Using Respondus for Question Bank Creation and Manipulation
Office of Distance Education & Educational Technology
College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University
February, 2013
[ See more tips at http://www.hs.iastate.edu/tips/ ]
Respondus is a program for creating, manipulating, and moving question databanks. It can import
and export question lists as Word files and can be used to place or extract questions from a
Blackboard account. Textbook publishers routinely provide question banks in Word, Respondus,
and Blackboard formats, though not necessarily in all three formats.
See http://www.hs.iastate.edu/tips/products/respondus/ for additional instructions on
downloading and using Respondus to manipulate test banks, either for hard copy exams or for use
online in Blackboard.
If you wish to use Respondus, then the first thing you need to do is get Respondus formatted
files. Try these approaches Method 1: Respondus Test Bank Network

Search the online Respondus Test Bank Network for your text book >>
http://www.respondus.com/products/testbank/search.php
 If you find the text book listed, complete the online request form.
 Respondus will contact the university to verify that you are the Instructor of Record
and thus eligible to receive the test bank files.
 Plan on the process taking up to a week.

If you do not see your book, try emailing a publisher representative and asking for
Respondus files. You might also ask if there are Blackboard 9.X formatted files, depending
on your ultimate objective.
Method 2: Publisher’s Website

Locate the website of your textbook’s publishing company (this can easily be done by
Googling the textbook name and publishing company). Look for a way to register or sign-in
so you can request instructor access/materials in a format suitable for Respondus (or
directly for Blackboard 9)
Method 3: Extract an existing question pool or test from Blackboard into Respondus.
Plugging information into Respondus:
You must have Respondus installed on your computer to open and manipulate test bank files.
Download it from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/elearning/?page_id=273 . Follow the installation
instructions. The key code changes every August. Start your Respondus 4 software then:
1. Select the "Test Bank Network" button on the start menu
2. Select "Register a test bank using a file code and password" and click "Next"
3. Enter the following information:
File Code:
File Password:
Your Name:
Institution: Iowa State University
Email Address:
4. Click the "Link Test Bank" button (you need to have a live
Internet connection at this point). A box will appear that indicates,
"The test bank is now linked". Click the "Continue" button.
The test bank is now registered for use on your computer. Click "Next" to begin selecting items
from the test bank.
Quiz questions may come in various formats.
There are many sources of test banks (question pools) and they can be transferred from one
format to another. Here is a summary of common manipulations, often done in combinations:

Blackboard  Blackboard. Question pools can be export from one Blackboard course and
imported into another.

Blackboard  Respondus. Use Respondus to extract a question Pool from Blackboard into
Respondus.

Respondus  Blackboard. Respondus can push files into Blackboard as question Pools.

Respondus  Word. Save a Respondus file as a Word file and make variations of it with,
and without, an answer key.

Word  Respondus . A Word file that follows specific formatting rules can be imported
into Respondus.

Publisher  Respondus / Word / Blackboard. You may be able to obtain question bank
files in multiple formats from your textbook publisher representative.

Respondus Network  Respondus. The Respondus Network may contain question pools
for your textbook.
RESPONDUS PRACTICE ACTIVITY 1:
Create a Question Set using Respondus Question Templates
1. Start Respondus.
2. Click the ”Start” tab.
3. Click “Create” to begin a new
Respondus file.

