Spell-check for new quizzes ?

[Emily_Gomez]

Is there an easy way to turn on spell check for a New Canvas Quiz for the students? 

I had no idea that spell check was not automatic for the student like it is when you create the quiz. 

I have already created several quizzes to find out that I had to enable spell check for each essay question as I made it. It would save so much time to be able to enable it for a whole quiz then have to go though dozens of questions. 

Thank you.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@Emily_Gomez ...

To my knowledge, Canvas does not have spell check in New Quizzes.  Rather, when navigating in Canvas, it is using the web browser's built-in spell check.

• Turn Chrome spell check on and off - Google Chrome Help
• How do I use the Firefox spell checker? | Firefox Help (mozilla.org)
• How to configure spell checker on the new Microsoft Edge | Windows Central

Hope this will help a bit.  Sing out if you have any other questions about this...thank you.

[Emily_Gomez]

Thanks. I wasn't aware that browsers had settings in which you could enable spell checking. I can try it and see if that helps any. 

The individual essay questions in the new Canvas Quizzes do have spell check though. But you have to go through each question. Easy enough at the time you make the quiz, but backtracking is a pain. I would have never thought I needed to enable spell-check. I'm not taking it for granted anymore. 

[dhulsey]

@Chris_Hofer , I have a question regarding this as well. Students are saying that the spellcheck in New Quizzes isn't working, and I cannot find any documentation on how the spellcheck works other than it can be enabled in the New Quizzes instructor guide. Is this a checker built into new Quizzes? Is it a setting to enable the browser's native check if the user has it enabled? How does Lockdown browser affect this Canvas setting? So many questions! 

[Chris_Hofer]

@dhulsey and @Emily_Gomez ...

Sorry for the delay in responding.  I just tested out essay questions in New Quizzes using student view.  It does appear that typed responses do not check for spelling unless you have placed a check next to the option "Spell-check" for each essay question in your New Quiz.  I agree, the only documentation I can find on enabling spell-check is in this Guide: How do I create an Essay question in New Quizzes? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com).

I spent some time searching for possible existing Feature Ideas related to spell-check and essay questions...such as enabling spell-check by default for all essay questions.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find anything related.  (I tried searching for a few different keywords.)  So, I would suggest maying creating a new Feature Idea here in the Community and seeing what kind of support you might get for it.

• How do idea conversations work in the Instructure Community?
• What is the feature development process for Instructure products?
• How do I create a new idea conversation in the Instructure Community?

If either of you decide to create a Feature Idea around this topic, please post a link below so that people know where they can go to rate it and leave a comment.  Thanks!