Create Test Banks Using The Respondus Test Bank Network

Most of the test banks we've received directly from publishers have not imported directly into Canvas or Canvas Item Banks very well. The TLC and TAC are recommending the use of Respondus 4.0 (this is the quiz builder tool from Respondus and not the Respondus Lockdown Browser) and the Respondus Test Bank Network for a more seamless experience with publisher test banks. The process does take a bit of time and is a multi-step process that involves installing Respondus 4.0, requesting the test banks from the publisher through Respondus, pulling the test bank into Respondus 4.0, creating the test banks and pushing them to the course in Canvas, exporting the Canvas quiz and importing it as a Canvas Item Bank (optional). I'll outline each of the steps below.

If you have any questions or experience any issues with the instructions below or the process, please send an email to elearning@gfcmsu.edu or open at a ticket at https://www.gfcmsu.edu/home/campus-departments/tac/support-ticket/.

Installing Respondus 4.0

The steps for this will be different if you are on a college issued computer or on a personal computer. I'll list below.

Installing On A College Issued Computer

Open Software Center on your computer.
Search for Respondus 4.0 and install it.
Once it is installed, open it.
It should prompt you to open or create a personality. Click on the drop-down and select Canvas.
The next window will ask for the Canvas Server. Click that drop-down and select "add new server".
Select "No, I want to enter the server settings manually" and click Next.
In your browser, logged into Canvas, go to any of your courses, copy the URL in the address bar, and paste it into the box in step 2.
Click "Extract". The server connection URL box should show something similar to https://gfcmsu.instructure.com/api/respondus/soap
In the Description, type "Canvas".
Enter your Canvas username and password, check the "Remember my User Name and Password" box.
Click Ok.
Click Next.
It will open a browser window to the Canvas login page, login to Canvas as you normally would, including authenticating with DUO.
When prompted, click "Authorize".
If all went smoothly, you should be on a "Retrieve Questions Wizard".

Installing On A Personal Computer

Send an email to eLearning@gfcmsu.edu requesting to install Respondus 4.0 on a personal computer.
The Technology Assistance Center will email you a link from our Vault system. The link will take you to a web page with two files, a Respondus-x.x.exe file and a text file. Download both.
Navigate to your downloads folder and double-click on the Respondus-x.x.exe file and follow the prompts to install the application. When it asks about installing the equation editor, select yes and allow that installation process to complete also.
Open the newly installed Respondus 4.0 application.
You will be presented with a window asking for Institution Name, Local Support Contact, and Installation Password. Those items are located in the text file that was downloaded, so open that text file and paste in each of the three items, and click "License".
It should prompt you to open or create a personality. Click on the drop-down and select Canvas.
The next window will ask for the Canvas Server. Click that drop-down and select "add new server".
Select "No, I want to enter the server settings manually" and click Next.
In your browser, logged into Canvas, go to any of your courses, copy the URL in the address bar, and paste it into the box in step 2.
Click "Extract". The server connection URL box should show something similar to https://gfcmsu.instructure.com/api/respondus/soap
In the Description, type "Canvas".
Enter your Canvas username and password, check the "Remember my User Name and Password" box.
Click Ok. Click Next.
It should prompt you to install a script that is needed to authenticate, follow the steps to allow it to install the script. During the script installation, it will open your browser to the Canvas login page, login to Canvas as you normally would including authenticating with DUO. When prompted to authorize Canvas, be sure to click "Authorize".
Once that is done, click next and then finish.
If all went smoothly, you should now be on a "Retrieve Questions Wizard".

Requesting Publisher Test Banks Through Respondus

In your web browser visit https://web.respondus.com/he/testbank/
Click Search.
Enter some of the details of your textbook into the search, such as Textbook Title, Author's Last Name, and the publisher under the search by publisher drop-down, and click search.
If nothing comes up, try by entering only part of the book title or just the author's last name, and click search again.
1. If you are able to locate the correct edition of your textbook, click on the link to request the test banks for that book. You will complete and submit a brief form. Once submitted, you should receive an email from Respondus within 2-3 business days with the information you will need for the next step.
2. If you are unable to locate the correct edition of your textbook, please send an email to elearning@gfcmsu.edu stating that you searched the Respondus Test Bank Network for your textbook and it wasn't available. Please include as much detail about the book as possible, such as ISBN, complete title with edition, author's last name, and publisher. The TAC will submit a request directly to the publisher for them to create Respondus formatted test banks for that textbook. You will receive an email back from the TAC with additional information.

Connect Respondus Test Bank To Respondus

Open the Respondus 4.0 application.
On the Start tab, select Test Bank Network.
Select "Register a test bank using a file code and password".
Click Next.
Enter the file code and file password you received in the email from Respondus.
Enter your first and last name, institution as Great Falls College Montana State University, and your college email address.
Click Link Test Bank.
You should be taken back to the previous screen where you will now have the test bank listed under the third option of "Select questions from one of the following publisher test banks".

