New Quizzes: Display warning message if backtracking is disabled and student submits blank answer

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BACKGROUND: In Classic Quizzes, if backtracking is disabled, students will receive a warning if they try to submit a blank answer to a question. 

PROBLEM: In New Quizzes, when backtracking is disabled, students do not receive any warning when they try to submit a blank answer. This has resulted in many of my students accidentally submitting blank answers and subsequently missing points. This has often occurred in situations when Lockdown Browser is lagging.

SOLUTION: Display a warning message if student tries to submit a blank answer on "New Quizzes" exams in which backtracking is disabled and then require that the student actively confirms they want to submit a blank answer.

 

Could we get this functionality added so students are warned before submitting a blank answer? Hopefully getting this fixed could be a priority since it directly affects students. 

26 Comments
RogerThat
Community Member

@Stef_retired I just wanted to check in again and see what the status is. I emailed Instructure Support back on Monday and asked about the status of the support ticket (i.e. whether it was closed because it was fixed), but I have not heard back from them. Could you kindly follow up on this for me? I am concerned that this is falling by the wayside. I'm sure the Support team has a lot on their hands, so this particular bug might not seem like a priority from a tech perspective. But from the student and instructor experience, it's a significant problem that is impacting the integrity of our exams.

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

@RogerThat 

Thanks for your patience. It has definitely not fallen by the wayside: the developers and product managers responsible for New Quizzes are currently in the process of finalizing the 2021 roadmap, so we are anticipating that you will receive an update any time now. We encourage you to reach out to your school's CSM as well to draw attention to the urgency.

RogerThat
Community Member

@Stef_retired 

Similar to three weeks ago, I received the following email from support@instructure.com :

"Your Canvas Support case 06730323 has been set to a 'solved' status."

However, the email didn't mention what exactly the final resolution was, for example:

  • Did Canvas Support recognize the issue reported in this thread as an actual bug, or is the issue still considered expected behavior?
  • If the issue was recognize as a bug and subsequently fixed, when will the fix be rolled out?

I should note that this morning I tried the New Quizzes again, both in Canvas and in LockDown Browser, and I still see the same behavior (i.e. no warning message).

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Status changed to: Archived

@RogerThat I am very happy to report that our engineers took this in hand as a bug (not a feature idea) and have implemented a fix as described in the Canvas Deploy Notes (2020-12-02) - Canvas Community :

When a quiz does not allow a student to return to previous questions, and the current question does not include an answer, Canvas displays a confirmation message ensuring the student wants to proceed.

Thanks for your patience and courtesy as we worked to resolve the issue.

RogerThat
Community Member

@Stef_retired Thank you so much for the update!! I just took a look at a practice test, and on my side of this equation it looks like the fix has been rolled out and the issue is resolved!  😀  WOOHOOOO!  I'm super stoked about the fix, and grateful that you were so helpful in getting this worked out. I'll let y'all know if there are any other issues related to this once I can roll it out with exams in LockDown Browser next semester. But again, thank you for your help, and for facilitating getting this resolved!!!! 🤠😎

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

@RogerThat You're so welcome, and I once again thank you for your kind consideration—as well as for reporting it in the first place, and then for sticking with us. We're glad we could help resolve this troublesome UX for students.