[New Quizzes] Warning If New Quizzes Points Possible Differs From Question Point Totals

Feature Request:  Pop up a warning when navigating away from editing a quiz to give instructors a chance to change the total points that are in the gradebook.  The warning should be similar to one that appears with Rubrics to say the totals are different, do you want to leave them that way or change it.

 

Why: Currently, in New Quizzes the instructor is asked to add a point total when it is first created prior to building the quiz. If you left the total at 0 or set it at some other total, the grade book shows the points possible as 0.  As you build the quiz and assign points to each question, the editing page shows the total points in the top left menu of the editing page.  For example, if you have 30 questions and each is worth 1 point, the page shows 30pts.  However, the total points possible in the gradebook for the quiz is still showing the initial total created, in this example 0.  To change this, you have to go into the initial edit screen and override the total score.  If students have taken the quiz before the discrepancy is changed, then the instructor has to regrade the quiz to get the points they earned to populate the gradebook.  

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24 Comments
Steven_S
Community Champion

"If students have taken the quiz before the discrepancy is changed, then the instructor has to regrade the quiz to get the points they earned to populate the gradebook." 

As an instructor who regularly adds extra credit questions to quizzes (through the use of zero point essay questions that are manually graded at higher values) I would like to see the points actually awarded by the quiz over-ride the "points possible" at the point of grading.  It would be nice to see the warning you request function similarly to the warning for a rubric that offers more points than then are set as the maximum points an assignment.  (It warns that it will be possible for students to earn more than 100%.)

milesl
Community Contributor

Would it be preferable if the point value was automatically calculated as the sum of the individual questions?

Why would you ever want these values to be different, and why should the user be expected to manually update the quiz point value any time they change the number/value of questions?

polzinc
Community Participant

Personally, that would be my preference. Some cases I could think of where an instructor might want the difference may be a practice test or a teacher may drop credit for a question or possibly to account for extra credit points. I just know that currently, it is not user-friendly or obvious that the scores are different. 

milesl
Community Contributor

Agreed! And the ability to exclude an assignment from grade calculation might help get us some of the way there.

We're getting ready to enable New Quizzes with the 2/15 release, and expecting users to know to manually update the quiz value in a separate location is giving me major pause.

clarson1
Community Explorer

I expected this to automatically weight the assignments in the gradebook.  If I had 2 quizzes, one with 13 questions and the other 22, but I wanted them to both be worth 40 points in the gradebook, I could put 40 when I create and the gradebook would figure that 10 out of 13 on the quiz was 30.8 out of 40 in the gradebook, while 19 out of 22 would be 34.5.  It's not doing that.  10 out of 13 goes in as 10 and calculates as 25% (10/40).  The point total in the build is apparently irrelevant.  It would be nice to be able to choose which way to use this (automatically match build total or weight grades).

rislis
Community Champion

This is very confusing to virgin New Quizzes users. I wonder if it will improve when we are out of Beta.

 @panjac ‌

Jen_Charles
Community Contributor

This is a great idea! I don't always know how many points I'll end up with when I initially set up my quiz. But, we do have teachers that purposely set them different, so a pop-up warning to make sure would be wonderful! Voting now!

mpfaff1
Community Participant

FYI, I just tested it, and did not experience what @clarson1 warned about: I made a 10 point quiz with 3 questions, and my fake student who got 2 questions correct out of 3 (at 1 point each) got a 6.67 out of 10 on the overall quiz in the gradebook. If it was an issue in April, maybe they fixed it?

I've found not all of our instructors want the points to match the number of questions: sometimes they just know a quiz should be worth 40 points on the syllabus, but the number and value of the actual questions can change from semester to semester. 

sguth
Community Novice

I concur with mpfaff1.  The total point value is effectively a weight.

jwolf2
Community Member

"To change this, you have to go into the initial edit screen and override the total score"

What? Like, I have to time travel? That's what this feature feels like. How does the current system of, you have to put a point value BEFORE you write the quiz, make sense to anyone?

i cannot find this mythical "initial edit screen" anywhere.