Storyline 360: Manage Scoring for Question Banks with Branching

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Question banks are powerful time-saving tools for managing questions in Storyline 360. And when combined with branching, they’re even more powerful. Branching lets you guide learners through different parts of your course based on their responses, which means they could skip some questions along the way. 

Thanks to customer feedback, we changed how scoring works for question banks with branching. As of September 2021, Storyline 360 no longer automatically scores only viewed questions for question banks with branching. Now, authors control scoring for this scenario by checking or unchecking the "Only score viewed questions" box so they know what to expect when learners take an assessment. Details below.

What to Expect

Here’s how the September 2021 update affects new and existing Storyline 360 projects:

New Projects

By default, new projects have the Only score viewed questions box unchecked. To allow learners to skip questions without affecting their score, simply check that box.

Existing Projects

If an existing project has a question bank with branching, Storyline 360 automatically marks the Only score viewed questions box for you, thus synchronizing the actual behavior of the question bank with the new scoring option. Your project continues to behave as it did previously; essentially, this is just a visual change in the Quiz Settings dialog. If you don't want to score only viewed questions, simply uncheck that box.

Timeline of Scoring Changes

Here's how scoring for question banks with branching progressed over time:

  1. For years, Storyline 360 automatically scored only viewed questions for question banks with branching.
  2. In the September 2020 update, we added an optional feature that allows learners to skip questions without negatively affecting their score by grading only the questions they view. However, Storyline 360 still automatically scored only viewed questions for question banks with branching, even if the Only score viewed questions box wasn’t checked. This wasn’t working properly. Thus, learners could get a passing score by answering one question from a question bank with branching.
  3. Starting with the September 2021 update, Storyline 360 no longer automatically scores only viewed questions for question banks with branching. Authors can now override the default behavior by marking the Only score viewed questions box.