How do I use the Short answer widget?
How to access the Short answer widget
Widgets are the tools with which course administrators create and build the pages of their courses.
The Short answer widget can be used to ask the learner to provide a short answer to a question. Note: this is not for an open-ended type of question. The learner must enter one of the anticipated answers you have entered in the widget in order to get it right.
Steps to access the Short answer widget.
Step 1
Go to the page in your course where you'd like to add this widget.
Step 2
Select Edit mode.
Step 3
In the lefthand widget menu, click on the grey container with the word Core and toggle it to Quiz.
Step 4
Click on the Short answer widget icon (or you can hold and drag it wherever you'd like on the page).
Please note that if there isn't a quiz widget on the page, adding a new quiz widget will automatically create a quiz section for you. For more information on how to use the quiz section, please refer to the article How do I use a Quiz Section?
How to set up the Short answer widget
After adding the Short answer widget to your page, you can set it up by following the instructions below:
- Click on the Setup tab at the top of the widget.
- Edit the widget settings:
Question text: You can enter your question here. If you'd like to use formatted text or images, you can use the Text widget instead and leave this box empty.
Size of input field: You can select the size of the answer box either Small or Large. You can find the difference between the two options in the screenshot below:
Placeholder text: You can replace the default "My response..." here.
Character limit: In this setting, you can limit the number of characters the learners can use. You can also remove the spaces from the answer by ticking on the box Automatically strip spaces from answer.
Automatic evaluation: The answer will be evaluated as correct if the learner enters text matching any of the conditions. You can set up conditions based on which the widget will determine if the learner's answer was correct or incorrect (Note: if you leave this blank, any answer will be accepted as correct, but we advise this widget not to be used for open-ended questions. Assessment will not be possible). You can also add more than 1 condition by clicking on the Add condition button. If the response must precisely match the word in the condition, including capitalization, please tick the box Case sensitive next to the condition.
Status Section
Show correct/incorrect status: Ticking this box will allow display text to appear letting learners know if they have selected the correct or incorrect answer(s).
When the answer is correct: You can customise the message to be displayed when the learner has selected the correct answer. The default message is "Correct!".
When the answer is incorrect: You can customise the message to be displayed when the learner has selected an incorrect answer. The default message is "Incorrect! Try again."
Hide correct/incorrect status: Ticking this box will allow you to customise the message to be displayed when the learner has selected the answer regardless of whether it’s correct or incorrect.
Feedback Section
Show feedback (optional): Ticking this box will allow you to customise the feedback message when the learner has selected the correct or incorrect answer for that particular question.
Completion settings
Completing activities on a page is how learners make progress and receive their certificates or complete the course.
As the course administrator, you can modify how each Quiz Section tracks this progress.
The completion settings tab in each widget gives the option to include the quiz as part of the quiz section’s progress and completion tracking. By unchecking the option, you are excluding this specific quiz block from being part of the quiz section’s progress. Any interactions with this excluded quiz block will not affect the completion status of the quiz section.
Pro tip: For open-ended questions, consider using the Post text widget. It provides a variety of assessment criteria and assessment types to better evaluate your learners' responses.