This question type allows students to drop markers onto an area on a background image. Drag and drop markers questions differ from Drag and drop onto image question type in that there are no predefined areas on the underlying image that are visible to the student.
- Give the question a descriptive name to help you find it in the question bank. (Students won't see the name.) In our example, students must correctly locate regions of Australia.
- Add the question description or any special instructions to the text editor, using any formatting you wish.
- In the Preview section, click the background image button to upload an image. Larger images will be displayed at a maximum 600 x 400. Your image will then display under the file upload box. Note that grid lines are visible:
- In the Markers section, add the words you want the students to drag onto the areas you select.
- In the 'Number' dropdown, you can select the number of times the marker can be used. Selecting 1 means that when it has been used once, it will no longer be available in the list. It is fine to leave the numbers as the default 'Unlimited'; it just means that each marker will still remain once it has been used.
- In the Dropzones section, decide the shape you want the selectable areas to be: circle, polygon or rectangle. Our example uses a rectangle. In each 'Marker' dropdown, choose the item you want for that area.
- You will now see by your uploaded image that these names are displayed:
- Now you need manually to add the coordinates of the areas into which you want students to position the marker. Each box is ten pixels so three boxes = 300. Click the question mark icon next to Drop zone 1 to see how to add these for your chosen shape.
- Our example uses a rectangle. We need to define four numbers:
- the top left corner of our selected area, by counting the boxes in from the left... and down from the top.
- the width of our selected area, by counting the boxes across.
- the height of our selected area, by counting the boxes up.
- The numbers are separated by commas, with a semicolon separating the corner coordinates from the size, e.g. 10,30;170,250
- The image updates immediately so you can check your accuracy and adapt the coordinates. The above coordinates preview as below:
- Generally, you should make the drop zones a little bit too big. It is better to occasionally grade an incorrect response right, than to ever grade a correct response as incorrect. Once all co-ordinates have been manually entered, you can save the changes and preview the question.
Note: When dragging a marker, students must position the little circle top left of the marker in the centre of the area they have selected, not the whole marker, as this might cause confusion and an unexpected incorrect answer.
Points for this question type: All drop zones are weighted identically. Only drop zones that are correctly labeled gain marks. There is no negative marking of drop zones that are incorrectly labeled.
If more markers are placed on the image than there are drop-zones a penalty is applied for the extra markers.