More Criticism for Canvas:
Showing question details is only available for small question banks.
Tim Payer HSU Math Dept, April 2nd 2014:
I just finished mapping my Homework assignment from Moodle to CANVAS. Besides the limitation of stunted
parentheses noted in “Criticism III”, there is new problem:
When creating exams, quizzes or other assignments where students submissions are required within CANVAS, only
question banks of 25 or less will reveal correct answers. If an instructor has more than 25 questions the instructor
must open up each question separately to review quizzes and exams.
This is very time consuming for instructors.
The request to fix this has been on the list for the programmers to fix over 20 months and there is still no results.
Option to Show All Exam Question Details (more than 25)
William Corbett, Bill Corbett, NMSU
suggested this on July 20, 2012 17:43
Right now, the quiz tool will allow the instructor to see the question details for 25 or fewer questions. If there are
more than 25 questions, this feature won't work.
I suggest that Canvas make exam questions details available, even when the exam is 'more than 25 questions.'
Otherwise, all individual questions have to be opened separately. Thanks,
131 people like this - Me too!
Comments
Stefanie Sanders July 20, 2012 17:50
Edison
Oh yes, please implement this! This is a recent change, and we miss being able to see all of the question details at
once.
Mary Livingston August 02, 2012 13:27
Howard Community College
We had a support ticket in on this problem and it was "fixed" by adding the warning that the question details are not
available when there are more than 25 questions. We'd also like to see this fixed for real. If it's too time-expensive to
load all the questions details at once maybe 25 at a time could be loaded?
Susan Nugent August 02, 2012 13:45
Lake Land College
Yes please!! I agree even we only see 25 questions with details on page at a time and have the option to navigate to
the next 25 questions would be better than not even being able to the question details at all. LLC faculty often have
hundreds of questions in question bank or in a test group (set). Also it would be helpful to have question preview
option as it would appear on a test.
William Corbett August 02, 2012 14:15
New Mexico State University
This feature is needed; it will save the instructor/designer a great deal of time. Thanks.
Troy M. Grooms August 08, 2012 07:43
Howard Community College
Not having this feature is a real problem and slows down my ability to assess the scope and topics of a particular
test. This is particularly true for the Multiple Choice questions. Please change this!!!! Thanks.
David O'Bryan September 30, 2012 12:53
Pittsburg State University
Let me guess. This is on a list of things to be fixed...so tired of this answer.
Annette Chenevey November 09, 2012 11:40
very very frustrating to have to click open every question! also need to see the correct answer in the details to know
that the question was entered properly
Betsy Walker December 26, 2012 10:18
Santa Fe Community College
I am in complete agreement with this request. It is a real time drain to have to open and edit every single question in
a bank to be assured of its contents.
Betsy Walker December 26, 2012 12:04
Santa Fe Community College
Ok. Now I'm confused again. I find that I can display all question details for one of my question banks that has 40
questions in it. But not another that has 55. What is the rule here?
JEAN RODGERS January 13, 2013 18:24
Wenatchee Valley College
Or change the preview option to include a show answers option
Kathleen Craven January 19, 2013 15:17
SBCTC Consortium
Yes - please - this would make testing much easier to work with! Thank you.
Dianne Hall January 23, 2013 15:13
San Jose State
This feature is definitely needed. It wastes a lot of my time to click click click through the quiz. How annoying.
Please make this a priority as I teach a lot of online classes and quizzes are the best way to make sure the students
are actually reading the material. Thanks
Hiranya Roychowdhury February 21, 2013 17:24
New Mexico State University
All I can say is good luck! I would like to see a feature in here where we can simply add to a list what we want in
the quiz tool. Having to "like" individual requests and having to gpo through a million requests to find the ones I
was interested in is a chore in itself. It is impractical, if not inane, to have to look for a feature request when I come
across a screwy thing in the quiz tool - like the complete scrambling of answer entry in multiple fill in the blanks. I
would like to list it at a place where everybody else having the same problem might be able to "like" (or dislike) it.
Gwyenne Sharp-Garcia February 21, 2013 17:35
BYU-Hawaii
It would also be helpful to show the question numbers. The numbers show up in preview mode but not in edit mode.
I'll take a quiz to make sure everything is okay then if I find an error on question 13 for example, I want to be able to
go into edit mode and go straight to question 13.
Gabrielle E. Orsi March 06, 2013 18:59
Colorado Mountain College
Plus-- if you opt to "select all" questions when adding from a question bank, it DOES NOT in fact select all the
questions! just the ones displayed on the page (i.e. the questions are paginated... 25 or so to a page...)
