New Quizzes: attempts allowed

[Steven_S]

There is a conflict between the assignment setting for submission attempts, and the new quiz setting related to allowing multiple attempts. 

The assignment setting defaults to unlimited attempts and changing this to limited does not appear to impact student access to the quiz.  As a teacher I quickly learned to ignore that setting and instead rely on the settings within new quizzes, because those actually work as expected. 

The problem is that students still see the assignment settings when they access the quiz.  As a result a student just ignored my carefully typed instructions that the exam allows only one timed attempt, and spent the entire hour looking at various questions without responding to a single one.  Then complained that he thought he had unlimited attempts because the assignment settings said so.

The assignment settings either need to sync the number of submission attempts allowed to new quizzes, and display everything that students see there, or simply hide from students everything about the number of attempts allowed, so that the only way to see that is within the quiz.  (Since it has no obvious function, submission attempts could be removed from instructor view of assignment settings as well, but that is not as important.)

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the Canvas Deploy Notes (2021-02-17) .

[jillmallek]

If you have a New Quiz and you only allow the student one attempt, if you have to Moderate and give a student an additional attempt, you then also have to go to Settings and change it to "Allow multiple attempts." 

This is not intuitive, and it seems like it should be obvious. I don't want students taking it for multiple attempts, but the one student who had a technical difficulty or something is allowed to take multiple attempts.

Otherwise: When you go to Moderate and add an additional attempt - it should tell you that you need to go to Settings and turn on "Allow multiple attempts."

[jillmallek]

My idea was merged into this one, but it is not the same idea. @ctitmus 

IF you give a student an additional attempt under Moderate, you HAVE to change the setting to "Allow multiple attempts." It can be Limited to 1 attempt, but...how is this a thing. This is ridiculous! This is preventing students from actually taking their attempt. The original poster here is talking about language confusing students. This is literally preventing students from taking their second attempt.

[Steven_S]

@jillmallekthat is definitely a different issue, and it sounds like a bug rather than an idea.  If you give a student another attempt, they should get another attempt period.  If the computer needs to have the setting set to allow 1 of multiple attempts in order for that second attempt to function, then turning off allow multiple attempts should equate to only allowing 1 of multiple attempts. 

@ctitmusin contrast my idea is about transferring the new quiz settings from the new quiz back to the assignment display that students see before they open the new quiz (or after it is submitted). 

[jillmallek]

@Steven_S I agree. I told them this is a bug, but they only gave me the option to submit an idea. After three years of this, I wasn't surprised. It is just not intuitive, and if they want to keep it this way, then it needs to give a prompt.

[Steven_S]

@jillmallekI think having a set of settings in the assignment view that are separate from the ideas in the quiz are what causes this confusion.  It looks like we are both talking about the unlimited attempts settings on the assignment tab, but "allow multiple attempts" is a setting controlled within new quizzes.

[jillmallek]

@Steven_S Mine has to do with the Moderation, which is within the New Quizzes. If you use Moderation to give another attempt, you then have to turn on Allow multiple attempts, even if the students are only getting 1 attempt.

[Steven_S]

@jillmallekI understand that the issue is in moderate, but in your work-around you are turning on allow multiple attempts within new quizzes settings, whereas I was talking about the unlimited attempts setting on the assignments tab, which is separate from new quizzes.  This merged idea is another good example of the confusion caused by the settings I was writing about. 

Your idea that it is a problem for moderate settings to fail to for allow an extra attempt for a single student when multiple attempts are not allowed for the entire course, has my vote when it is separated out.  You found a fascinating work-around though!  turning on multiple attempts but setting the number to only one attempt doesn't make common sense, but I guess it makes some computer sense.  There is no way for most instructors to guess that.  It should be automatic.

[jillmallek]

@Steven_S I see what you're getting at now! I like New Quizzes, but there are definitely huge issues. The integration is a major issue, and it's one of two reasons I have issues recommending it to my faculty to use.