, is there any bulk? No, it's the checkbox and you can select it. Yeah, yeah, sorry. There I can go and move it and I can go and find. I think this is now, that's, I think this is a question bank that's available then. Well, no, this is just, I don't know, I'm not sure. This is a question bank that's available then. Well, no, this is just, I don't know, some other question bank. I'm just going to move it. So, has that moved? Yes. No? Don't ever do live demos. So, I actually want to, so I want to move it to, yeah, the Moodle, the whole site shared question bank. Oh, that popped up, I see, and then I want to confirm. I clicked, I just clicked outside the dialog. Is it doing anything? Oh, don't ever do live demos. Why is it not responding to me? I don't know. Can I have a tab of the return to the Moodle? I don't know. I don't know. It does work normally, as they always say. But, yeah, that's the idea. You can move things. If you just create them in the quiz, you can move them somewhere else and then you can share them. Has someone come up with the next big thing that we can and should do with question bank or quiz? Yeah? Oh. Oh. Yeah.Es ist ein bisschen mehr verständlich. Wie gesagt, um das Zeitlimit zu verändern, ist es ein Problem, dass es zu lange dauert. Ja, aber wenn du das Zeitlimit änderst, dann muss man auch die Schließdate ändern. Ja, manchmal sind die Leute nicht darauf aufgeregt. Und ich denke, bei diesem Moot, hat jemand einen Wunsch zu diesem Moot, eine Testmonitoring-Plugin. Ja, eine Monitoring-Plugin. Ja, das ist eine Idee, die ich oft für nützlich finde. Eine Plugin, um Testmonitoring zu helfen, und dann, du sagst, wo sonst die Überreste sein könnten, in dieser Plugin oder so eine Plugin in Moodle Core, kannst du einen sehr einfachen 10-Minuten-Abstieg zu diesem Studenten. Ja, aber das ist eine Plugin, die die Leute zeigen, dass sie einen Knopf drücken, um eine eigene Lichter zu verwenden, und dann kommt es zu einem Menü, das sich ähnlich aussieht. Ja. Ich habe hier eine Option. Ich würde sagen, dass da ist eine Option. Für diesen User ist das Building-on-the-Wrap-Event-Allowance. Das würde sich helfen, wenn du jemanden hast, der einen Test mit einem Studenten aus dem Universum hat. Mit einem Feuerwehrmann. Ja. Das ist eine Option. Nicht für uns, aber für den Studenten. Also ist das die Situation, in der ein Studenten-Examen vor dem Abschluss veröffentlicht wird. Und in dieser Situation, in einem Examen, wo du nur einen Versuch erlaubst, ist es nicht gut, wenn die Studierenden aus dem Zeitraum ausgehen und der Versuch veröffentlicht wird. Es ist nicht gut, dann eine Veränderung zu machen, weil der Versuch bereits veröffentlicht wurde. Also musst du ihnen einen weiteren Versuch erlauben. Und es wird sehr kompliziert. Also ja, eine bessere Lösung für diese Situation. Die beste Frage wäre, ob du eine Option hast, den Versuch zu eröffnen, während du auch mehr Zeit erzielen kannst. Ja. Ja. Ich habe einen Versuch eröffnet, der in der Vergangenheit nicht möglich war. Und in der Form habe ich meine Idee veröffentlicht, dass ich keine Gefühle habe, keine guten Gefühle, keine schlechte Gefühle, sondern nur leichte, leichte Gefühle. Und es ist nicht einfach, es ist schwierig. Und dann denke ich, vielleicht ist es gut, wenn wir nur eine Art von Leichtes haben. Ja. Vielleicht. Wir haben es geschafft, in zwei Tagen einen sehr einfachen Prototyp in der DevCamp zu bauen. Es braucht viel mehr Arbeit. Aber ich denke, es ist eine Idee, die mich interessiert. Ich bin froh, dass es mehr als nur mich interessiert. Ich habe mich sehr beschäftigt und habe die Formen nicht aufgehängt. Ich werde deine Post später finden und sie lesen. Es ist eine interessante Idee. Wir müssen definitiv die Vorbereitung von Quizzen einfacher machen. Ja. Ich versuche zu erinnern. Wenn du zwei Fragen beantwortest, dann... Wenn jemand eine Frage hat... Also... Und dann ist es so, wenn du eine weitere Frage hast, geht es zurück