Kathleen Craven March 07, 2013 08:29
SBCTC Consortium
Yes - I've written earlier about this - this is making my review of test before delivery about 3 times longer than
Angel used to and while Angel had multiple faults and i don't want to go back to it - there test writing and
admistration selections were much better. More faculty friendly, able to mimic the professional exams our students
will take and more secure.
Ramune Braziunaite April 14, 2013 10:38
Bowling Green State University
I added my vote here too. Not being able to see all info for all questions at once is annoying. The "edit" screen
should at least give as a way to see the point value for each question. I had mistakenly assigned the default value
point of "1" to one of the questions and had to open 22 questions before I was able to get to the question with the
mistake.
This is highly inconvenient.
Deloris Compston May 14, 2013 13:19
MCCB::Mississippi Gulf Coast CC
All of our unit exams have 50 questions and not having this option makes review time much longer.
Jared Marcum May 24, 2013 17:58
BYU-Hawaii
Not to mention, if you want to review the answers of a quiz, editing a question only shows a portion of the answer.
You then have to click in the answer field and tap your button arrows to view the whole question. This is a waste of
time. Canvas please change this back. The checkmark is there. If poeple don't want to view the answers, they don't
have to.
Chris Reed June 05, 2013 12:40
Southern Union State CC
Why in the world would you only be able to see 25 questions?? It doesn't make sense and it takes 10 times longer to
make a 50 question test vs a test with less than 25. Please fix it!
Chandler Clanton June 11, 2013 21:38
MCCB::Meridian CC
I was just looking at an exam. I copied it over from a another course and it altered some of my questions. Allowing
us to view them all at one time would cut down a lot on time. The way it is now, I have to open each question
individually in order to view it. It would be much more practical for instructors to be able to view them no matter
how many questions a test is.
Thanks!!!
Hiranya Roychowdhury June 11, 2013 21:44
New Mexico State University
Is there anybody here who thinks that CANVAS team gives hoot what the quiz tool is like? It would seem that the
whole platform is built only for discussion oriented course. At our university those who do not use the quiz tool are
quite happy. Even the speed grader feature for assignments is not user friendly. The rubric obscures the
assignment, so the speed-grader system is a misnomer. The file management system is bogus, too.
Ramune Braziunaite June 12, 2013 05:55
Bowling Green State University
I find this feature very frustrating. I can not imagine why Instructure thought that hiding details on a test is a good
idea. Also,I do not understand what "Show Question Details" function accomplishes. I have exams with 20
questions and when I clock on "Show Question Details" nothing changes.
The only difference between the test with more than 25 questions is that I can not see points that question is worth.
Nobody from Instructure even bothered to respond to this request so don't expect this to be fixed any time soon. I
guess 80 votes is not enough to get anybody's attention.
Gwyenne Sharp-Garcia June 12, 2013 14:16
BYU-Hawaii
This option probably can't/won't be changed for a while so if someone from Canvas could explain the why, then we
would feel a little better and be more patient. Maybe it is a programming issue?
Chris Reed June 12, 2013 14:18
Southern Union State CC
There is no logical reason that they cant change the settings. The more people who request it to more likely it will
get done.
Hiranya Roychowdhury June 12, 2013 15:58
New Mexico State University
Don't count on it. I don't think Instructure runs on that model.
Hilary Scharton June 12, 2013 16:46
Instructure, Inc.
Hi All,
There are, indeed, people at Instructure who give many hoots about assessments. I am one of them. Seeing details
for 25 quiz questions makes me sad, too, and is absolutely something on our radar as a product department.
I completely understand the passion instructors feel for our craft because I have been an educator and know how
painful it can be when software doesn't live up to expectations. The last thing I needed on top of preparing lectures,
reading papers, and doing research, was for a process to take me longer in the LMS I had to use. Your pain is very
real for me and I assure you that we are going to improve the experience.
As part of the Canvas product team, it's also important to me that these public discussion forums remain a valuable
source of information for our product development. Comments that seem to be designed to insult or offend either
Canvas users or Instructure as a company are less useful. What's helpful is to hear is how you would use a new
feature or why the way something works is painful in your particular situation.
