In the Item Bank, assessments can be created with items/questions from the community-driven public item bank, 3rd party item banks purchased by the district, user-created items, or a combination of all three. This lesson will show you how to Add Items to your Item Bank assessment.
Adding basic information, choosing standards, adding items, and publishing are required for an assessment that will be administered to students.
Where to Start
This lesson begins assuming you have completed Steps 1 & 2. Learning more by reviewing Choose Standards on a Standard Legacy Item Bank Assessment.
Filter Items
By default, selecting Search will find items tied to your selected standards and selected Item Banks. Each of the additional filters are ways to refine, find, and target specific questions and attributes you are looking for.
Click the change any of the following to enhance your search:
- Item Banks: Click one or more banks to search for items. The Public bank contains items submitted by Item Bank users. If your district has purchased items from specific 3rd party vendors (e.g., INSPECT), those banks will appear.
- Item Types: Choose from available item types (e.g., multiple choice, constructed response).
- Passages: Search for items that are use passages, do not have passages or either.
- Attributes: Choose from a variety of attributes such as Depth of Knowledge or DOK levels, Blooms Taxonomy, Item Language (English, Spanish, etc), and more.
- Locked Status: Search for items that are locked or unlocked, meaning they cannot or can be duplicated to be revised to make your own version.
- Authors: As you get more familiar with what items and passages you have access to, you can search for particular authors.
- Item Keywords: Enter key words to find items with those words contained in the stem or answer options.
- Passage/Title: Enter a specific passage title to find items for.
- Item/Passage Identifiers: With our partnering vendors, this provides the ability to search by a specific item number, which is found as part of the attributes for each item.
- The Reset button will clear your selected search criteria and begin again.
- Select Search to find items.
Modifying the standards you are searching for:

To modify the standards you're searching by:
- Click on the name of the standard and the 'Select Standards' box will pop up.
- Click on the standard you no longer want to search by to un-highlight it. OR use Unselect All, or Select All.
- Select Update Filters.
Add Items
Search results will appear below the Search Filters area so that you can add items to your assessment.
- The number of items found that match the filters display at the top of the list.
- Each item displays the standard code aligned to the item, teacher instructions (if available), the stem, answer choices (correct answer in green), and a link to show Rationale & Item info.
- Click the Add button to add the item to your assessment. Once added, the button will be shaded in gray with the word Added.
- Select Alternate(s) to see a Language Alternate of the shown item. This feature may not be available for all items.
- A count of the items added will appear to the right of the page as well as the number of items by standard.
- Click Next when finished adding items.
The Pencil/Screen icons at the top of the item indicate if an item works on paper test, online test or both.
Next Steps
Now that you've added items to your assessment, you can go to the next step: Review Item Selections on a Standard Legacy Item Bank Assessment.
The next required step is Publishing a Standard Legacy Item Bank Assessment.