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Long Answer Widget

2 min readUpdated

A box where students write a longer response. Not available yet.

Long answer widget (not available yet)

Long answer gives learners a text box for a longer written response — an explanation, a justification, a reflection. It is still being built:

  • It isn't graded. Berdee doesn't score long answer responses, with AI or any other way. The attempt page marks it Not graded.
  • You read responses one learner at a time. Open a learner's attempt and the Answer column shows what they wrote (see Student Experience and Attempts). There's no screen yet that lists every learner's response to one question side by side.

To check a short typed answer against answers you list, use text input instead.

Setting it up

Not available yet. Long answer isn't in the studio's widget list right now: we're holding it back until there's a screen where you can read every learner's response to a question side by side. A lesson that already has one keeps working, and the steps below apply to it — see When a widget is greyed out.

Select the long answer on the canvas and click the floating ⚙ Configure button to open its setup dialog. A note at the top of the dialog repeats what this page says. See Configuring a Long Answer for the full walkthrough.

On the canvas the widget previews what learners get — your prompt, the response box, the character counter, and the Submit button — so you can size the frame with the whole stack in view.

  • Prompt is the question the learner answers.
  • Max characters caps the answer length. Default is 2000; the maximum is 5000.
  • Placeholder is the hint shown inside the empty box, such as "Type your response…".
  • Max attempts is how many times a learner can submit. Default is 1; you can allow up to 5.

The dialog also has Model answer, Key ideas, AI Model, Show reasoning, and a rubric. Those are for AI grading, which isn't turned on. Berdee saves what you enter but doesn't use it.

Turn Scoring off

Scoring is on by default, like every question widget. For long answer, turn it off in the Configure dialog. Its Points never reach a score either way — a long answer counts 0 of 0 whether the learner writes an answer or leaves it empty — but while Scoring is on, the widget is never a _correct_ answer, so a scene rule that needs every answer right can't be met while it's there.

What learners see

  • Your prompt, and a text box with a live character counter. Typing stops at your character limit.
  • A Submit button, which works once they've typed something. Ctrl+Enter (or ⌘+Enter on a Mac) submits too.
  • After submitting: "Your answer was submitted." No score and no feedback.

If you allowed more than one attempt, learners can edit their answer and submit again until they reach the limit. After the last attempt the box can't be edited.

Privacy

Learners' long answer responses are stored with their attempt in Berdee. They are not sent to any AI service. See AI Grading.

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