[ARCHIVED] Default Quiz Settings

[lfrancis1]

Hi Everyone,

In the classic Quiz tool is there a way for Admins to make the "Let Students See The Correct Answers" default be turned off?

Currently the default for this is On and it has caused problems when teachers inadvertently leave it checked and students see the correct answers after taking a test. They are then able to share these with other classes who may not have taken the test yet.

In the interests of test security, would it not make more sense for this to be off by default so an instructor has to intentionally share the correct answers?

Thanks!

Lewis

[James · Accepted solution]

 @lfrancis1  

There is no way to change the defaults within the core product. Wanting to change the defaults of something is a very popular request.The ability to set defaults for course settings is a currently open feature request. 

However, quizzes are at the course level where most people defer to the instructor. Along with the fact that Canvas has stopped development on Legacy Quizzes to focus on New Quizzes, it is unlikely that you will ever see movement on setting quiz defaults.

From a learning perspective, most people probably want students to be able to see what they missed on a quiz. There are some areas where this is not acceptable at all, but Canvas tries to set the defaults according to best educational practices and how most people would use it (with the best practices sometimes taking precedence).

What I do is give my students a certain amount of time to take the quiz (usually 4 days in my classes) and then they can only see the correct answers after the time is up. This gives me the best of both worlds -- it's harder for students to share the answers until the time is up and they still get to see the correct answers at some point. 

It really is on the shoulders of the course designer / instructor to make sure that the settings are done properly.This may need to be a better job of educating them to the options available and how important it is to set them properly. Setting the defaults in an effort to force them into good behavior isn't as good as them understanding the options and how they behave. If you haven't seen Kona Jones' document Quiz Settings to Maximize Security, I strongly recommend it.

When you copy a course from term to term, the quiz settings go with it. So getting it set up properly should be a one-time thing per quiz. Depending on the courses, you may also be able to implement blueprint courses, where you can set the quiz settings in one place and then push it out to individual courses. That may not work if you're a small school or each instructor does their own thing.

If you still feel that you need to change the default, you can employ custom global JavaScript that unchecks the box. You'll need to be careful with that though to make sure that it's only done once and not every time the quiz gets edited -- otherwise, you'll really frustrate your teachers because they'll have to check the box every time. You could check to see if the document.title is "Unnamed Quiz" as one way to see if it's a new quiz. As long as that's true, then you could uncheck the input#never_hide_results box.

[lfrancis1]

James, thanks for your detailed reply, links to resources and JavaScript suggestion.

The change was a relatively recent one but our instructors are trained and do know how to set up the options on Quizzes. The problem arises when they inadvertently forget to make the change on an assessment that is shared across a level among different teachers. It just takes one set of students to take the assessment with the default options to compromise the the assessment for everyone else.

It is certainly best practice to allow the students to see their responses and correct answers, but in our opinion the most logical and secure path would be to defer to the instructor deciding when that happens not the system.

[James]

[I]n our opinion the most logical and secure path would be to defer to the instructor deciding when that happens not the system.

Agreed. It is ultimately up to the instructor to check their settings.

If they inadvertently get bit, then they may be more careful in the future. Perhaps double checking the settings goes onto a checklist of things to check before publishing a quiz. Maybe the other instructors using the quiz could step up and double check their settings before they give the quiz to make sure that they're set properly. There are even tools out there that will download the settings for all of the quizzes on a single page and so you can check them all at once, rather than having to go into each quiz. You could even use the API to check and change the setting, although that has the same danger -- of changing something that was set as desired. Some people even use the API to create the quizzes with the proper settings and then let the faculty add the questions.

Changing the default wouldn't keep them from changing the setting on the quiz, it just saves them a click if they don't want students to see the results. But the default affects everyone, not just your institution. Canvas doesn't want to put lots of toggles and switches, they want to keep the interface clean. So they (usually) set reasonable defaults based on best practices or what most people want to happen. It doesn't work for everyone -- I know, I teach mathematics and Canvas quizzes don't really have good support for that so we're always trying to be creative in solutions.

In the end, the Canvas system isn't deciding what happens. It's giving the instructor the option to set it the way they want it to be set. It's the instructor checking or not checking the box when they create the quiz that decides what happens. Changing the default may be better for you, but not for another institution. Thankfully, when an institution doesn't like the way that Canvas does things or they need additional functionality, they can sometimes implement a work-around on an institution level. The custom JavaScript would allow you to go through and implement it in the way you think best fits your institution.

[Nick_Riches1]

This would be great. When I set up quizzes, I put the correct answer first, for convenience' sake, and set up the shuffle option. If I accidentally don't set the shuffle option, the right answers are always first! Someone on this forum mentioned that it is up to the lecturer to pay attention and set the order, but this is easy to miss. (BTW I also have ADHD and am not good at processing a sea of options). It would be so good if answers could automatically be shuffled by default. In fact there are obvious disadvantages if answers are not shuffled by default, but I can't see any disadvantage if they are.

[tjr1]

Hi Instructure, If this setting could be made toggled on as default - it would be very good in High School and Junior School settings to assist teachers.

Thanks,

Tim