[ARCHIVED] Numbers Exponentials

[boylans]

In the quiz for a numerical answer what is the format for an exponential?

Example How is the following number entered?

2.32x10-7

or

0.000000232

or

2.32E-7

or

2.32e-7

[Allie_Dilts]

Hi  @boylans  

Thanks for posting your question. Apologies that this has sat for a few weeks without any response. I believe that students should enter their responses for numeric question in decimal format, as Canvas recognizes numeric responses for numeric questions. 

Hopefully this helps answer your question. Please let us know if you have any further questions. 

Thanks, 

Allie 

[James]

 @boylans  

In Classic / Legacy Quizzes, you will need to specify your answer as Answer With Precision. If you leave it as Exact Answer, you cannot put in numbers that small.

• 2.32x10-7 is not recognized, partially because x isn't a times sign, but that format isn't supported.
• 0.000000232 becomes 2.320000000000000e-7
• 2.32E-7 is not recognized, the E must be in lowercase
• 2.32e-7 becomes 2.320000000000000e-7

Both supported formats are recognized as the correct answer.

When you submit it, the answer comes up as:

To be clear, precision is not the same thing as significant figures. If you put in a precision of 3, you'll get this:

What happened is that Canvas rounds the answers to precision decimal places and so 2.32e-7 is 0.000 to 3 decimal places, but so is 5.9e-6, but it's not the answer you're after.

In New Quizzes, you must again specify a "Precise Response." If you try Exact Response, it complains that "2.32e-7" is not a number.

However, you can now specify whether the precision should be significant digits or decimal places. This functionality is currently broken however (errors thrown in the browser's console), and it does not recognize me typing in numbers. If I try to erase the precision to type a new number, it erases the answer.

I don't know if it's related to the bug or not, but it doesn't like 2.32e-7 as an answer, either. When I try to type in 0.000000232, it correctly registers that there are 3 significant figures, it quickly converts it to 2.32e-7 before moving on and calling it 0.00000.

I found out a little bit of what is happening there, but it is still very broken. If I have it set to significant digits and type 0.000000232 and then hit tab twice to move to the type, it changes the answer to 2.32e-7 and makes the precision 4. This is without me changing significant digits. That's broken keyboard accessibility issues.

If I change it to decimal places and type 0.000000232 and don't tab, I finally got it to take.