How to Create a Text “Single Response” Activity in OLI Torus

Create a Text "Single Response" Question [Short Text and Paragraph]

In This Article:
  1. Learn how to create a text single response activity in a project
  2. Learn how to add customizable answer choices to activities
Single Response questions are used to collect student input and compare the input answer to a customizable field. Short Text and Paragraph use the same interface, but Short Text allows for a smaller response, while Paragraph asks for longer and more complex responses.
Torus Terminology Quick Guide
OLI Torus uses common terminology in very specific ways. To clarify, here’s a quick guide for this article on the terms you may come across.
  1. Content and Question Blocks - Torus pages are organized by “blocks”, and blocks are used to house various content. These appear in the “Content Types” and “Question Types” menu. “Paragraph” blocks are the most referred to because they house text and images. “Blocks” will be identified by their type in knowledge base articles. Content type blocks host latent content, like text, images, videos, and more. Question type blocks host activities that students interact with, which instructors collect data from.
  2. Activities - Activity is the term used to describe any interactive content, rather than using “questions” or “assignments” or “assessments”. Activities host question-and-answer content for students to interact with, which is a part of our “active learning” philosophy.

How to Add an “Input” Content Block

“Single Response” questions are represented by the “Input” content block in the menu. The type of single response question is selected after the “input” content block is added to a page. On a page, hover below the existing block (on a new page, this block will be a “Mixed” content block).


Selecting the “Input” icon adds a new block to the page.
Single Response vs. Multi-Input: Single Response “Input” activities are part of Torus’s “Basic” question types. Multi-input question types (pictured above as being above the Input question type) can be enabled via the Project Overview page, and have different use cases than Single Response input activities. 
Below the “Question” box is a dropdown menu with the options “Number”, “Short Text”, “Paragraph”, and “Math”. For this type of question, select either “Short Text” or “Paragraph”, depending on the complexity and length of the question.
Select either Short Text or Paragraph.
The selections in the drop down menu affect the interface in the Answer Key tab.
Editing the Title: Torus does not currently have a unique naming convention for activities within courses. For purposes of data collection, insights, and data downloads, it is recommended that authors uniquely name each activity during course authoring and instructional design. These activity titles can be changed by selecting the “Edit Title” blue text bar next to the existing title, which will be “Single Response” for all new Single Response questions.

Tagging Learning Objectives

Each activity in an OLI Torus project should be tagged with a learning objective. For more information on creating, organizing, and mapping learning objectives, see Objectives.

Editing Question and Answers

Entering Question Prompts

The Single Response “Question” tab is where the student-facing questions and answers are posted. The “Question” box is where the question prompt is entered, and will render as the question in the activity.

Configuring the Answer

Grading Approach

A drop-down menu allows for the question to be automatically graded or manually graded by the instructor. Automatically graded activities are recorded into the gradebook based on answers corrected as interpreted by the parameters set in Torus. Activities manually graded by the instructor will not receive an automatic push into the gradebook.

Selecting the Grading Criteria

Torus allows for the selection of inclusion or exclusion criteria for text-based single response questions. Using the drop down menu, select one of the following grading criteria:
  1. Equals exactly
  2. Equals ignoring case
  3. Contains
  4. Doesn’t Contain
  5. Regex

Configuring Key Words for Grading

Short text and paragraph single response activities trigger feedback based on matching the text input by students with text in the answer key based on the grading criteria selected by the author. When authoring a text-based single response activity, authors should consider what key words or phrases students may most likely use to answer the question.
Example: Students were asked to watch a ten minute video about the philosopher John Locke. The short text input question asks “What were the fundamental rights John Locke believed were ‘inalienable’? (use commas)”. The answer, using the criteria “Contains”, can be “Life, Liberty, Property”. Students must enter “Life, Liberty, Property” to be correct. Students who answer “life, liberty, and property” would also be given “correct” as feedback.
Note: Text-based input questions are best for manual grading in graded assessment pages. Automatic grading is better when using them in formative assessments (ungraded pages) given that typos, variations in punctuation, misspellings, can cost a student a correct answer. Instructors manually grading responses can grade these errors at their own discretion.

Customizing Feedback

OLI Torus automatically provides “Correct” text for ‘correct’ answer options, and “Incorrect” text for ‘incorrect’ answer options. To change either, type or copy-and-paste new text into each respective box.

Targeted MCQ Feedback

OLI Torus allows for Targeted Feedback. Targeted Feedback is used to provide detailed feedback for a particular answer choice. The option to add Targeted Feedback is visible under the “Feedback for incorrect answers” box.

Targeted feedback for text-based single responses mimic the same configuration as the answer.  If there is an incorrect answer students may frequently arrive at due to a common error, targeted feedback can help to explain the error in process to the student.

Targeted feedback is always optional.

Key Takeaways / Summary

To Summarize:
  1. To add a Text-Based Single Response, prompt the “Question / Content Types” menu and select “Input”.
  2. The question input box is where the question prompt is hosted.
  3. Make sure to select the appropriate “Input” question types.
  4. Answer choices are input under the “Question” tab, and configured under the “Answer Key” tab.
  5. Feedback can be customized.
  6. Targeted Feedback provides individualized feedback for each answer choice.

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