Results for “ota_questions”

AI-generated from documented ETRM metadata — verify critical details on the linked pages.

Overview

OTA_QUESTIONS is the master definition table for the question objects used by the Oracle E-Business Suite Learning Management module (product code OTA). It stores the reusable question definitions that underpin online tests, assessments, and certification exams delivered through Oracle iLearning and the EBS Learning Management application. Because a question can be authored once and then attached to many different tests and question banks, OTA_QUESTIONS functions as a central reference point for assessment content rather than as a transactional record of learner activity.

The table is owned by the OTA schema and is documented as VALID in both release 12.1.1 and 12.2.2, with a documented physical schema of 33 columns. The data model is deliberately extensible: the metadata notes support for five question types at present, and the design accommodates hybrid questions such as Multiple Choice Single Correct and related variants. Based on the foreign-key topology — where the primary key QUESTION_ID is referenced by several dependent tables rather than itself referencing a parent — a Data Vault modeling heuristic would classify OTA_QUESTIONS as hub-leaning. That classification is a modeling suggestion only; the object itself is a conventional normalized EBS table with standard audit and descriptive-flex columns.

Key Information Stored

The surrogate primary key is QUESTION_ID, enforced by the unique index OTA_QUESTIONS_PK. It is the single documented unique-index business-key candidate and the column through which every dependent table joins back to the question definition. The remaining columns fall into four functional groups:

• Question content: TEXT holds the question body, and ALLOW_HTML_FLAG indicates whether that text may contain HTML markup rather than plain text.
• Ownership and scope: BUSINESS_GROUP_ID partitions the question within a multi-org or multi-business-group implementation.
• Effectivity and concurrency: START_DATE_ACTIVE and END_DATE_ACTIVE define the window during which the question is usable, while OBJECT_VERSION_NUMBER supports optimistic locking for concurrent updates.
• Standard audit and descriptive flexfields: CREATED_BY, CREATION_DATE, LAST_UPDATE_DATE, LAST_UPDATED_BY, and LAST_UPDATE_LOGIN capture the standard who/when audit trail; ATTRIBUTE_CATEGORY plus ATTRIBUTE1 through ATTRIBUTE20 provide the descriptive flexfield storage used for customer-specific extensions.

Question type and response behavior are not stored as a type flag on OTA_QUESTIONS itself; that information is carried by the OTA_RESPONSE_TYPES relationship, which joins on QUESTION_ID.

Common Use Cases and Queries

Typical reporting and integration scenarios include listing the questions available within a business group, extracting question text for translation or content review, confirming which questions are currently active, and tracing which tests or banks consume a given question.

• Active question inventory: select QUESTION_ID, TEXT, ALLOW_HTML_FLAG from OTA_QUESTIONS where BUSINESS_GROUP_ID = :bg_id and trunc(sysdate) between nvl(START_DATE_ACTIVE, sysdate) and nvl(END_DATE_ACTIVE, sysdate).
• Question-to-test traceability: join OTA_QUESTIONS to OTA_TEST_QUESTIONS on QUESTION_ID to report which tests reference each question.
• Authoring and content auditing: filter on ALLOW_HTML_FLAG and TEXT to locate questions requiring markup review; use the ATTRIBUTE columns to surface flexfield-tagged content.
• Response-format analysis: join to OTA_RESPONSE_TYPES on QUESTION_ID to report the answer options configured for each question.
• Change tracking: order by LAST_UPDATE_DATE or filter on CREATED_BY to audit recently authored or modified questions.

Related Objects

The documented foreign-key relationships identify the principal dependent objects. In each case the join column is QUESTION_ID.

• OTA_QBANK_QUESTIONS — associates question definitions with question banks, enabling reuse of a single question across multiple banks.
• OTA_RESPONSE_TYPES — holds the response format and answer-option configuration for each question, and is the primary determinant of question type behavior.
• OTA_TEST_QUESTIONS — links question definitions to the tests in which they are used, forming the structure of an assessment.
• OTA_UTEST_RESPONSES — records learner responses for a question within a test attempt, linking delivered content back to the source definition.

Together these relationships place OTA_QUESTIONS at the center of the Learning Management assessment model, from authoring through delivery and response capture.