A positive or negative feedback rule can be added by going to “+Add rule” in the “Positive feedback” or “Negative feedback” tab of an exercise. Note that some exercise types only allow for negative feedback, and some exercise types don’t allow for feedback at all. The difference between positive and negative feedback is explained in this article.
Feedback rule fields and buttons
A (positive or negative) feedback rule looks as follows:
- Number of the feedback rule
- The feedback text that is shown to the student. For some evaluation types, automated feedback is implemented. See this article for information on automated feedback. See this article for an overview of which evaluation types have automated feedback.
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A preview of the feedback text. Example:
- Save any changes you made to the feedback rule
- Definition field of the feedback rule. The syntax of the Definiton field depends on the chosen evaluation type. For some evaluation types, no definition is needed.
- Feedback template. You can leave the Definition field empty to trigger the use of the text from a Feedback template. This is handy if you have a lot of repetition in your feedback texts. The Feedback templates can be maintained in the Author environment under the tab “Feedback”. See this article for more information on feedback templates.
- Priority of the feedback rule. When multiple feedback rules are applicable to the student’s answer, only the one with the highest priority will be shown. The priority field can have values from 0 to 99, where 0 corresponds to the highest priority and 99 to the lowest priority. Thus, the lower the number in the priority field, the higher the priority.
- Number of the answer field. In case you have more than one answer field in the exercise, you can choose the field to apply the rule to here. The number of answer fields can be find in the “General” tab of the exercise.
- The evaluation type of the feedback rule. More information on evaluation types can be found in this article.
- Checking this box negates the working of the feedback rule. For instance, if you select evaluation type "is not a number", then the feedback rule is hit when the answer is not a number. However, when you check "Opposite evaluation", the feedback rule is hit when the answer is a number.
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Check this box to apply this feedback rule when the exercise is used in tests. When selected, you can choose a desired partial score that is given to the student when their answer hits this rule. A partial score is given in percentages and can range from 0 to 100. Example:
- Delete the feedback rule
- Make a copy of the feedback rule to the same exercise
- Add override hint. When selected, the override hint is shown when the student clicks on “Hint” the first time after this feedback rule is hit. Example:
Feedback rules when testing the exercise
If you click “View exercise” in the top right corner of the ‘edit exercise’ page, you see the exercise approximately as students see it. Here you can test if the feedback rules you defined work properly. Example:
You see that the category and the number of the feedback rule that is hit are shown on the screen. Note that the student only sees the checkmark/cross and the feedback text. The boxes “Negative/positive feedback rule …” and “cas logs” are not visible to the student. The button ‘cas logs’ can be used for debugging feedback rules.
Importing feedback from a different exercise
Instead of creating new feedback rules, we can import feedback from an already existing exercise. This can be done by clicking the button “Import feedback” on the “Negative feedback” or “Positive feedback” tab of the exercise. The following menu will pop up:
On the top left, you can choose the exercise you want to import feedback rules from. All positive and negative feedback rules that this exercise has are shown in the list. You can check the boxes on the left next to the rules you want to import. On the right, the category of the feedback rule can be changed (from positive to negative or vice versa) and the answer field to which the feedback rule should be applicable.
You can also import feedback rules from your current exercise, for example if you want all your current feedback rules for answer field 1 to also be applicable to answer field 2.