The Question Bank in Moodle: Manage, Reuse, and Share Questions in One Place
Anyone who regularly creates tests in Moodle quickly realizes that managing, updating, and versioning questions is a time-consuming task. This is especially true when multiple courses or multiple versions of a course are involved, or when several instructors are working together—a good structure is essential for maintaining an overview. That’s exactly what the Question Bank is for: it serves as a central repository for all questions on a Moodle platform. Here, questions are created and maintained once, then reused in tests as often as needed.
With Moodle 5.0, the question bank has been fundamentally redesigned: It now features course-specific question banks, new filters, fully customizable columns, and a robust versioning system. This article explains the concept from the ground up, demonstrates each feature with a practical example, and concludes with specific recommendations for productive use.
Topics in this post
- What is the FAQ?
- Use questions across courses
- Question Status: Draft and Ready
- Versioning and History
- Customize Columns
- Filters and Search
- Organizing Questions: Categories and Tags
- Share questions with others
- Import and Export
- Random Questions: How They Interact with Tests
- Best Practices for Everyday Use
- Conclusion
- Mastering the Question Bank in Practice
What is the FAQ?
The question bank is a separate section where questions can be created, previewed, and edited—that is, independently of any specific test. Questions from this bank are then incorporated into test activities (and lessons).
The key advantage: one question, many tests. If a question is changed in the question bank, the change is reflected everywhere the question is used. Instead of copying the same question multiple times, you maintain it in a single location.
Example: You are teaching three courses on workplace safety. Instead of entering the 50 basic questions three times (or importing them from one course to the next), create them once in a shared question bank and drag them into all three course quizzes. One correction at the source is all it takes.
New in Moodle 5.0: Two types of question banks
Since Moodle 5.0, a distinction has been made between two types:
1. Shared question banks. These can be found in the course navigation under More > Question Banks. These question banks can be reused and shared across courses. You can create multiple question banks per course. To access them from another course, go to Test Activity > Questions > Add > From a Question Bank > Switch Question Bank.
2. Test Question Bank. Located in the test navigation under "Question Bank." The questions created here are available exclusively in this one test. The purpose: You can build a test and easily add questions using " Create New Question " without having to worry about where they are stored. However, these questions cannot be reused elsewhere.
Good to know: In a test activity, you can use questions from both types at the same time. It’s also handy to maintain a separate “question bank course” as a central library—that way, your active courses stay streamlined, and all questions are in one place.
Use questions across courses
Question banks are available for all courses in which you serve as an instructor. This allows you to add questions from your question banks to any quiz in any of your courses. If someone edits a question in the question bank, the change is reflected everywhere the question is used.
This is where versioning comes into play: If a question has multiple versions, you can specify a fixed version (e.g., “Version 2”) for a particular test instead of always using the latest one. That way, subsequent changes to the collection won’t affect that test—which is important, for example, for an exam that has already been completed or is currently in progress.
Example: You revise the wording of a question midway through the semester. The new version should appear immediately in the practice tests, but the old version—which students have already encountered—should appear in the final exam that has already begun. By selecting the version for each test, both options are possible at the same time.
Question Status: Draft and Ready
Every question has a status: Draft or Ready. Only questions with the Ready status can be added to a test; questions with the Draft status cannot. If you can't find a question when inserting it into a test, check its status first.
This is more than just a technical hurdle—it’s the foundation of a quality assurance workflow: New questions are first saved as drafts, reviewed by colleagues (see comments), and set to “Ready” only after approval.
Example: A subject matter expert writes draft questions; a second person reviews them for subject-matter accuracy and wording, comments on any open issues, and then marks the question as “Ready.” Only then may it be included in an exam.
Versioning and History
Instead of overwriting or deleting questions, Moodle keeps a version history. You can view previous versions and track who made what changes and when through a question's action menu.
When this is helpful: You need to track a change, restore a question that was accidentally altered for the worse, or document which version was used in a specific exam. Versioning replaces the error-prone manual duplication (“Question_final_v3_NEW”).
Customize Columns
The question bank is a table whose columns you can reorder, hide, resize, and reset. The Moodle administration determines which columns are generally available. The most important ones are:
- Question – the internal question title, which can be edited directly in the list. Participants never see it, so you can name it for purely organizational purposes.
- Actions – Edit, Duplicate, Preview, and access to history and versions.
- Status – Draft or Ready; can be toggled directly in the list.
- Version – refers to the different stages of the question's revision.
- Created by – the person who originally posted the question.
- Comments – Feedback from colleagues during the peer review process.
- Usage – the number of tests in which the question is used, with a link to details.
- Last used – when someone last answered the question.
- Review needed? – Highlights questions whose results indicate a problem.
- Modified by – the person who made the last edit.
- Ease-of-use index and discrimination efficiency —statistical measures derived from test statistics that reflect the quality of the question.
Example: For editorial work, show Status, Comments, and Modified by; for instructional quality control, show Ease Index, Discrimination Efficiency, and " Review Required?" instead.
