Advanced Functionality for Quizzes (Arithmetic)

Question

Hello,

I am wondering if there are any plans to improve the functionality of arithmetic questions for Brightspace Quizzes. We have recently moved our assignments over from the LON-CAPA system to Brightspace to consolidate our courseware; however, we are finding the arithmetic question programming quite limiting. It would be useful to have the following:

- The ability to define intermediate variables based on the randomized variables.
 As a simple example: if I defined a variable, x = 7.9, I would like to define y = 5*{x}, and then use {y} in the solution. For more complex problems, it becomes tedious to pack the solution into a single line, and tends to lead to coding errors (trying to match 10 parentheses...).

- The ability to use randomized variables across multiple questions, or for a single arithmetic problem to have multiple answer inputs.
 In a Physics question, we might ask the student to determine the force that the quadriceps muscles exert to keep the lower leg in rotational equilibrium throughout an exercise. It would be helpful to have multiple answer inputs for intermediary steps (e.g. what is the torque exerted by the weight of the lower leg about the knee joint) or other variables (e.g. what is the force exerted by the femur on the kneecap).

- A simple way to use engineering notation in solutions (e.g. 9E-2)

- A wider set of mathematical functions.
 It would be useful to have the full set of mathematical functions available on a modern scientific calculator (asin, acos, sinh, cosh, etc.) as well as statistical functions (average, standard deviation, etc.)

Perhaps some of these exist, and I am simply not aware; but, I am sure that many instructors in the physical sciences would benefit from these additions.

Thanks!

Greg.C.6993 · Answer

I am completely in agreement. I have migrated two math classes into D2L, but the software often makes me want to scream with how limited it is for math and the sciences.  Hopefully the arithmetic quiz tool will get an upgrade soon so we can have more than just one question and one answer from students in a single problem. It would be great to have multiple formulas possible so you could ask for more.  My issue is wanting the mean, standard deviation, range, etc.  from one set of values.  Not possible yet with an arithmetic question type.

Krizzy.S.9720 · Answer

Hello @Don.M.5924,

This is incredibly detailed and helpful feedback on what you're looking to achieve with the Brightspace Quiz Tool. We've been working to expand the number of and type of questions that can be added to Brightspace Quizzes and have some exciting changes on the horizon (ability to import H5P questions into a Quiz), you can check out this article for a bit of a sneak peek Product And Services Preview - Brightspace. While these planned changes won't address all of the challenge areas you're describing here I hope it will help to provide evidence of the sincerity with which we're working to improve the quiz creation experience for all Educators using Brightspace.

I want to assure you that your feedback has been received by our Quiz Team and shared with your Account Team here at D2L for our awareness and further consideration on how we can best meet your assessment needs in the future.

Please also consider visiting our Product Idea Exchange (PIE) – a place within  Brightspace Community where faculty, administrators, and other non-student roles can submit new feature requests to D2L, as well as promote and comment on existing feature requests. I believe some of your feedback already exists as Ideas and can use your vote to promote them!

Krizzy

Don.M.5924 · Answer

I am in the process of trying to migrate in-person labs from a college classroom into D2L.  Unfortunately, D2L's lack of the abilities listed above makes it almost unusable for this purpose.  This is a shame, because it is so close to being able to do what it needs to do.  I would suggest that the best way to accomplish this is to define variables at the start of a quiz and use them across all questions in the quiz.  D2L's variable creation functions are entirely adequate for my needs.  I just need to be able to ask multiple questions about the same variables in order to drive deeper learning.  This is necessary for D2L quizzes to have real math/physics functionality.  This might force me to define large numbers of variables - but I can work with that.  For example, I might ask 4 series of questions, and define x1, y1, z,1, x2, y2, z2, x3 ... and z4.  I could then create series of questions using my predefined variables.

From a computer programmer's vocabulary, D2L defines variables that are local to the question only.  It needs to define global variables for an entire quiz.

Like the original poster, I would love to see the ability to use functions to define variables - but this is not as important to me as the need for global variables within a quiz.  I would also like the ability to use a student's previous answer to calculate follow-up answers to other questions, as this would allow me to adjust follow-up answers for incorrect previous answers.  This would probably involve a check box that if checked, stored the value the student gave into a variable which would otherwise be defined by the answer that D2L calculated.

Finally, I have noticed that when I allow students to retake quizzes with arithmetic questions and I have selected "re-answer only the incorrect questions," D2L is not re-assigning new random values to the variables.   This behavior should be documented.  Ideally, I should have the choice of reassigning new values for each retake attempt or asking D2L to keep the old values as it currently does.

I know this is probably silly for me to bother asking.  I have yet to see D2L actually respond to genuine feature requests - but who knows.  Maybe I'll get lucky!