[ARCHIVED] When do General Comments on a Quiz appear?

[nkriv]

For my quizzes, I deselect "Let Students see Correct Answers" then identify a later date when students can access their correct and incorrect answers.  I also put explanatory text in the General Comments box that I want them to be able to read at that specified later date (but not before).  Is that what happens? So, my question is it:

When I deselect "Let Students see Correct Answers" at what point can students see each question's "General Comments"? 

[Shar · Accepted solution]

Hi Nancy,

So, the only box you have ticked is to Let Students See their Quiz Responses?

Well I just took a quiz with those settings and got 1 question correct and 1 question incorrect. And the general feedback displays. It's always been my experience that the general feedback always displays, I rely on that feature to give hints regardless of how the student answers the question.

By the way do you go in and manually turn on the show correct answers?  Would it be easier for you to set the date in advance for when to show the answers? The next time the course is run if you tell it to update dates, it will even update these show/hide dates.

Hope this helps,
Cheers - Shar

[nkriv]

Thanks!

To clarify my question is this:

Let’s say my Quiz is on Monday Oct 1.

I select, ahead of time, to Let Students see their Quiz Responses starting on Oct 4.

Will information I have put in “General Comments’ when designing the Quiz appear to the students on Oct 1 or Oct 4?

I ask b/c I am hoping to use the General Comments box to act as a Quiz key and provide an explanation of the answer to each question — but I don’t want that information to appear until Oct 4 (when I release the Quiz responses)

Does that make sense?

Nancy

[Shar]

Hi Nancy,

Ahh now I understand your situation. Unfortunately the general comments feedback will appear regardless of the correct answers reveal date.

The only setting that doesn't show the feedback is when quiz results are not shown at all.

Student view:

Hope this helps,
Cheers - Shar

[cfroberts]

Are the general comment available before a student answers a question? Or only after a question has been answered? 

[KevinReuning]

This is a really problematic way to do this and the fact it happens like this is not transparent to faculty. I've been using canvas quizzes for years now and just now found out that students see my general feedback as soon as they finish. I only found out when a student emailed me asking why a question was marked wrong and included a screenshot of what they saw.

[erica_wagner]

I just discovered this serious problem, as some of my students are mindlessly copy pasting the "key" I posted to an essay question in the general comments box. I wanted them to see what a "good and complete" answer would have been AFTER they turned in their quiz and it was closed.

So if the comment box isn't for this purpose, where does one post the correct answer or "key" to an essay question that I would free grade and set up a date when the students can see this? There must be a way to do this, as I can't believe it is something most instructors wouldn't want, or at least many of us wouldn't want.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @erica_wagner ...

Hmmm....that's an interesting scenario you've described.  I assume that you are still using the classic quizzes interface of Canvas ... which looks something like this for Essay question types: How do I create an Essay quiz question? - Canvas Community.  Underneath the heading, "Edit Essay Question Details", it says, "Note: Any general answer comments are visible as soon as a quiz is submitted and cannot be hidden from students."  While I do see the value and use case that you'd like your students to see what a "good and complete" answer look like, I do not think that the essay question type is really designed to have a "correct" answer...as essay responses could vary greatly if typed in the text box by students.  The question would be...how would Canvas know how to score an essay question based on so many possible variations?  I know this might not be ideal, but you may need to come up with a different way of providing them examples of a "good and complete" answer...such as waiting until after everyone has taken your quiz ... posting it as a course announcement or sending it as an Inbox message to your students.  Again, not completely ideal, but it would be another option for you to consider.

I hope this will be of some help to you.  Sing out if you have any other questions...thanks!  Take care...be well.

[erica_wagner]

Obviously, free response type questions can be worded in different ways, but there are still going to be major points that any answer should incorporate that some students might leave out. It's really handy to have those available to them once submissions are closed for an quiz, especially when it is a "pre-test" homework quiz that is practice for an upcoming closed-book exam.

I am not asking Canvas to grade the essays for me, just to provide a place for the students to see the kinds of answers I am looking for when I grade (once the quiz or assignment is closed).

I want the students to be able to see the points they should have covered before I even start grading. Some are impatient to see how they did, and I also use the quiz feature to create homework assignments that are a combination of essay and fill in the blank questions (which at least can be graded automatically, so I only have to focus on the free response questions).

For instance, if I ask them to list the anatomical characteristics of an epithelial tissue and explain their answers, some students may leave out some of the characteristics covered in class and their reading, or they might not explain their answers and just provide the list, or they may give me functions and not anatomical characteristics, or they may even have some of the characteristics mixed up with those of a different tissue type.

I realize that different disciplines have different kinds of "free response" or "essay" type questions, including ones where the focus is more on structure than required content, but the above approach is really common in the sciences. Having a key really cuts down on the frantic emails from students who don't know why they lost two out of four points or whatever without my having to copy paste the key in the grading comments for each student individually.

I can post a key to the modules and have it open after the closing date for a quiz or a homework assignment created as an open-book quiz, but that involves at least a couple more steps, including uploading the file from my computer to each separate class section. Also, in my experience, some students never check the modules, even when I announce that the key will be there and available on a given date.

Given that different instructors do things different ways, and that disciplines vary too, it would be great to have more flexibility on how to set things up.

[calexis]

This is one example, it feels like, of how Canvas has people who aren't teaching designing quiz features. I, too, want to be able to share answer details with students. Not a complete essay answer, but rather "you should have answered that this list is not complete; for the correct list, see p. 165."

There are many people coming to this page with the same question, which means you need to fix this, because it is unclear and unhelpful.

[dkahle]

This is not a solution but a workaround. Take the quiz as Test Student. Put the answer key in for Test Student's solution to the essay question. Grade it. Then you can pull up the key using SpeedGrader to show the class. You can't post it but you can show it when you review the quiz.

[cwoodwar1]

I often allow multiple attempts on a quiz, especially on practice quizzes, and I totally agree with users on this thread, that it would be nice for the general feedback to show up only AFTER the quiz period is over and the students are able to see the correct answers (if that's how you've set up the quiz).  I was wondering also about the answer specific feedback (feedback in the boxes you can enter if the answer is correct, or if the answer is incorrect.)  When does THAT feedback show up?  Also as soon as the quiz is submitted the first time?

[bsr]

Yikes! Yeah, I had always assumed that the general feedback comments would be visible on the date that answers become visible, not immediately upon submission. This makes no sense. If I don't want students to see their answers until the quiz is closed for everybody, why on earth would I want to make my own correct answer explanation available before then? The entire point is to NOT have the correct answers visible before the release date. If you release the "key" upon submission, that defeats the whole purpose of setting a "show correct answers at" date!