Import questions from another LMS

Questions you already wrote in another learning platform come straight into your question bank. Every question in the file is listed first, ready or with what’s wrong with it, and nothing is added until you say so.

Why use it

Rewriting a question library by hand is the slowest part of moving to a new learning platform. Importing brings years of quiz questions across in minutes, and the check before anything is added shows exactly which questions need a fix, in your own language, so nothing broken reaches a learner.

Import a file

Open the import

In the course builder, select Question bank, then Import.

Add the questions

Drop the file on the panel or select Choose a file. You can also paste the questions into Or paste the questions. Files can be up to 1 MB and 500 questions.

Tag them

Under Tag every imported question, add the tags quizzes will draw these questions by. A GIFT category or a CSV Tags column adds its own tags as well.

Check the questions

Select Check the questions. The panel says how many questions it found, how many are ready and how many have problems, and lists every one with its type, tags and points. Problems, notes and the reasons a question was left out are written in the language you use Sessionboard in.

Import

Untick any question you don’t want, then select Import. If some questions have problems, tick Import the rest and leave out the questions with problems first: nothing is left out without you agreeing to it.

When the import finishes, the panel says how many questions were added and lists every question that wasn’t, with the reason.

Formats

Format	Where it comes from	What it holds
GIFT	Moodle, TalentLMS, Docebo and most LMSs that export questions as text	Multiple choice, select all that apply (with weights), true or false, short answer, fill in the blank, matching, number, written answer, feedback, categories
Aiken	Moodle, TalentLMS and simple quiz tools	Multiple choice, with one right answer (or several, written ANSWER: A, C)
CSV	Any spreadsheet	One question per row, read from its header row

Leave Format on Detect it unless the panel guesses wrong.

CSV columns

The first row names the columns. Only a question column is required; the others are read when they are there, in any order:

Column	Also read as	What to put in it
Question	Question text, Prompt, Stem	The question
Type	Question type	Multiple choice, multiple response, true/false, short answer, fill in the blank, essay, numeric, matching, ordering, poll
Option A … Option J	Answer 1 … , Choice 1 … , A … J	One option per column
Correct	Correct answer, Answer key	A letter (B), several (A, C), the option number, or the answer’s text
Points	Score, Marks	A number
Tags	Category, Topic	Tags separated by semicolons
Explanation	Feedback, Rationale	Shown after answering

You can also mark a right option by starting it with *, or with Correct 1 … columns set to 1 or yes. For a fill-in-the-blank question, mark each blank with ___ and put the answers in Correct, separated by semicolons. For matching, write each option as left -> right.

Tip

If Type is empty, the type is worked out from the row: options with one right answer are multiple choice, several right answers are select all that apply, true or false is a true-or-false question, and no options and no answer is a written answer.

Note

Ask can import too: paste the file into Ask and say which tags to add. Ask shows you the questions it found and what’s wrong with any of them before it adds anything. See Build courses with Ask.