zu den Leuten, die... ...dann haben wir auch noch eine Frage. Wenn du eine Frage hast, dann... Ähm... Ah, das ist falsch. Ich dachte, wir hätten darüber nachgedacht und es gemacht. Wenn du eine Frage aus einem Bankenbankstück hinzubestimmt, dann ist es im Moment der gleiche Bankenbankstück. Natürlich haben wir vergessen, das zu tun. Das war unsere Vorstellung. Wir haben nur eine Frage aus dem anderen Bankenbankstück hinzugefügt. Wenn wir das hier öffnen, um eine weitere Frage hinzubekommen, sollte es sich erinnern, welchen Bankenbankstück wir benutzen. Ja. Ja. Wir haben vergessen. Das war in der Vorstellung. Vielen Dank, dass ihr uns erinnert. Die Session hat sich ausgezahlt. Bezüglich P. Ja. Ich habe noch eine Frage. Ist es möglich, einen defaulten Bankenbankstück für eine Kurs zu setzen? Ein Bankenbankstück? So? Nein, ich meine... Ich denke, der gemeinsame Anwendungsfall ist wahrscheinlich, dass die meisten Kurse eigentlich keinen Bankenbankstück haben oder einen. Ich denke, die Situationen, in denen man mehr als einen will, sind ziemlich kompliziert. Vielleicht, wenn man ein Endkursexamen hat, möchte man einen eigenen Bankenbankstück für das, um sicherzustellen, dass man die Fragen nicht in eine andere Quiz-Frage mischt. Ich denke, die Anzahl der Bankenbankstücke in jedem Kurs ist ziemlich klein. Ich denke, wenn man nur einen Bankenbankstück benutzt, erinnert man sich, dass es bald genug ist. Einfach eine Star-Emoji vorne stellen. Ja, genau. Wir müssen bald fertig sein. Ich möchte euch etwas zeigen. Tim ist noch nicht da, bis die restliche Konferenz beginnt. Ich muss bald sein. Aber... Wo ist Präsent? Sorry. Ja. Genau. Die Session hat gekostet, aber das Projekt hat nicht gekostet. Wir haben Höhen und Tiefen, wenn wir viel Geld haben. Dann kommen wir in die Kategorie Sprint und gehen tiefer in die Kategorie Geld. Wenn man in einer Institution ist, geht es fast bis zum Ende des Jahres. Manchmal entdeckt man am Ende ein paar Schatze, wo man Geld verkauft. Man kann das als Qualitätssicherung verwenden. Das ist Qualitätssicherung. Man kann es als Digitalisierungsfonds machen. Also Briefungen digitalisieren oder als E-Assessment. Wenn in eurer Institution etwas Geld ist, und ihr wollt es weitergeben, an der Quiz & Question Bank zu arbeiten, dann kontaktiert mich. Wir sind aus vier verschiedenen Institutionen. Die Leute, die die Idee entwickelten und das Projekt begonnen haben. Ich bin der Schweizer, ich spiele den Roll der Bank. Ich werde derjenige sein, der den Anruf an euch schickt. Es ist super einfach. Man kann definieren, welchen Text man möchte. Wenn man es kompliziert machen möchte, kann man auch einen Kontrakt erstellen. Es ist wertvoll, ist eine Ausgabe enthalten, ist mehrsteuerfrei, weil es eine Forschungskooperation ist. Es ist eine akademische Kooperation. Es braucht keine legalen oder komplizierten Bürokratie. Man muss sich einig sein. Wenn ihr Fragen habt, dann kontaktiert mich. Es gab einen schönen Artikel im Blog von Catalyst. Ich werde ihn auch auf das Editpad stellen, wenn ihr ein paar Aussagen sehen wollt. Schaut, was andere Leute über uns geschrieben haben. Ja. Gibt es noch etwas, was wir für euch tun können? Wenn ihr euch in unsere Arbeit interessiert, in einem technischen Sinne, haben wir einen Sequenz von Problemen im Moodle-Issue-Tracker. Was wir in jeder Ausgabe gemacht haben. Wir sind fast am Moodle 5.1-Release. Das ist alles, was wir in Moodle 5.1 gemacht haben. Seit Moodle 5 wurde geöffnet, haben viele Leute uns Feedback gegeben und Böcke gefunden. Wir haben viele fixiert. Es gibt noch viele, die in der Mitte des Reviews sind. Hoffentlich werden sie auch in Moodle 5.1 eingeführt. Aber irgendwann machen wir eine Kopie, die uns das Moodle 5.2-Release nennt. Es gibt all diese Epics, wenn ihr euch in unsere Arbeit interessiert und folgt. Und ihr mögt euch in den Moodle-Bug-Tracker verabschieden, wie manche von uns. Ich werde den Link in der E-Mail-Abteilung auch verlinken.