Superscripts and Subscripts in student responses

[benjamint]

I am trying to figure out how I can incorporate questions that have answers with subscripts or superscripts in my tests.  I can use multiple choice but sometimes I need for these to be fill in the blank.  This choice does not allow my students the option to make letters or numbers superscript or subscript.  Is this an issue with others that teach Chemistry and Physics or math classes? 

[James · Accepted solution]

 @benjamint ,

I don't have a good solution for you.

Yes, this is an issue for lots of people, not just math and science teachers. For example, foreign language teachers have wished for a better ease in entering international characters. The answer for the languages has been to use the native operating systems solution for entering those characters. For Windows, you can use the Character Map or construct the answer in Microsoft Word and then copy/paste.

My take is that Canvas is not a mathematics program. It does not, nor should it be expected to, understand mathematical content. There are too many ways to write sqrt(5) for example -- √5 (alt+251 gives the √ on Windows), 5^0.5, 5^(1/2), sqrt(5), (1+4)^(1-1/2), etc. The last one is stretching a bit, but it is mathematically valid. Asking Canvas to autograde algebra is like asking it to autograde an essay written in a foreign language.

Without the support for students to use the Rich Content Editor, you either have to redesign the questions to be multiple choice or provide them instructions on acceptable ways to enter their results. For example, both ASCII Math and LaTeX use ^ for superscripts and _ for underscores. You could tell the students to enter H_2SO_4, although in that particular example, you might be able to take it without the subscripts and enter H2SO4.

Even if the students could use the Rich Content Editor, you're still going to have difficulty as I mentioned above. Some notation is not intuitive to students and so they will invent ways to display it. If you want autograding, you're going to miss some of the ways. Did they enter H₂SO₄ using the sub element or did they use the Unicode superscript and subscript characters?

The other option is to not autograde those questions, but go through and manually grade them. That defeats the purpose of immediate feedback and creates additional work for the instructor.

[marianna_pinter]

I work a lot to teach students what should be the correct way to write chemical formulas; if I was to accept H_2SO_4 or H2SO4 for sulfuric acid, that would go against all of my efforts. But this is a general lms lack of option/function. Previous learning management systems did not allow suprscript/subscript either.

[k_kalna]

I am sorry but this is a very pure code development, subscripts and superscripts are widely available in any educational products. Please, put extra effort in your development team to address this as soon as possible, we are far far from the 1980 ASCII text editors.

[Food_PhD]

Sorry to be late to this party but this is my first semester (Fall 2020) teaching Chemistry using Canvas.  I'm having the same issue as marianna_pinter stated above.  I want my students to learn to write formulas correctly.  Using H2SO4 becomes even more difficult when you add in coefficients when balancing equations.  Why are there two separate text editors in Canvas?  Why not make the Rich Content Editor universal for all text entry, instructor and student alike?

[James]

The Rich Content Editor (RCE) that the students use is the same one that the Instructors use. However, Canvas is phasing out the Rich Content Editor and planning on replacing it with the New Rich Content Editor. That should happen in January 2021. At this point, it's an option which one you use, but for those of used to the old one, the new one has a lot of pain associated with it.

There is a different Rich Content Editor involved with New Quizzes because it was developed as a plug-in to Canvas rather than being part of the core product and so they weren't limited to the existing RCE and the new RCE came along after the New Quizzes had spent years in development. Maybe some day they will all be the same.

Having a single text editor won't fix the problem though. The problem with Classic Quizzes is that you cannot autograde an essay question that has the proper tools for formatting it correctly and you cannot enter subscripts into fill in the blank questions, which are autograded. Canvas is no longer developing the Classic Quizzes and has plans to deprecate their use as well.