Hello,
Some of our teachers and program coordinators are experiencing problems with the csv when exporting quiz results: when students fill in (or copy text to) essay questions, the results in the csv file seem to become messed up and unreadable. So when they turn the csv into an excel file (via data > to columns) with readable rows and columns, it looks like the file does not show the answers in a correct way (answers in wrong rows/columns, empty cells etc). It seems that the only way is to doublecheck with the results per student on Canvas and then re-arrange them in the excel file by copy/cut and paste...
Are there any tips/tricks or do's / don'ts concerning setting up the quiz with both multiple choice and essay questions or the export file that will make their life a bit easier?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Gerdien Schriek - This is an Excel issue more than a Canvas issue, and it occurs because of various technical things that I won't bore you with (and that I likely don't know fully enough, anyway), but I have a suggestion or two. I was most puzzled by your statement that the answers do not line up with the questions, as that has NEVER been my experience, though my hunch is it's occurring because of the Data>>To columns that your teachers are doing. Try this instead:
-Open Excel FIRST; do not open the CSV file. Just open a blank workbook.
-Click (on Windows machines, at least) the DATA tab and then click the "From Text/CSV" button that is under that tab, in the "Get & Transform Data" group. (Love that group name! Sounds like you're doing magic, which I guess you are in a way.)
-Find your CSV file and open it
-On the ensuing dialog box, in the File Origin drop-down menu select Unicode (ATF-8), which on my machine is labelled as 65001...and likely is on yours, too.
-Click Load, and it will load it into a Data Table format.
-You're not quite done yet; to make the text more readable, on the text-answer columns do WRAP TEXT by clicking the column heading letters. Also (I find this bit is important...) LEFT-ALIGN them AND TOP-ALIGN them for better readability.
While some extraneous characters may still pop in, that should get rid of the majority of them.
I hope this helps a bit, Gerdien!