Apostrophes with Fill-in-the-Blank Questions on Quizzes

[englishskills50]

Has anyone else had a problem with apostrophes in fill-in-the blank questions? 

I'm finding that when I input a correct answer with an apostrophe, Canvas will render it into the similar, though actually different, single close quote character. A typical keyboard which most people use can only input an apostrophe, and as a result, it's impossible to create a correct answer which will match something that people can type. 

Or maybe there is just something wrong with my keyboard/system?

Is there any way to input characters differently (e.g., using code) while building a quiz?

[droussin]

Hello!

I have an instructor who is experiencing the same situation.

Have you found any solutions or leads as to what may be occurring?

Best,

Deanna

[englishskills50 · Accepted solution]

Hi Deanna, 

Yes, I figured it out. The problem was that I was copying text from a word processor, MS Word. MS Word doesn't actually insert an apostrophe character (U+0027) when the the apostrophe key is used--at least not with the keyboard on my computer. Instead, it inserts a right single quotation character (U+2019). I don't know if that is something that can be reconfigured in MS Word. I haven't had the time really to investigate it. When entering text directly with Canvas, an actual apostrophe is put in (U+0027) .

So the solution (for me at this point) is to make sure all apostrophes are entered directly with Canvas (or to copy text only from a basic text editor, like Notepad).Eric

[nr2522]

Hello,  @englishskills50 ‌.

It sounds like you're the victim of Word's "AutoFormat As You Type" feature. You'll probably want to turn off the smart quotes feature. Taming Microsoft Word's AutoFormat As You Type | Lawyerist 

Best regards,

Nelson

[yatesjdy]

I do not think the answer above is the complete story.

It turns out that browsers have settings for "Smart Quotes" and so, when taking a test, the browser is the program that is attempting to swap the straight quotes with curly quotes.

This is certainly a problem for Computer Science / Programming tests where the exact quote used makes a big difference.

The answer is to have all students turn off their "Smart Quote" preferences in Chrome, Safari, etc before taking the test. In this way, entering a single or double quote will be represented exactly as it should be on the keyboard.  

The area for turning these features on/off in Chrome and Safari can generally be found in the Edit -> Substitutions area of the browser menu structure.

There may be other substitution features that are causing problems on quizzes beyond the quotes.