We want our faculty and admins who engage in constructive and professional conversations with us via these
forums to find this to be a welcoming place. Please, if there's something that you feel we're not acting on quickly
enough or if you have any questions or concerns, reach out to me anytime. hilary(at)instructure.com
Thank you,
Hilary
Betsy Walker June 12, 2013 18:10
Santa Fe Community College
I am a little confused. I am able to see question details when there are 50 or fewer questions in a question bank. All
of my questions are grouped in topics and I have managed to keep them all 50 or fewer, so this has worked very well
for me and my associates. This improvement was implemented from 25 or fewer last fall, if I recall correctly. So,
what am I missing here? Is it because my questions draw from question banks that I have this ease of viewing? I
never build questions directly in the quizzes themselves. I always build my questions in banks and then have the
quizzes/exams draw groups from the banks. Is that where other instructors/designers are having trouble?
What I have agitated about in the past and will again now, is that it drives me crazy that the question details do not
show the right answer. I find it a gigantic waste of my time to be forced to edit each individual question in order to
confirm that the correct answer indicated.
Hilary Scharton June 12, 2013 18:43
Instructure, Inc.
@Betsy: that's great feedback, thank you! It does look a little different when you're using question banks and I
completely agree that seeing the right answer would be much more helpful.
Hilary :)
David O'Bryan June 12, 2013 18:56
Pittsburg State University
I completely agree with Hiranya and I do not think it is unprofessional. The assessment module in Canvas is vastly
inferior to the two products I have used, Blackboard and Angel. Vastly inferior. The textbook publishers are all
pushing their own online products, but I have resisted since I felt like I could do it through my LMS without
requiring my students to pay another fee for the publishers' online product. Plus, I like the idea of having everything
integrated into one site and not having to import grades from the publishers' sites into my LMS gradebook. My first
full semester transitioning from Angel to Canvas was THE worst semester of my 27 years teaching. I am from
Kansas and we enacted the first Blue Sky Law in 1911. I still see a lot of Blue Sky in this LMS. Since I am stuck
with it, I sincerely hope it gets better.
Hiranya Roychowdhury June 13, 2013 09:59
New Mexico State University
If anybody cared at the company about how much time we as faculty waste in trying to find workaround in this
LMS, it is far from obvious. I, for one do not appreciate being forced to work as a beta tester. I waste my valuable
time without being employed by Instructure. Therefore, my comments out of my tremendous frustration might
sound acerbic to those who are being compensated for their work at Instructure. My list of glitches I have to face
everyday and almost every time I log on to Canvas runs long (and I did post that list somewhere here - not in this
particular thread). Sometimes it feels like the complaints are being answered with a bunch of promises that do get
followed through.
Yes, I will keep writing about this till the LMS becomes one that is useful to the faculty and students. I do not have
time to go around searching fro the right thread for each requests/problems, so I will post wherever I happen to be at
that time. These are ignored anyway, so why should I waste time trying to be "efficient" for the company. It is the
company's job to find out about the problems and correct them timely..
Hilary Scharton June 13, 2013 11:59
Instructure, Inc.
@Hiranya, I'm sorry that you feel frustrated and ignored. I'm also sorry that you feel as if no one at Instructure cares
about your frustrations. Please let me assure you that I am committed to building a great faculty experience in
Canvas and I care (a lot!) about the things that irritate you in our software. The last thing I want is to minimize what
you're feeling, ignore you, or break promises.
Perhaps in the past it was more difficult to get attention here, however, I read every post on every discussion board,
usually on the same day they're posted. While I don't always respond, I am paying attention to everyone's feedback.
I will commit to you that I'll get better at responding more often and I hope you'll call me out on that if you feel like
I'm not doing a good job. I also hope that together we can keep the acerbic comments to a minimum.
Part of our culture at Canvas is around how important it is to get real feedback from a wide variety of people who
use our software. I feel like you wouldn't hesitate to tell me exactly what you think ;-) and so would like to ask a
favor of you. I have a small product advisory team I rely on for input on a regular basis. Would you be willing to
join? I'll reach out to you via email with more details if that's something that would interest you.
If anyone else in this forum would like to join, too, I am currently looking for a couple more points of feedback from
faculty who feel passionately about quizzing and a few who are passionate about discussions. As always,
hilary(at)instructure.com
Thanks,
Hilary
Manardie Shimata July 08, 2013 12:36
Westminster
I don't want to be a pessimist but, I look back at the post starting in July 2012, and wonder how responsive Canvas is
being to the needs of the profession. To date this feature request has not been implemented. I posted a similar feature
request last month, to no avail. We were given the talk from the co owner on the responsiveness of Canvas. I am not
real impressed yet.
Art Shimata
Hiranya Roychowdhury July 08, 2013 13:29
New Mexico State University
Forget about 2012, there are requests and suggestions regarding the quiz tool dating back to May 2011 that have not
seen any resolution yet.