Building An Exam From A Respondus Test Bank

Open the Respondus 4.0 application, click on Test Bank Network, and select the option "Select questions from one of the following publisher test banks", and click next.
If you are doing this for the first time for this specific exam, leave "create a new file" selected, and click Next.
Give the file a name, such as Chapter 1. You may want to add something to specify which course this file belongs to, such as "ACTG 101 - Chapter 1".
Add a description such as Accounting 101 Chapter 1 Exam, and click Next.
From the dropdown, select the correct textbook, select the correct test bank for that textbook from the "Choose file" dropdown. They should typically be listed by chapter and question type. If you want to create an exam that contains multiple question types, you will be able to come back to this window to select the next question type after selecting questions from this question type.
Depending on the outcome you wish, you may take one of two paths:
1. If you are simply building an exam and not intending to create a Canvas Item Bank -
  1. Select the individual questions you would like on the exam.
  2. Click Add to End of List.
  3. If you wish to add more questions to this exam, select a new chapter or question type from the dropdown, and repeat steps 1 and 2.
  4. Once you've added all of the questions you would like, click Close.
  5. A window showing all of the questions you've added will show, review to ensure you've added all you want, and either click "Add More Test Bank Questions" to add additional questions, or click Finish.
2. If you are intending to use this to create an Item Bank in Canvas -
  1. You may want to add all of the chapter's questions (all types) to one exam as that will create an item bank with all of the available question types that you can create your exam from directly in Canvas in a future step.
  2. For example, choose chapter 1 multiple choice, click the select all button, click Add to End of List, choose chapter 1 true false, click the select all button, click Add to End of List, etc. Until you have all of the chapter 1 questions in one file.
  3. Click Close.
  4. Click Finish.
Regardless of the way you are intending to use this exam, you should now have a file that is either a complete exam or a file that will later be used to create a Canvas Item Bank.

Pushing A Test From Respondus 4.0 To Canvas

Regardless of whether your plan is to create entire exams in Respondus and push them to Canvas, or use it to create Item Banks within Canvas, you will need to push the files you created in Respondus to your course(s) in Canvas, following the steps below.

Open the Respondus 4.0 application, click Open, and select the Respondus file that you wish to push to Canvas. (If you have just created the file, then you don't need to do this as it is already open in Respondus).
Click on the Preview + Publish tab.
Click Publish in the left side menu.
Click on Publish Wizard.
Leave New Quizzes selected (it doesn't matter which you select because classic quizzes are automatically migrated to new quizzes anyway), and click Next.
Make sure the Canvas Server shows the server profile you created when you installed Respondus 4.0.
Click Next.
Do the following for the 5 steps listed on the screen:
1. Check the box next to the course(s) you wish to push this exam to.
2. Type the title you wish this exam to have in Canvas. If you are intending to turn this into an Item Bank, entering something as simple as Chapter 1 will do.
3. If there is a chance that there is another exam in the course with the same name as this one, you can choose to either not publish this one or automatically add a number to the title.
4. Leave the checkboxes unchecked.
5. Click Next.
6. DO NOT CLICK FINISH UNTIL you see a line that says "End New Quizzes Publish". Once you see that click Finish.
You should now have a new exam in your Canvas course that is unpublished. If you are intending to use this directly as an exam, you will want to access it in Canvas, double check the questions, enable any settings you wish to enable (time limit, due date/time, disable or schedule quiz feedback, etc.).

Converting A Canvas Quiz To An Item Bank

Now that you've pushed the exam to Canvas, if you wish to convert it to an Item Bank for building exams directly in Canvas, please do the following:

Navigate to the Canvas course and go to Quizzes.
Open the quiz and go to "Build".
Click the three dots in the upper right corner and click on Export Content.
Once it is finished exporting, you will find it on the Exports tab of the quiz build page. Click on the link to download it. The title will be similar to Quiz Export from Jul 21, 2025 11:11:56 AM.
DO NOT OPEN THE ZIP FILE YOU JUST DOWNLOADED.
Go to Item Banks within the same course.
Click on + Bank, give the test bank an appropriate name (such as Chapter 1), check the box that says "Share with <course name>, and click on Create Bank.
You should see the Item Bank you just created in the list of Item Banks for this course. Click on the title of the Item Bank.
Click the three dots in the top right corner of the page and click on Import Content.
Either drag the zip file you downloaded in step 4 to the window that opens or click on it and select the zip file you downloaded.
Click Import.
Once complete, click Done.
Navigate back to quizzes, click the three dots to the right of the quiz you pushed from Canvas earlier, and click on Delete. Click Ok to confirm the deletion.