This article covers the plotting task type.
For a general overview of tasks and what they can do, see An introduction to tasks and for general instructions on how to add them to your course, see How to add a task to your course.
Overview of the plotting task
In the plotting task, learners can add points, lines, and shapes on a coordinate grid. If you want to automark the task, you can specify what points, lines, or shapes you expect where. Or, you can leave it completely open.
See the variety of graph plotting tools below:
Point | Line | Ray |
Segment | Vector | Circle |
Parabola | Sine | Polygons |
When to use a plotting task
The plotting task is useful for labelling images where you want points, lines or shapes rather than labels. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
Example 1: Labelling a sine wave
In this example we used the option to add a background graph for learners to draw on to ask learners to label parts of a sine graph of a wavelength.
Example 2: Marking up a background image
In this next example learners need to mark up a background image to show how they would solve the problem.
Example 3: Quadrant labelling
The Plotting task can also be used to quickly set up a quadrant style task as you’ll see in the example below.
Example 4: Learners draw their own graphs
In this last example, we’ve only included the grid so learners can make their own graphs!
How to create a plotting task
All tasks load with an example task to give an idea of what each field is for. To add your own task details, you can type over the existing content in the fields or select Clear task content, to start completely fresh.
Standard fields
This task has the standard fields/options that all tasks have.
At the top:
Question: Where you set the main question/task which tells learners what to answer or do.
And at the bottom:
Hint: Add a hint to give pointers or clues to give learners extra guidance to complete the task. Learners can choose to See hint so it allows them to get this help “on demand”.
Feedback: Add feedback to give learners an automated response when they submit the task. See Writing feedback for tasks for pointers and ideas.
In between the top and bottom standard fields we have the following areas and fields.
How to set the graph parameters
Under Graph parameters, you can set the graph learners will draw on using X/Y min/max.
How to set the buttons and plotting tools
Then you can define plotting tools available to learners. In the Tools section you can add various buttons or even groups of buttons to the toolbar and create the toolbar specified for your question.
Add button: Adds a single button to the toolbar (in image below: move, point, line).
Add group: Adds a group of tools into one drop down menu in the toolbar (in image below: segment)
To remove a button, use the trash can icon beside it. Alternatively, you can replace the unwanted tool by selecting a new tool from the dropdown.
Default tool defines a plotting tool that will be enabled when the question is loaded.
Further graph options
Under Layout, you will see these further options for the graph and drawing.
Width/height (px): Sets the width/height of the graph.
Margin (px): Adds a margin around the graph. You might choose to add this for white space or to add space for any left/right/top/bottom labels you have included in Annotation.
Snap to: Defines how point will snapped to the nearest intersect on the graph. Possible values are: "grid", "ticks" or a numeric value, with "grid" being the default. These attributes should be entered manually.
Grid Snaps points to the nearest intersection of grid lines.
Tick: Snaps points to the nearest intersection between axis tick marks. For example, if ticks distance is 2 then a point can only be plotted on the graph at (0,2),(0,4),(-2,0), (2,2) (-2,-4) etc.
A numeric value restricts points to be plotted uniformly at positions potentially different than the intersection of gridlines or tick marks. For example, if Snap to is set to 4, a point will snap to the intersection of every 4 cells on X and Y axis: (0,0), (0,4), (4,-4), (4,0), (16,4) etc.
If no value is set then the points will not snap to any intersection point. This is not advised for auto-scoring as it is difficult for the learner to select the same exact point as the author.
X/Y distance: Sets the grid lines for each axis
Tick distance: Defines the distance of each tick on the graph for each axis.
Hide ticks: Defines whether or not to render ticks of each point on the X and Y axis of the graph.
Draw Labels: Shows the numbers under each tick on the X and Y Axis.
Show min/max arrow: Displays an arrow at the start/end of the axis.
Comma in label: Insert commas to separate thousands in a label.
Show axis label: Enables a label next to the axis. When turned on the label can be defined in the field below.
In the Annotation section you can add more information to your graph by adding the graph title and/or labels on the top, bottom, left, or right.
How to set the correct answer(s)
Now you can use the tools to define the correct points, lines, or shapes to allow the task to be automarked.
If there are other correct answers, use the + to add alternative answers.
As seen in the examples, you can also choose to not set a correct answer. In which case, the task will not be automarked and the task will be allocated the complete/incomplete with feedback marking template to allow facilitators to manually mark the task (if desired).
How to add a background shape or image
You can also set a background image or add background shapes that learners can plot on top of.
When you upload an image the following options can be specified:
X - Position on the X Axis for image centre. 0 = image centre.
Y - Position on the Y Axis for image centre. 0 = image centre.
Width (%): Width of Image as a % of the canvas.
Height (%): Height of Image as a % of the canvas.
Opacity (%): % of image transparency.
You can also add background shapes onto the image background using any of our drawing tools.
Note: Learners cannot interact with any of the background shapes.
Other options
You can also specify additional options:
Ignore repeated shapes: Allows learners to be marked correct if they have drawn the same point/line/shape on top of one another.
Display hover on position: Displays the coordinates of a point to be when a learner hovers over a point or drags it on the grid.
Font size: Controls the size of the font for this question. Options are: "small"(11px), "normal"(14px), "large"(17px), "extra large"(20px) and "huge"(24px).
Plotting accessibility
People using only a keyboard and/or using a screen reader can interact with our plotting tasks.
Keyboard navigation
People using only a keyboard can tab to the menu and navigate the menu items using arrow keys. Options in the menu can be selected with either Spacebar or Enter.
Tab will take them to the graph plane where they can navigate the grid using arrow keys. Points can be plotted with Spacebar or Enter. Pressing Shift-Tab will take the learner back to the menu to select further options.
Note: at this stage, the label tool is unavailable for keyboard-only users.
Screen reader navigation
People using screen readers can use the same keyboard navigation described above.
When navigating to the graph, the screen reader will describe the content of the graph including the axis values and any background shapes.
When navigating to the menu, the screen reader notifies people of the keyboard controls to interact with the menu. All menu options are announced as they arrow through the options.
When tabbing to the graph plane, the screen reader notifies people of the keyboard controls to interact with the graph plane. As they navigate around the graph the coordinate locations are announced and as they plot points they are notified of the plotted point and its coordinate.
When people press Shift-Tab to go back to the beginning of the graph, they are notified of all points or shapes plotted.