[ARCHIVED] Is it possible to require a word count for a discussion board post?

[jbaker057]

Hi, 

I would like to require students to post a discussion board response that is at least 200 words. Is there a means by which I can require student responses to be at least this length in order to submit their response? Basically, so that if they post 200 words or more, then they will earn full credit on the assignment.

Thank you for your help!

John 

[rpsimon]

Hi jbaker057 and welcome to the Canvas community!  You can definitely require your students to do this.  However, please know that this feature is currently in Beta in Canvas.  Please follow the discussion at https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/3454-word-count-for-speedgrader-docviewer-grading" modifiedtit....  

 @KristinL ‌ posted previously: 

Whenever students type a Discussion reply, they should see the word count in the lower-right-corner of their Rich Content Editor. The count is visible for students as they compose their response(s), but the final word count doesn't follow the student for assessment in Speed Grader.

When the students do enter their text in the discussion, there is a word counter feature.  I guess if you want to, you could ask them to take a screenshot of their entry which shows their word count as well.  I know it's not the ideal option, but it's better than nothing.

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-14435-canvas-beta-release-notes-2018-04-09#jive_content_id_... 

I wish I could be of more help.  Please reply with any additional questions you may have.

[jbaker057]

Hi Rebecca, 

Thank you for your help. I am aware of the word count feature there. However, I was wondering if there is a way to ensure that a student must reach a certain word count in order for the post to be submitted. From doing some research, it does not seem like this feature has been made available just yet. Feel free to comment again if you have any more input. 

Thanks again, 

John

[James]

jbaker057,

This feature does not exist for discussions. The only place I have seen an enforceable word count is for essay questions in New Quizzes: How do I create an Essay question in New Quizzes?  

About the only thing an instructor can do with discussions is convey the importance of having the proper length and then make it a factor in the grading so that students learn it is important.

The rest of this is an explanation of what it would take for your institution to do this since it is not available in Canvas. For more people, I recommend the technique in the previous paragraph of letting students know the importance. If you are using Canvas Free for Teachers, then communication with the students is your only real option.

Through JavaScript programming, it would be possible to monitor the word count and disable the reply button until a certain level was met. This would require the assistance of your local Canvas administrator as custom JavaScript can only be added at the institution level to an account or a sub-account. When this happens, it runs for everyone's courses within the account, not just yours. Unless you have a software development team at your institution, this may be beyond the level of the administrator to create. Administrators are often wary to install extra software because of warnings from Canvas that they are responsible for checking it and making sure it doesn't break with every release.

There would need to be some way to configure it as well. That means writing an interface on top of the Canvas interface or or allowing it to be specified within the post itself. As an instructor / administrator / programmer, I would take that second approach. You cannot leave comments within the HTML, but we have determined that some of the data attributes remain. Instructors would have to edit the HTML and add an element that would let the system know that it should enforce a word count and what the minimum word count was.

[Bob3171]

My question is about word count.  I see it is now available for blog assignments in speed grader which is wonderful, however it is not available for discussions.  Following threads it looks like it made it to beta late last year, but does not exist in the live environment.  This makes no sense to me, since we require word count as part of the assignment requirements.  Thanks in advance for your reply.

[Chris_Hofer]

@Bob3171 ...

I wonder if you were looking at the Discussions Redesign project?  I know that not every school has enabled Discussion Redesign yet, and your school might one of those that has chosen to stick with the current Discussions interface until your Canvas administrators do more investigation before enabling for you and your colleagues.  You can see from the screen shots in this Guide that word count is an option: How do I reply to a discussion in Discussions Rede... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com).

I would suggest that you reach out to Franklin University's local Canvas administrator or someone from their Online Learning/eLearning department to see what their plans are for enabling the Discussions Redesign element in Canvas.  I searched the Franklin University website, and I found an article related to Discussions in Canvas called Canvas Discussions: Creating, Editing, and Replying for Instructors – Franklin University Technology....  It might not be a direct answer to your question, but it looks like there is a link at the bottom of the page where you can reach out to the Help Desk to log a support ticket.

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thanks!