The Choice activity can be useful as a quick survey of your class, for example to poll students on which readings they want to discuss further in class. It can also be used as a "sign up sheet" by limiting the number of students who are allowed to select each option.
On This Page:
Create a Choice Question
Configure Additional Settings (optional)
View Choice Responses
A Choice activity allows you to present a single question to students with multiple responses as possible answers. Each student can then pick one of the given choices. Choice activities are intended for gathering information only and are not gradable.
Note: To survey your students with multiple questions, or to create a single question survey that can be graded, use the Questionnaire activity. See Add a Questionnaire Activity in Nexus.
Create a Choice Question
- Turn editing on.
Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner. In the drop down menu, choose [Turn editing on].
- Locate the section where you'd like to add the the questionnaire.
- In the Activity Chooser that comes up, select [Choice] and then click the red [Add] button at the bottom.
- On the Adding a new Choice page, in the Choice name field, enter a name for the activity (required).
- In the Description field, enter the question that you want students to answer.
- Under the Options heading, choose how the activity will behave:
- Allow choice to be updated: Allows students to change their choice after they submit a response. (The default is No, meaning that once a student saves their response they cannot change it.)
- Allow more than one choice to be selected: Allows students to select more than one answer
- Limit the number of responses allowed: Limit the number of students who can pick a particular choice. (Use this setting to setup a "sign up sheet" e.g., for group projects, presentation topics or lab sessions. Note: When this option is selected, the Limit field becomes editable under each response option, allowing you to enter the number of students who can choose each response.
- In the Option fields (Option 1, Option 2, etc.), enter the text for each choice. To add additional choice options, click [Add 3 field(s) to form].
- If you enabled a Limit (above), specify how many users may choose each response option in the Limit field below each Option.
- Scroll to the bottom and click [Save and return to course] to return to the main course page,
or [Save and display] to view the activity.
Configure Additional Settings (optional)
There are several additional settings you may choose to configure.
- To set start and end dates for when students can submit to the activity, under the Availability heading, select Restrict answering to this time period.
Note: These dates are not automatically added to the course Calendar.
- To show results to students, under the Results heading, from the Publish results drop-down menu, choose between:
- Do not publish results to students: (default)
- Show results to students after they answer: Allows a student to see results only after they answer the question first.
- Show results to students only after the choice is closed: Allows students to see results only after the closing date/time specified under Restrict answering to this time period.
- Always show results to students: Allows students to see results even if they have not answered the question yet.
- Note: instructors see student names even if Privacy of results is set to anonymous. Choose between:
- To limit which results students see when results are published (above), from the Privacy of results drop-down menu, choose between:
- Publish anonymous results, do not show student names
- Publish full results, showing names and their choice.
- To display a column in the results view showing who has not yet submitted, for Show column for unanswered, select Yes.
- To include responses from students who are no longer enrolled in your course, for Include responses from inactive/suspended users, select Yes.
Click [Save and return to course] or [Save and display].
View Choice Responses
- On your course page, click the Choice activity name to open it.
The Choice page will open showing the question you provided when you set up the activity, and a list of the specified allowed choices
- Click the [View # Responses] link in the upper right, just underneath the gear icon (# is however many respponses you have, in this case just one.)
The Response Page will open showing the answer choices, the number of students who picked each one and, under each answer, a list of the names of the students who picked that answer.
- On the Responses page (optional):
- Delete a course member's response
Select the checkbox to the left of a course member's name. Then, under With selected, from the Choose an action... drop-down menu, select Delete.
- Download submitted responses
Click one of the Download in ... format buttons. You can download the responses in Excel, text, or ODS (OpenDocument Spreadsheet) formats.
If you are having difficulty or you have unanswered questions, please contact the Help Desk through the ITS Service Catalog or call (518) 388-6400.
Information attributed to UMass Amherst