Fields

Fields allow your users to enter text answers. Your users can enter words, phrases, numbers and even short essays. The maximum number of fields you can have in one screen is 100.

How Fields work

You can enter up to 200 answers together with the marks the answer will attract. Marks can be as small as 0.01 or as large as 9998. Marks can also be negative.

When a user's answer is marked Question Tools tries to match the user's answer to one of the answers you have entered. Even if it finds a match it will still check all of the other possible answers to see if there is a match with a higher mark. If Question Tools fails to match the user's answer to one of the answers you have entered then the user is awarded the Mark if unmatched score for the Field.

Type

The choice you make in Type determines both what the user can enter, as well as how the answer is dealt with.

• Free Text. The user's answer will have any spaces removed from the start and beginning, together with any double spaces. This is to prevent trivial differences between the user's answer and a correct answer preventing a match. The user's answers are case-insensitive — hence, 'MY ANSWER' is treated as being the same as 'my answer'. However, answers can be made to be case-sensitive (see below).
• Free Text No Spaces. This is the same as Free Text except that the user cannot enter any spaces. This option is useful when the user has to enter formulae.
• Real Numbers. This restricts the user's answers to numbers, such as 32.4 or -44.12. This helps to prevent simple typing errors, but also ensures that an answer of 32.300 is treated as equal to 32.3. Answers can be sensitive to the number of decimal places (see below). Answers can also be marked against a range rather than a single number (see below).
• Integers. This restricts the user's answer to whole numbers (i.e. no decimal place). As with real numbers, answers can be marked against a range (see below).
• Multiline Text. This is the same as Free Text, except that the user can enter much more text, and user's answer is assessed in a different way. Question Tools goes through every answer you have entered. If it is present in the user's text then the mark is added to the user's total. You can also enter up to 200 words and phrases that will attract positive marks, negative marks, or just part marks. There is more on essay marking below.

Value. You can enter an initial value for a field if you wish. This will appear in the field when the user first sees the screen.

Results Text

The Results Text Area in the Screen Inspector is where you can enter text you want to appear in the user's results. This text will also appear in the results collected centrally using a NetSeries webserver.

Dynamic linking. If you wish you can dynamically link text in a Text Area to results text for the Field. In this way, your results text is updated every time you change the Text Area to which it is linked. To do this just enter the name of the Text Area (as it appears in the Screen Inspector), but with square brackets either side of the name. For example, if you wished to link the text in a Text Area called Text 1 to a field's results text, then all you have to do is enter [Text 1] in the space for Results Text in the field tab of the Screen Inspector.

Copying text. You can click on a Text Area using the right mouse button and copy the text to the Results Text Area for a Field. You can also double-click on a Text Area to edit it, select just some of the text, and then right-click to copy just the selected text to the Results Text Area for a Field.

Other Controls

Lock. If lock is selected then you will not be able to move the Field using the mouse or the arrow keys on the keyboard — it prevents accidental movements. However, you can still move and resize a Field by entering values in the Left, Top, Width and Height fields.

Name. You can give a Field more or less any name you wish. However, if you are swapping files between SimpleSet and Editor then keeping names such as Field 1, Field 2, etcetera is important because SimpleSet uses these names to match Text Areas to Fields.

Style and Visual Appearance

The font, font size, font colour, background colour and field border are automatically set according to the Style setting. Click here to find out more about creating your own style. If you wish to directly alter the font, font size and other settings then change the Style setting to Custom and the controls you need will appear.

Case sensitivity

If you enter an answer, such as Hello and assign a mark of 2 then users who enter hello or hELLO will get 2 marks. If case-sensitivity is important then you could enter an answer of [CS]Hello. In this way only users who use an upper case H and lowercase letters for the rest of the word will get a mark.

If you wish to give extra marks to users who enter the correct combination of upper case and lowercase letters then entering two answers could be an effective strategy. An answer of [CS]Hello might attract 2 marks, while and answer of just Hello (i.e. not case sensitive) could win the user just 1.5 marks. Entering more than one answer for a Field can be an effective strategy.

Tab order

It is possible to alter the tab order in Editor by selecting a field, holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard, and pressing the up and down arrows on the keyboard. The tab order is shown in a tooltip over the Field.

Ranges

• If you want a range as an answer simply enter the top and bottom of the range with a dash (same as the minus sign) between them. For example, 56-59 specifies a range of 56 to 59 (but only when the Type is set to Integers or Real Numbers).
• Do not worry about negatives, as -1.3--0.94 will work.
• You can specify more than one range — you can have up to 200. When you do this Question Tools will evaluate the user's answer against each range you have entered and find the one with the highest marks that the user's answer fits into. In other words, the order in which you enter the ranges does not matter.

Decimal places

If a Field's Type is set to Real Numbers then an answer can specify between 0 and 9 decimal places by inserting DPX: in front of an answer, where X is the number of decimal places. For example, if there are two answers: DP2:1.23 for 2 marks and 1.23 for 1 mark then uses who enter exactly 1.23 will receive two marks, while a user who enters 1.2300 will receive only 1 mark. The decimal places prefix DPX: will also work when ranges are specified.

Timed Screens

If you name a Field qtCountDown then it will display the minutes and seconds left on screen before either the end of the test or the user is automatically moved to the next screen. This works with both the limit per screen and the overall time limit. If there is both a screen time limit and a test time limit then the qtCountDown field will show the test time limit. If a Field is named qtCountDown it will not be included in the results.

Entering Answers

Useful shortcut: You can copy a range of answers onto the Pasteboard and simply drag them onto a Field. Click here for more information on the Pasteboard.

Copying Answers

Useful shortcut: You can click on a Field with the right mouse button and copy all of the answers from the Field you have clicked on to one you select from the pop-up menu that will appear.

Is essay marking intelligent?

This approach is certainly not intelligent. It is simple, and it is easy to justify a student's marks, as the process is transparent.

Approaches based upon artificial intelligence (AI) methods (such as artificial neural networks) may produce marking that is more akin to human marking, but judging the quality of an answer, with the necessary reference to the context of the subject matter, is a very difficult thing to do with a computer. Such AI approaches can often be just as prone to produce mechanistic marking, and have the added problem that they are black box solutions, and explaining and justifying a mark to a student can be much harder.

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