James Vincent August 21, 2013 09:20
Western Nevada College
This would be very helpful!
Jim Hardy August 23, 2013 10:07
UEN::Dixie
Hilary,
I'm glad to see you taking action to include official responses here, and I'm glad that you feel our pain. I'm sure
then, that you can understand our frustration when we faculty are switched to a new LMS that in some ways is
superior to the previous one, but in other ways is unexpectedly, and disappointingly, inferior. The "Quizzes" feature
is one glaring example. I see no useful purpose in limiting the view of question details, regardless of the number of
questions - especially which answer is marked as the correct one! - and yet Canvas imposes that limit on us. And
there's no explanation why. It's great that we have this forum to ask questions about it, and to request
improvements. So we happily add our "thumbs up" or our 2 cents' worth, and then wait... and wait. Now it's been
over a year that this has been discussed. Is that an unreasonable time frame in which to expect a fix? Especially for
something that (imho) is one of Canvas' biggest weaknesses? I hope that my tone is not acerbic or insulting. I'm
truly glad for your presence and your words of empathy and reassurance. I hope that your position helps fix the
support weaknesses at the company, and speeds up and refines the process of improvement of Canvas.
Hiranya Roychowdhury August 23, 2013 16:52
New Mexico State University
And yes, Hillary, I can help but never received any follow up email from you. Perhaps I misunderstood about what
you meant by "I'll reach out to you via email with more details." I have list of problems that I have found annoying.
If you are interested I can post them again here (I think I had already, somewhere. This is another problem
regarding requests and problems - no centralized list is possible with such a diffuse environment),
April Mixon September 03, 2013 09:47
Clark College
Hiranya - not to stir the pot - but I am getting ready to use Canvas for the very first time. Given the fact that for
chemistry I can only ask multiple choice questions (for the most part) my quizzes are changing from 10 question to
probably more than 50. Very frustrating for the students I am sure - but it is what it is at this moment. I would love
for you to post your list of concerns - maybe we can get them as request a feature topic discussions and I would be
happy to participating in voting for them. - April
Hiranya Roychowdhury September 03, 2013 09:55
New Mexico State University
Here it is, April. Perhaps other people may go over this and see if some of them have been resolved. I started
keeping track of issues I had faced since starting on Canvas last Summer. I think some of the issues did get
resolved, but with all the other "workarounds" and extra work that Canvas has me perform on a daily basis, I do not
have the time to clean up this list. - Hiranya.
Quiz tool.docx
Paul Bissell September 03, 2013 19:05
Del Mar College
Please allow us to see the question information for more than 25 questions.
Also - the question number should always be shown. When taking a test to make sure all is well, I write down the
question number when I spot a problem (typo, etc). When I go back to fix the question in the test how can I easily
find question #73 without counting from the beginning? Using the question name is risky as the answer is the 'topic'
of the question and thus, seeing the name of the question gives the student the answer.
The fact that quizzes cannot be assigned scores based on the percentage correct versus a raw point score is a huge
omission.
Manardie Shimata September 03, 2013 21:44
Westminster
Paul, I really like your suggestion. I too struggle with finding the correct question when there is 100 plus questions.
Elizabeth Jackson September 17, 2013 08:55
Richland Community College
Most of our instructors have tests that are more than 25 questions. In fact, I can only think of one or two of my
instructors that have any tests smaller than that! This feature is greatly needed. In fact, I had one of my instructors in
the office this morning, complaining about this.
The way things are set up now is extremely awkward and makes it very difficult for instructors and course designers
to find what they need in tests! I hope something can be done with this soon.
Hiranya Roychowdhury September 17, 2013 13:53
New Mexico State University
And, it has been more than a year that this was brought up. All we have had is condescension and slights.
Chris Reed September 17, 2013 13:58
Southern Union State CC
I have all but given up hope that this will every happen. It has been a year and a half since this thread started. Other
that the occasional defensive statement from Instructure, I see no progress. Good luck users you appear to be on
your own
Nancy Kucera September 18, 2013 09:22
Adventist University of Health Sciences
We need the ability to see questions detail no matter how many questions there are. Just met with one Department
Chair and she can't believe this is not available. Since obviously many schools want to see this, why is it not being
addressed? Frustration level is high with the overall quiz functionality within Canvas.
