Problem:
The text boxes for editing assignment descriptions in Populi are too small to be usable if the assignments have instructions longer than a few lines. This is problematic for major assignments in a course.
Documentation:
Note the following attached screenshots:
1) The first one shows how *extremely* short the text box is when you don't type into it. This is entirely unusable if the assignment description is longer than about a sentence. I have to type into it first to make it at all usable.
2) The second one shows that even when it expands, it is only 10 lines long, and not very wide. Thus, it covers only about half the text from a substantial description. We have at least 6 assignments per course that have descriptions of this length, and we have over 30 courses.
Right now, we are actually having to edit the assignment descriptions in a text editor and paste them back into Populi because it's the only way I can see the whole thing at a glance to edit.
Suggested Resolution:
Ideally, I would like to see the assignment description be editable inline, like they are for Discussion posts, or in the Design mode. But if that is not workable,
Problem:
The text boxes for editing assignment descriptions in Populi are too small to be usable if the assignments have instructions longer than a few lines. This is problematic for major assignments in a course.
I reported this earlier, but I had to close the issue because I didn't have full documentation of why this is an issue for us.
Documentation:
Note the following attached screenshots:
1) The first one shows how *extremely* short the text box is when you don't type into it. This is entirely unusable if the assignment description is longer than about a sentence. I have to type into it first to make it at all usable.
2) The second one shows that even when it expands, it is only 10 lines long, and not very wide. Thus, it covers only about half the text from a substantial description. We have at least 6 assignments per course that have descriptions of this length, and we have over 30 courses.
Right now, we are actually having to edit the assignment descriptions in a text editor and paste them back into Populi because it's the only way I can see the whole thing at a glance to edit.
Suggested Resolution:
Ideally, I would like to see the assignment description be editable inline, like they are for Discussion posts, or in the Design mode. But if that is not workable, it would be preferable for the text box to always be at least 10 lines long, at least.
Note:
When we initially reported this in the Support system, it was stated that most schools are likely using copy and paste to add this information.
However, I think that probably reflects a limitation in your system, not that the current set up is ideal.
Making the textbox a long textbox by default would be a fairly minimal chance.
Also, it's worth noting that when we used Moodle for our LMS, we were able to have a full rich-text editor for all our Assignments, and I believe Canvas likely is similar. So having better Assignment editing capabilities would bring Populi more in line with other LMS's, especially as more schools are moving online.
