[ARCHIVED] In a Formula Question, how do I select specific variable/solution combinations?

[akoticha]

When I give a range for the variables, and ask Canvas to generate variable-solution combinations, it does that. But, often, there are repeated combinations. (And I'd like to delete the duplicates.) Secondly, there are some particular variable choices I don't want. For example, I want a range for the variable from -5.25 to + 5.25, but if one of the choices selected by Canvas is 0, I want to also delete that combination. And, after the choices are generated, I want to possible add more variable choices. How can I do that?

If that's not possible, I'm fine with giving my own sets of variables and having Canvas generate the solutions. Is that possible?

[James]

 @akoticha  

In Classic/Legacy/Old Quizzes, you can edit the HTML on the page after generating the values. It is an unsupported hack I found, but it works because Canvas generates the responses in the browser and then sends them to the server rather than having the server generate them. See https://community.canvaslms.com/people/james for all of the details.

There is no way to automatically delete duplicates, although just a few days ago I was thinking that would be a really cool thing to have. If I wanted 20, I might generate 50 and then remove the duplicates (it all depends on the number of allowable solutions).

You cannot delete some responses and then generate additional ones, the Generate button wipes out any existing solutions.

In the hack I linked to, I have not attempted to delete rows completely to see what would happen. If you attempt this, please leave a comment on the page about how it works. I have a suspicion that it would work just fine, I just haven't tested it to make sure.

We are not using New Quizzes and I have not explored what is possible there, yet.

[akoticha]

Thanks, James. I'll try that. Also, any idea how I know if we have Old Quizzes or New? We just moved from Blackboard to Canvas (no idea why). And Formula Questions in Blackboard were so easy. BB generated a bunch of variable-solution combinations, and you could individually delete the ones you didn't want, and you could simply type in new variable values to overwrite BB's choices and it would re-generate (or rather, re-compute) the solutions without regenerating the variables. Basically, two features that would be nice

1. Ability to delete individual variable-solution combinations

2. Ability to overwrite some variables in existing variable-solution combinations and recompute the solutions without regenerating new variables.

Can we put this on a request list somewhere for Canvas developers? 

[James]

 @akoticha  

Canvas is not developing Classic Quizzes anymore, so any development would need to happen with New Quizzes. There is a feature idea process in the Community, click on Ideas on the menu bar at the top. There have been many of them related to formula questions over the years, but we never seem to reach critical mass. I don't remember anyone ever making one for the two things you've listed, though.

Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes look nothing alike, so once you see the difference, you'll never be confused. Classic Quizzes looks like it's a part of Canvas, there are Details and Questions tabs available when you edit it. New Quizzes is an LTI that basically takes over the whole screen with a rocket ship in the top left. The Canvas Instructor Guide has lessons for both Quizzes (classic) and New Quizzes that provide additional information.

[yyuen]

I have just created a chrome extension to do just that. Download it here:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/canvas-quiz%20/jbpanaoeongimfdcfbnhfaagblakgpca?hl=en&auth...

Turn on "Extended" when you edit the question. Then add this to your formula entries

• a = range(-5.25, 5.25, 0.25)
• filter( a!=0)

Click on "Help" next to the new selection button for more info.

The extension page has my email, email me if you have any questions.

[akoticha]

Will try that. Thanks!

[VivekTelang]

This is really useful! Thanks for sharing.