Filters and Search
As soon as a collection starts to grow, filters are worth their weight in gold. The following are available:
- Category – Limit to a specific category of questions.
- Show hidden questions – include questions that are currently hidden.
- Type – e.g., multiple-choice questions only.
- Time changed —before, after, or between specific points in time.
- Status of the latest version – Ready or Draft.
- Keyword Search – by question title, question ID, question text, and general feedback.
The filters by type, last modified, and status, as well as the keyword search, are new features in Moodle 5.0—a noticeable improvement when dealing with large collections.
Example: “Show all multiple-choice questions with the ‘Draft’ status that have been modified in the last 14 days” —filtered in seconds, ideal for the weekly review meeting.
Organizing Questions: Categories and Tags
Questions are organized into categories and subcategories—similar to folders. A well-thought-out category structure is essential for finding questions and for the targeted use of random questions.
In addition, tags serve as a cross-cutting organizational level: While categories typically correspond to topics or chapters, tags can be used to indicate, for example, the cognitive demand level, the difficulty level, or a learning objective.
Sample structure:
- Category: Occupational Safety > Fire Safety
- Tags:
grundlagen,bloom-anwenden,pflichtschulung
This is how you can later include “five application questions on fire safety” in a test.
Share questions with others
Through the shared course question collections, all instructors for a course can access the same questions. If someone outside the course needs access, this can be granted via roles:
- Enroll the person in the course as an instructor (with or without editing privileges).
- Navigate to the desired collection via More > Question Collections.
- From the three-dot menu next to the collection, select " Assign Roles."
- Select the "Trainer" role without editing permissions and add the person.
That person can then use the questions in their own tests, but cannot modify them. This allows for the secure sharing of validated question banks without relinquishing control over the content.
Example: A central editorial team maintains a vetted pool of questions. Subject-matter experts from other departments are allowed to use the questions but not edit them—ensuring consistency.
Import and Export
Questions do not have to be created individually in the browser. Moodle supports several formats for import and export:
- Moodle XML —the most comprehensive format. It supports nearly all question types, including images, feedback, and settings, and is the top choice for backups and transferring content between platforms.
- GIFT – a text-based, easy-to-read format. Ideal for quickly writing many questions in a text editor and importing them all at once.
- Aiken – a very simple format designed exclusively for multiple-choice questions; minimal effort required for pure MC sets.
Example: A department submits 200 questions as a Word document. You convert them to GIFT format (a plain-text schema), import them all at once, and save yourself the trouble of creating them manually.
Important Note: Moodle typically imports a file in its entirety. A single faulty question—often caused by a missing add-on question type—can block the entire import. Therefore, when exchanging data across platforms, ensure that the question types used are compatible and test the import first in a small category.
Random Questions: How They Interact with Tests
A well-maintained question bank really shines when it uses random questions: Instead of including fixed questions, let the test randomly select a certain number of questions from a category. This way, each person receives a different set of questions—an effective safeguard against cheating and the foundation for practice tests that can be taken repeatedly.
For this to work fairly, the questions in a category must be equivalent (similar difficulty, same learning objective). This is where a well-organized category structure really pays off.
Best Practices for Everyday Use
- Set up the Central Library: Create a separate “Question Bank Course” as a master pool and incorporate questions from it into all course quizzes.
- Organize categories by learning objectives or topics: This ensures that random questions remain fair and that questions are easy to find.
- Assign descriptive question titles: Participants will never see the title—use it internally, for example, following this format
Thema_Lernziel_Schwierigkeit_Nr. - Use tags consistently: For cross-cutting characteristics such as Bloom's taxonomy level, chapter, or required/elective content.
- Status Workflow: Draft → Review via Comments → Ready. Only approved questions make it into exams.
- Use versions instead of deleting them: Changes remain traceable, and old versions can be restored.
- Analyzing statistics: The ease index and discrimination efficiency indicate which questions are too easy, too difficult, or lack sufficient discrimination—and therefore need to be revised.
- Export regularly: A Moodle XML export of the key categories serves as a simple, portable safety net.
- Check before updating: When updating to Moodle 5.0, be sure to review the notes on question banks in updated installations and verify the role permissions required to use questions.
Conclusion
The question bank is particularly useful for those who use Moodle to administer exams, or who want to manage a large number of questions across multiple courses and collaborate with several instructors. With the updates in Moodle 5.0 (shared course question banks, versioning, status workflow, flexible columns, and powerful filters), it has evolved from a simple storage solution into a true editorial and quality assurance tool. Those who think in terms of well-organized categories from the start, establish a status workflow, and consistently reuse questions will build a question bank that gains value with every course and drastically reduces the effort required for each new test.
Mastering the Question Bank in Practice
Would you like to use the collection of questions?
In the eLeDia.academy live training session, you’ll learn in two hours how to create questions efficiently, filter them effectively, make them available across courses, and continuously improve them using the integrated analysis tools. The webinar is designed to be practical. If you’d like, you can practice directly in a Moodle practice environment.
Training Information – Advanced 3 Trainer: Using the Question Bank
