The Short Text Question requires learners to respond to Questions that have short, definite answers, for example, 1-2 words, or a number.

Figure 1: Short text Question example.

Create a Question

Enter a Question stem in the Compose question area.

Follow these steps in order to configure Question validation:

• Insert a value in the Point(s) box to set up a mark for the Question.
• In the Allow drop-down menu, select either Exact match or Any text containing.
  •  
    • If Exact match is selected, what the learner enters as a response must exactly match the response set in validation.
    • If Any text containing is selected, once the learner enters the text included in the validation it will be marked as correct. Any other text added to the learner response is ignored.
      NOTE: a comma-space and period-space are also ignored to ensure the response is scored correct if at a pause in or at the end of a sentence. All other punctuation or special characters included in the validation are required to be entered by the learner to score a correct result.
• In the Value field, enter the correct response in the empty box as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Validation using the 'Any text containing' option.

Figure 3: Question using 'Any text containing' option.

• If there is more than one response that can be considered as correct click on the + tab in order to add an alternative correct response. In the new tab enter the response in the empty field. You can also set a specific score for the alternate responses which can be different from the initial correct response.

More options

Scoring

Under the More options button, in Scoring section, you can change formatting settings and apply different styles to your Question.

• Penalty point(s) - The value entered here indicates marks that will be deducted from the learner for an incorrect response.
• Check answer button - If this is enabled, a "Check answer button" will appear to the learner alongside the Question; clicking this button will indicate to the learner if their answer is correct or incorrect, but it will not tell them the correct response. This can be useful for informal assessment.
• Check answer attempts - The value entered here will indicate how many times the learner can use the "Check answer button". A value of 0 indicates an infinite number of times.
• Minimum points if attempted¹ - Points awarded to the learner for attempting the Question, regardless of a correct or incorrect response.

The Scoring section provides additional settings regarding validation:

• Enable Case Sensitive if you want the responses to be validated considering the letters’ case.
• Select Ignore leading and trailing spaces if you want responses that have additional spaces at the beginning or end of the response to marked as correct.
• You can specify the number of characters to be entered in the response box by entering a value in the Character limit field. The maximum value is 250 characters.
• From v2023.3.LTS and onward, you have the option to Enable full or half-width character scoring. For languages such as Japanese, where full-width and half-width characters are used, enabling this option validates responses with either type of character width. For example, in this Question: What do we call ‘犬’ in English? And you have set ‘Ｄｏｇ’ (full-width) as the correct answer, if the learner enters ‘Ｄｏｇ’ (full-width) or ‘Dog’ (half-width) these will both be marked as correct responses when this option is enabled.
• From v2025.2.LTS and onward, you have the option to Ignore accents when scoring. For words that have accents, enabling this option will ignore any missing or misplaced accents when validating against the correct response. For example, if the correct response is “café” and a learner enters “cafe” or “cáfe”, they will be marked correct when the option is enabled.
  An additional setting, Accent penalty point(s), to award partial points is also available when the “Ignore accents when scoring” checkbox is checked. When the checkbox is checked and there are no accent penalty points, full credit will be awarded regardless of incorrect or missing accents. When the checkbox is checked and there are accent penalty points, partial credit (determined by the Accent penalty point(s) value) will be awarded for incorrect or missing accents.

Layout

The Layout section allows you to add additional styling to the Question:

• Spellcheck and text correction: Check this box to turn on spellcheck in the text entry area. When this box is unchecked, browser spellcheck will be disabled, along with auto-correct, auto-complete, and auto-capitalize on iOS devices. Note: This is a browser feature and may not always be available or supported.
• Input Type menu: defines which keyboard will be displayed by default to the learners using tablet devices. Options are Text or Number.
• You can also add a Placeholder in the text input area. It will disappear when the learner starts typing text in.

Enabling Special Characters allows authors to add non-typical letters and symbols in language e.g. ó, ç, ñ or Math and Science e.g. μ, ∞ ,≤, and make them available for the learners. If left blank a default set of characters will display, as shown below. To create a custom Special Characters menu, enter the specific characters into the Characters to display input field.

Figure 4: Default Special Character map.

'Extra' options

The extras section in the authoring interface allows you to add more information about the Question, information that we refer to as metadata.

There are a number of fields available: acknowledgements, contains math, distractor rationale, distractors, instructor stimulus, rubric reference, sample answer, and stimulus (review only).

To learn more about the options shown in the Extras section, see Understanding the Extras Section of the Question Editor.

1. Note: “Minimum points if attempted” replaces the earlier label “Minimum score if attempted”. Version added: v2026.1.LTS