New Quizzes: Duplicate Question

[ddrayer]

It would be helpful to be able to duplicate a question in the quiz generator. Let's say I'm quizzing students on the use of figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification, and synecdoche). I could make my first question with multiple choice answers: a. simile, b. metaphor, c. personification, and d. synecdoche. If I could duplicate the questions, I would not have to retype the four answer selections.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Deploy Notes (2020-09-09).

[scottdennis]

Hi  @tejeev_patel ​,

Tiered voting processes is something that we are very interested in and are investigating.  We will probably never move to a system where a certain number of votes guarantees that an idea will be developed for two main reasons. First, we allow any idea that hasn't been voted on and is coherent in its goal to go forward for voting.  Sometimes ideas will garner many votes but upon researching the feasibility of the idea (something that would be impossible to do with every idea submitted before it goes to vote), we find that it would require resources far exceeding it's utility or that it would be impossible without us first doing something we don't want to do to the product from a complexity/roadmap perspective.  Secondly, the demands put on our product team from all corners, including Sales, Client Success, Support, etc wax and wane but the development resources available stay constant.  We wouldn't say that we will guarantee to develop any idea that gets above a certain threshold when we might not have the budget in a given cycle.

One thing I have learned over the past year is that the feature idea voting process does surface many ideas that are very good and helps us much more efficiently identify the ones that are a priority for our customers.  But an unintended benefit has been that when you look at the body of ideas holistically you start to see patterns and families that help you to better understand the needs of different types of institutions, differences in what is important to users of varying sophistication with regards to the product (newer vs more experienced) and user type.  Embedding community managers who are familiar with this data set into the development process has at times been hugely valuable.

[Renee_Carney]

Hi Tejeev.

As Scott and I have said, we appreciate the feedback and we are continuously working to improve the feature idea process.  We have both had experience with other voting systems, the primary one being our previous Community.  I'm not sure if you were involved in that Community, but it did not have a time restraint or a vote cap for ideas (nor a tiered system).  It was a disaster for managing expectations of voters.

We also love the idea of tiered voting, and this is a feature (among others) we have discussed and requested with Jive.  We expect the feature idea process to evolve over time.  At this time we are not lifting the 3 month voting periods or switching to another system.

[tejeev_patel]

Reasonable enough. I think it's worth noting that in the Uservoice tiered system, nothing promised even consideration by the dev team, even if there were half a million votes. It looked like the dev team could mark something under review, planned, started, completed, or declined as they pleased/judged appropriate.  The way these guys seemed to use it was if something got enough votes that it caught their attention, AND they thought it feasible and reasonable, they marked it planned and added it to a list of separate features that were open to vote to determine timeline or for internal consideration.  From there they still backtracked if it was determined it was unreasonable so nothing was promised.  I think my problem is I still don't understand the time limit..  What is the benefit?  For me, all it means is that I miss votes and no one ever hears that my usecase would benefit from someones suggestion. I think with a limitless process, if you have access to the database behind it or use something like uservoice, you should also be able to arrange items by age and see how much activity a request is getting over time.   At the same time, if an old idea aggregates thousands of votes over time, but is just not possible given the architecture, you can mark it as declined but leave it there in case some day it is possible or might be worth reconsideration.

Renee, I understand and do not mean to be aggressively argumentative so I hope it doesn't sound like that when you are reading my posts.  I'm just trying to understand the system and express my frustrations with it.  Maybe I'm wrong and even if I'm right, your choice is gospel and I'll not say you NEED to do differently just to suit lonely little me, but I do feel I would be much happier if I understood the 3 month voting limit.  If a suggestion has a hundred thousand votes and the team has determined it is not doable, just mark it as denied and we users have to accept it because it is what it is.  You don't have to make us all happy, but it does help to have a good transparent view of what the users are wanting and I just feel a time limit obscures that.

Anyway, check out Uservoice (Product Management | UserVoice).  I know you guys aren't going to switch but mess around with their demo (I just put in bullshit email and phone number so I could check it out without getting sales calls).  They track all sorts of information when you dig into it and address all the concerns I hear you guys stating.  They have gotten much more expensive so it makes sense to stick with what you have but you might see something you like or some way to improve your system even further.

All the best and thank you guys for being so actively involved with your community.  I may not like the voting system, but I love you guys!

[Renee_Carney]

Thank you Tejeev.

We will definitely take a look at Uservoice - we like to see what else is out there.

There are a few reasons why we implemented the 3 month window.  Hope this helps...

1. Relevancy:  We know that the priorities of users change based on their circumstances, Ed-tech trends, and other influencers.  By limiting an idea to a three month window we seek to capture the level of priority for that idea at that time.  Also, our product changes rapidly.  With a 3 week release cycle, each idea is open through 4-5 releases.  We are seeking ideas that are relevant to the current Canvas.
2. Equity:  If we take the factor of relevancy out, there is still an issue of equity when it comes to our commitment of taking the top ideas to the product team.  Without the cohort approach, new (wonderful) ideas would have to battle through ideas that have been open for months (potentially years) before them.  We could miss out on some really neat and innovative ideas.
3. Transparency:  Ultimately, we want to be as honest and transparent as possible.  We had a process similar to the one you describe above (ideas never expire) and we had some 'not so good' experiences in our old community.  The lessons we learned in the old community pushed us to look at a voting process a little differently.  We empathized with our community and pledged to do better.

Thanks again Tejeev!  Let us know if you have any other questions.

[CraigOgden]

Just to put my two cents in; I love the voting idea.  I have worked in many SiS's that have implemented things that are 100% useless to everyone but 2 users.

Instead of having a time limit why not just work on the idea's that have they most votes. As time goes on and more people read an idea they can vote on it. This will also help eliminate duplicate ideas.

That is my two cents. 

Should I open up an new idea that we can vote on? :smileygrin: :smileygrin:

[CraigOgden]

I REALLY NEED THIS OPTION.  As a math teacher I have TONs of questions that are pretty much the same except the numbers.

Having a "copy/duplicate question" button would save many HOURS, and I am not exaggerating, of question generating. Until they beef up the formula question option, I have to constantly recreate almost the same question.

[cstrykowski]

My problem is that most people that I know who are using Canvas have no idea this part even exists...nor how to use it. I don't know that I've ever seen anything that advertises that it's here.  That makes it really hard to get the necessary votes.

[CraigOgden]

This one seems different that the one we are talking about.

[siouxgeonz]

Yup.   Also trying to put together some math questions here and ... yea, going to waste some time.  

[stacy_lambert]

Agree! Just did a quiz for Australian Teaching Standards - 37 multiple answers every time. Took ages. Google forms havea duplicate question button. Would love to see one in the quiz editor.