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Question banks, sub-banks, and who can open them

Shared banks that are not open banks

StudyDrome Exam Manager files questions into question banks that nest into a tree. Each bank carries one of three access levels: Public, Private, or Restricted. A new bank starts Private. A Restricted bank reads a per-user grant of View Only or Editor, and every grant records who gave it and when.

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How do you set up a shared question bank?

  1. 1

    Open Questions, then Question Banks. The list holds every bank you have access to, and nothing else.

  2. 2

    Choose "Create Question Bank". Give it a name and a short code if your program uses codes.

  3. 3

    To file it under an existing bank, pick a Parent Bank. Leave that empty, and the bank sits at the root of the tree.

  4. 4

    Switch on "Allow Sub-banks" if this bank will hold other banks. You can also create a child directly from the parent.

  5. 5

    Set the Access Level. Private keeps it to you and your administrators. Public opens it to the account. Restricted opens it to named people.

  6. 6

    On a Restricted bank, use "Add Teacher" to name each person and choose View Only or Editor. Until you do, the panel reads "No teachers added."

How do question banks nest?

A bank holds questions. It can also hold other banks. Switch on "Allow Sub-banks" to start accepting children, so a faculty bank can sit above a subject bank, which sits above a topic bank.

Setting

What it does

Allow Sub-banks

Lets a bank accept child banks.

Parent Bank

Files a new bank under an existing one — "Select a parent bank to create a hierarchical structure". Leave it empty, and the bank sits at the root.

Sibling banks sort in an order you set rather than alphabetically, so the tree reads the way your program is actually laid out.

Nesting depth is yours to choose. The tree does not stop you at a level, which puts the judgment back where it belongs — with you. How to structure a question bank argues for keeping it shallow and for using tags rather than folders when you need to retrieve across the tree.

Each bank carries its own question count, recalculated as a whole rather than nudged up and down as items move. Shift a hundred questions between banks and both counts still read true.

A parent bank cannot be deleted while it still holds children. StudyDrome refuses and says why: "This question bank cannot be deleted because it contains child banks. Please delete all child banks first." A tree, therefore, comes apart one level at a time in the open.

Who can see which question bank?

Every bank carries exactly one access level, and a new bank starts Private. Nothing is shared until somebody decides to share it.

Access level

Who can open the bank

Private

The person who created it, plus account administrators.

Public

Everyone in the account, at a single default permission held on the bank.

Restricted

Named users only, each with a permission of their own.

A Restricted bank reads a per-user grant, and there are two: View Only and Editor. They compare in order, so an Editor already satisfies any request for View Only. You grant the level you mean rather than stacking both.

A grant is a record, not a switch. It stores who gave it and when, so "who opened this bank up?" still has an answer months later, when somebody asks.

On a Public bank, the shared level is set once, on the bank itself: the "Default Permission" field, labeled "Permission for all teachers when access level is Public". Leave it unset and Public resolves to View Only, so the safer of the two is the one you fall into.

The bank's creator and any account administrator retain access, regardless of the level. That is what stops a bank going dark when the person who built it moves on.

How do departments keep their banks apart?

Access levels answer who. Sub-accounts answer whose. A large account can run departmental shelves and a shared core bank simultaneously.

  • Banks belong to a sub-account:A bank created inside one belongs to it and searches, lists, and exports within the same scope. A department sees its own shelf without filtering for it.

  • Scope follows the signed-in context:It is stamped as the bank is created, so nobody has to remember to set it, and nobody can forget.

  • Account-wide is a real option:A bank with no sub-account is visible to every one of them. That is where a shared core bank lives.

  • Categories file the list:A flat category groups banks in the list view under "Categories". One per bank. The tree still owns the structure.

  • The same shelf, everywhere:Scoping is applied by one shared service, so an export sees exactly what the screen saw.

How do you see who changed a bank?

Open a question bank, and its history drawer answers one question: who changed this bank, and when. It sits with the bank rather than in a reporting tool, because that is where you reach for it — mid-argument, with somebody waiting.

Individual questions keep their own trail. Every create, edit, and duplicate writes a numbered snapshot carrying the time and the name of the person who saved it, and any single version can be read back in full. Version one is the item as originally written.

What does the bank model guarantee?

Sharing an item bank is a question of who can reach what. These are the properties you can rely on when you answer it.

  • The permission check runs when the list is built, not only when a bank is opened. A bank you hold no grant for is not in your list to begin with.

  • Every bank has an access level, always, and a new one starts Private. There is no unset state to go looking for.

  • Two permission levels, compared in order. Editor covers View Only, so a grant is never ambiguous and never doubled.

  • The grant list on screen is the grant list in force. Saving a bank writes the set you can see, whole.

  • The creator and account administrators keep access at every level, so a leaver cannot orphan a bank.

  • A parent bank cannot be deleted while it holds children; the refusal states the reason.

Who needs question bank access control?

  • Bank owners who want faculty contributing items without opening the whole bank to everyone.

  • Exam offices running one shared core bank alongside banks that belong to a department.

  • Assessment leads who have to say, at an appeal, who could edit an item and when they were given that right.

  • Schools with several faculties on one account, each wanting a shelf of its own.

Frequently asked questions

How do you share a question bank with some staff but not others?

Set the bank's access level to Restricted, then add the people who need it. Each named user gets a grant of their own: View Only or Editor. The bank stays out of everybody else's list, so sharing with three colleagues does not put it in front of thirty. Each grant records who added it and when.

What is the difference between a parent bank and a sub-bank?

A parent bank is one with "Allow Sub-banks" switched on, which lets it hold other banks. A sub-bank is simply a bank that is a subsidiary of a parent bank. The relationship is structural: each bank still carries its own access level. Depth is yours to choose, and a shallow tree stays easier to search and easier to hand over.

Can two people edit the same question bank?

Yes. Grant each of them Editor, and both can work in it. The Editor already covers everything View Only allows, so you never need to grant both. Individual questions keep a numbered version trail carrying the time and the name of the person who saved each one, so concurrent work stays traceable after the fact.

How do you stop a colleague from editing questions they should only read?

Grant View Only rather than Editor. The two levels compare in order, so View Only is the floor and Editor is everything above it. And because the check runs as the bank list is built, a colleague with no grant at all does not see the bank in the first place.

How do departments keep their question banks separate?

Sub-accounts. A bank created inside a sub-account belongs to it, and searches, lists, and exports all read the same scope, so a department sees its own shelf without filtering. A bank with no sub-accounts is account-wide and visible to everyone, which is where a shared core bank belongs.

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Bring your bank structure and your list of contributors. We will build the tree, set the grants, and show you the same bank through three people's logins.

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