WeBWorK Problems

Essay questions - allowing for revisions

Essay questions - allowing for revisions

by Murphy Waggoner -
Number of replies: 2
When I give an essay question in a question, I like to go in and grade it before the due date so that students have an opportunity to revise their answer.  However, what I found out was that when I grade it, the student response disappears so they don't know what they had before.  So, instead of revising, the student has to start from scratch, and often my response seems cryptic to them since they can't see what I was responding to.

Is the reason it disappears something to do with the essay pl file?  If so, can I copy it, edit it to save the answer, and save it in my course as a version that doesn't delete the student's answer?  Or is there a way for the student to see the old answers that I don't know about?

Thanks, MEW
In reply to Murphy Waggoner

Re: Essay questions - allowing for revisions

by Murphy Waggoner -
Just checking to see if anyone can help me on this.  Thanks.
In reply to Murphy Waggoner

Re: Essay questions - allowing for revisions

by Geoff Goehle -
There are a couple of options.

1) Whether or not old answers are shown is controlled by the "show saved answers" or "show old answers" display option. The default is to show old answers, but its possible that that is different on your server for some reason. If you are using 2.10, you might check to see if the "show saved answers" option is enabled by going to user settings. Otherwise that setting is under "Display Options". You can also check the Permissions area of Course Configuration to see if the "Can Show Old Answers" permission is set to student.

2) As a fall back, students can see previous answers, along with their comments, by using the Show Past Answers button, assuming that they have permission to do so.

In either case this is an issue of how your server is set up to deal with old answers, and not an essay question specific problem.