[New Quizzes] New Quizzes Question Type - Drawing

Many of our fully-online courses (particularly in science and math) require that students draw a diagram or process in their assessments, and when combined with proctoring tools, this becomes a complicated process.  The current workaround is that students download a PDF as a question type within a proctored exam and submit this later as an assignment submission, but there are many technological and time-consuming issues with this process for both students and instructors, including confusion about the numerous steps, printing issues, scanning issues, uploading, file type errors, verifying that students completed the drawing within the time allotted, and others. 

 

This would be vastly improved and streamlined if instructors could simply create a "drawing" type question directly in Canvas where students would use a mouse or other device to input lines and text that would then be manually graded by the instructor.

 

It would be a very helpful function to allow instructors to annotate drawing corrections directly on the student's entry when grading.

 

Note: Quizzes.next currently presents a number of technological issues with our proctoring tools, and instructors have expressed that using a multiple choice question where students would simply recognize the correct drawing from a list is unacceptable for their learning outcomes.

 

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73 Comments
msmeznik
Community Participant
Problem statement:

I am an educational technology designer who supports a College of Aeronautics and Engineering. As you can imagine there are a lot of quizzing and testing that occurs within the College. One of the issues that my engineering faculty have found is that they are not able to have students directly annotate within a quiz on particular engineering concepts. This might include a math problem, drawing a basic engineering element etc. The annotations help the instructors see how the students are processing particular concepts and where they might need more assistance. They want to move away from paper and pen with these but the lack of annotating tools available to a student in a quiz prevents them. While we realize it would not be perfect, it would allow instructors and students to use Canvas more robustly.

Proposed solution:

Similar to the annotation tools available to instructors in Canvas speedgrader and the student annotation file assignment, implementing these within the quiz environment could help a number of STEM instructors. It would allow them to build their quiz in one environment.

User role(s):

designer

KristinL
Community Team
Community Team
Status changed to: Seeking Clarity

Hi @msmeznik -

Thank you for sharing this idea with the Instructure Community!

I wonder if [New Quizzes] New Quizzes Question Type - Drawing would help your goal. It's an existing request, and if it aligns with your request, we will merge the two threads together. If there is something more that the engineering students you serve need, what would be the most notable differences? These extra details will help our New Quizzes team better understand the problem and better align it to a Theme.

With New Quizzes, there is the option to create a File Upload question. Students could use any annotation app and then upload the PDF. I know this moves the students out of the quiz/Canvas experience, but it depends on the type of assessment, it could work, and it's available right now. How do I create a File Upload question in New Quizzes? 

msmeznik
Community Participant

Hi @KristinL,

I think the two could be combined together. Unfortunately, the instructors want to stay within the Canvas environment. They have tried the previous way and students got confused.