What is a question bank?
Think of a question bank like your normal bank account. You deposit your questions into the question bank and then withdraw them when you need them e.g. for exams. It means all your questions are stored in one secure place that you can go to whenever you need them.
Why use a question bank?
Question banks are a great way of managing your questions. Over time questions gradually build up and you can find yourself with lots of different questions in lots of different places but with no effective way of managing them all.
This means that when you’re trying to complete an exam you have to go through the frustrating process of trying to remember where you put particular questions. In this case, it can make creating an exam a lot trickier to do. With a question bank, all your questions are stored and organised in a way that makes them easy and quick to access for anyone that is creating an exam.
Question banks are also really useful for getting an in-depth analysis of questions, such as when a question was last used or its difficulty level. This means that you can quickly find the most effective questions to use in your exams. It also means that your students are getting the best possible exam in terms of testing their knowledge and skills accurately.
For example, with question banking software like Maxexam, you are provided with a quick snapshot of the performance of all questions contained in a bank. This performance history can include how many times a question has been used, its difficulty level and its discrimination. With all this information readily available, you are able select the best questions that adequately test students and lead to the consistent improvement of your exams.
What to look for in question banking software:
Question security
Questions take a lot of time to create which makes them extremely valuable and with large question banks this value is heightened. This is why it is essential that a question bank should have a high level of security. When exploring question banking software it’s best to look for a system that is encrypted and allows you to give specific users access permissions to your question bank. This will make managing access to your question bank a lot easier.
Curriculum mapping
When compiling exams, you can make sure you get the coverage you need by being able to see the curriculum coverage of your entire question bank. This will allow you to quickly spot potential gaps in your question bank and direct question writers to target particular learning outcomes.
Most question banking software will allow you to map a question to one or more learning outcomes in your curriculum. Question banking software like Maxexam even allows you to have multiple curricula which means you can map your own individual curriculum as well as a regulatory body curriculum. This gives you the ability to choose your exam questions in a way that ensures you are thoroughly covering your chosen curricula when creating an exam.
Search tools
It’s good to have all your questions in once place, but what’s even better is being able to search for questions quickly and with ease. Question banking software can provide you with powerful search tools which mean you are able to find particular questions instead of trawling through lists of questions, saving you valuable time.
Access
Being able to access your question bank whenever you need to is essential. A digital question bank will allow you to have access 24/7 which means you can view questions on demand whether you are on the move or in the workplace.
Question banking software is the perfect solution to exam management no matter how big or small your organisation is. If you would like some advice on question banks or if you would like to learn more about Maxexam’s secure question banking system, then send us an email: info@maxinity.co.uk or fill in our contact form.
To find out how Kings College London have benefitted from using a digital question bank, take a look at our case study here.
