Authors can set up automarked tasks to allow for broader options in automarking. For instance, we might want to make sure learners are marked correct whether they put 8 or eight in a cloze task.
What Match all possible responses means
When you're creating a fill in the blanks task or image drop down, you'll see a tick box option Match all possible responses.
Sometimes with fill in the blanks tasks you'll want to allow for variations or alternate answers. And, in a nutshell, Match all possible responses means that when auto-marking a learners response, it'll look across your Correct response and all other Alternative correct responses.
So, if you have two blanks in your task and have A and B under Correct, and C and D under Alternate 1.
When you choose Match all possible responses learners will be marked correct for any of these responses:
A B
C D
A D
C B
The system mixes and matches from the range of correct responses you've got for each item.
Let's take a look at some examples you might use.
Example 1: Marked correct for 8 and eight
In the example above about the number of planets orbiting our star, we might want to mark learners correct if they put the number 8 instead of the word eight.
So, if for our question, there is more than one correct answer so we would use the + next to Correct to add an Alternate 1. Fill in the alternative correct response (8) and select Match all possible responses.
Example 2: Asking for a list of three
In the example below we are asking for the three main types of pathogenic micro-organisms and we don't mind which order learners add in their answers.
Although you would think this is an example to use Match all possible responses and put a different order for each alternate, it actually means learners can be marked correct for writing the same answer three times - not what we want! This is because when the task has Match all possible responses selected, it means learners can be marked correct if what they've put in the response box appears across any of the alternates.
So, to avoid the situation above, you'll need to make sure Match all possible responses isn't selected, but this increase the number of alternates.
bacteria, protozoan cysts, viruses
viruses, protozoan cysts, bacteria
viruses, bacteria, protozoan cysts
protozoan cysts, viruses, bacteria
protozoan cysts, bacteria, viruses
Note: In this example we have three responses. For n responses, you need n! (n factorial) alternates.
This method becomes unwieldy even when n=4, 4! = 4*3*2*1 = 24 alternates! So with larger numbers of clozes where order isn't important you might want to consider:
Specifying an order (e.g. give your answer in alphabetical order)
Giving the first letter for each cloze (e.g. v_____, b_____, p______)
Separating the clozes into separate tasks.