Name file = Activity 01

Description = Activity 01

Type of File = Exam

Click OK
4. Click the Edit button. Use the
question templates on the left
to make 4 different questions,
as shown below.
Multiple Choice:
1. Title: ISU colors
2. Question: Which of the following are ISU
colors?
3. Answer options:
cardinal & gold
black & silver
black & gold
cardinal & black
4. Correct answer: A
5. Point Value: 1.00
6. Click Add to End of List
True False:
1. Title: IA bird
2. Question: The state bird of Iowa is the
golden finch.
3. Correct answer: TRUE
4. Point Value: 1.00
5. Click Add to End of List
Matching:
1. Title: Department location
2. Question: Match the department
main office to the building.
3. Answers:
1. CI
2. HDFS
3. AESHM
4. KIN
A. Lagomarcino
B. Palmer
C. MacKay
D. Forker
4. Point Value: 4.00 (i.e., 1 pt/match)
5. Credit Given: Proportional to #
Correct
6. Click Add to End of List
Fill-In the blank: (single blank)
1. Title: Complete the saying
2. Question: People who live in ____ houses
shouldn’t throw stones. ** make it obvious
where the blank is… there is no special
character required.
3. Answers: enter all acceptable answers and
spelling variations
glass
green
4. Point Value: 1.00
5. Click Add to End of List
There are other question formats available in Respondus but these are the most commonly used. Click the ?
icon near the top of a question template to get instructions about a question format.
There are many additional questions formats available directly within Blackboard, so some questions must
be created directly within Blackboard and cannot be imported.
As you save your questions, they appear in the Question List at the bottom of the “Edit” screen. Use the
icons provided to preview a question, relocate it in the list, or pull it back into the editing window for
revision. Make sure to save any changes you make!
RESPONDUS PRACTICE ACTIVITY 2: Save a Question Set as a Word file
1. Continue using the 4 questions from activity 1 or use any other Respondus question file you have
available. Click the “Preview & Publish” tab.
2. Click “Print Options”
3. Part 1: Select “Exam with Answer key”. Click the “Settings” button and specify the content and
formatting of the questions. Make sure to click “OK” to save your settings.
Part 2: Click “Edit Headers” and fill in title text and the variation (version number) of the exam. This will
appear at the top of your Word file.
Part 3: Pull down the menu and select “Random variation A”
Part 4: Indicate how many questions should be included – for this activity select all 4 questions.
4. Click “Print Preview.” If necessary, adjust the formatting settings on the document.
5. Click “Save to file” and call the file “activity2_A_key.doc”
6. Change the setting in Part 1 to “Exam” then click “Save to File” and save it as “activity2_A.doc”
You now have 2 Word files: the "Exam" file (student version) and the "Exam with Answers" file (key).
To make a second variation of the same quiz, go to Part 3 and set the pull down menu to “Random variation
B”. Change the Header text in Part 2 to “Version B” and save the file twice, once as an “Exam” and once as
“Exam with Answer Key”.
Double check all the saved Word files to ensure that you have labeled them properly and that the content is
as expected.
It may be necessary to do some tweaks in Word to make pages break properly or otherwise improve the
exam appearance.
RESPONDUS PRACTICE ACTIVITY 3: Exporting Questions to a Blackboard Pool*
* We recommend only importing and exporting Pools and then building Tests directly within Blackboard
Click the “Preview & Publish” tab
Click “Publish to Blackboard”
Click “Publish Wizard” -- If you have not already set up a connection to the ISU Blackboard server, you may
need to do so before proceeding. Follow the online instructions
Screen 1: Select “Publish to single course”, click “Next”
Screen 2:
 Click the drop down menu and select the course you want to push the questions into (you can push
questions into any course in which you are listed as Instructor, Course Builder, or TA).

Click the radio button next to “Create new Pool”. By default, the Pool is given the name of the
Respondus file. You may change it.

It is not necessary to uncheck the Exam/Survey options but they are not needed when pushing
questions into a Pool.

Click “Next”
Screen 3: A message displays when the transfer is successfully completed. Click “Finish”.
The file is now ready in Bb and just needs to be placed in the appropriate content area and released to
students.
RESPONDUS PRACTICE ACTIVITY 4: Retrieving questions in your Bb course:







Click on "Retrieval & Reports" tab in Respondus
Click "Retrieve Questions"
Sign in to Blackboard when prompted, using your Bb username and password.
Choose the course you are working with under “Choose Course to Retrieve From”.
Click on Pool and locate the question Pool you wish to download.
o Note that you can also download a Test, but if the Blackboard Test includes Question Sets or
Random Blocks from which students see a subset of all the available questions, the
downloaded file includes all possible questions. This means that the downloaded test will be
much larger than the online Test.
Enter a name for the new Respondus file (e.g., Exam 1 HDFS 373)
Click finish (the data will take a minute or so to download)
The resulting file can be saved as a Word file (activity 2) for Instructor review or used to create a paper
test for students.