David O'Bryan September 18, 2013 13:50
Pittsburg State University
Yes, and just when you get excited about a new feature, like the regrade option, you find out it will not work with
quizzes drawn from test banks. Or, the new quiz statistics which is a rudimentary .csv file. The quiz feature is just
not ready for prime time. If you know about the 5 Stages of Grief I can only recommend that the quicker you get to
Acceptance the better because I do not see any huge changes on the horizon.
Hiranya Roychowdhury September 18, 2013 14:04
New Mexico State University
What is this "regrade" option I hear about? Is it really there and where is it found?
Kona Jones September 18, 2013 14:20
Richland Community College
@Hiranya - it was going to be released last Saturday, but got delayed. See the Product Release Notes for more
information - https://help.instructure.com/entries/22123654-09-14-13-Canvas-Production-Release-Notes-FeaturingConversations-and-Quiz-Regrade
Yacong Yuan October 02, 2013 12:20
University of Maryland
FIX this PLEASE!!!! I wish we can still show that button with 25+ questions => That's when we need it.
Otherwise the test bank is hard to manage.
Imagine you have 50+ questions chapter by chapter... and have to edit them manually? (e.g.: When you only want to
keep the multiple choice / TF / fill-in-blank Questions but delete the Essay Questions... how would you expect
Instructors to identify those questions manually one by one, among 50+ questions * 10+ Chapters??)
Please change the design as soon as possible.
That would make hundreds of teachers' lives much easier!! THX!!
Ramune Braziunaite October 02, 2013 12:35
Bowling Green State University
Why is this not fixed yet?
Chris Reed October 03, 2013 08:58
Southern Union State CC
Doubt it will ever happen it is not like it is logical to have the ability or that over 100 others have "liked" the idea, or
even that it was suggested over a year and half ago.
Hiranya Roychowdhury October 03, 2013 09:03
New Mexico State University
You got that right, Chris. They are now complaining to my University that I am being too loud about my feelings
about the inadequacy of this LMS.
b.ramune October 03, 2013 10:32
Hiranya - they did that to me too :) About a year ago, I ended up having a nice conversation with our IT Director
who agreed with every criticism I had about Canvas. Nothing on my list of complaints has been addressed since
then.
But seriously, My question is not rhetorical..
Why is this not fixed yet?
I think that they would want to fix it just to shut us up. So, I am thinking incompetence. Basically they don't know
what they are doing but blame faculty for having an attitude about that. Just look at what happens with every new
release - they just add more bugs and more workarounds.
Keith Cronk October 03, 2013 11:00
Harding University
This could be posted in any place in the Help Center, but here will do. We started using Canvas with a lot of
goodwill from faculty and e-learning support team. As time has gone on though that goodwill has waned and
there is now the support team are more cynical about Canvas and its abilities. So disappointing overall. This is an
excerpt from the latest report I received; "Canvas is doing fine. We have learned to lower our expectations and
that has really helped the situation"
It is a shame that this is the most positive comment I hear these days. I see the same sentiment coming through in
these discussions. Disappointing...
Brittany Nolan November 04, 2013 11:35
University of Central Florida
We believe it would be helpful if questions groups located within a test could be expanded to display all question
details. So, perhaps one group set at a time to could be expanded. Limiting us to only 25 questions can get tiring.
CAROLE OKAMOTO December 07, 2013 02:01
University of Washington
This is a serious problem, which I didn't have using Catalyst...I am seriously contemplating moving back to Catalyst,
which our University allows...too bad because I know they want us to move to Canvas...however, I am not going to
wait for Canvas to fix this...I have to use the most efficient tools at my disposal.
Kathleen Craven December 07, 2013 12:41
SBCTC Consortium
I asked about this feature over a year ago when we were piloting Canvas. I like most aspects of Canvas - but the
concerns I had then still remain - I agree we need to be able to see more than 25 questions and their answers to edit
tests and for NCLEX (nursing exam) we need to not accept partial credit for multiple responses. When
I commented/requested these changes over a year ago - it was said then that you were working on this and it would
change - this aspect has not changed, other than to increase our workload trying to do work arounds. Is there an
actual time frame where both of these items are being corrected?
Chandler Clanton December 09, 2013 08:49
MCCB::Meridian CC
I sent in a request about this during the summer term and was told that you all were working on it and it would be
fixed soon. However, nothing has been done at this time about the issue. It takes way more time to review and edit a
quiz because this feature has not been added yet. I love many things about Canvas but this is one of the features that
causes the instructor to have more work to do. Please get this fixed soon.
Alice Garrard February 27, 2014 13:28
Adding a comment that this is a necessary change. Thanks!