Storyline 3: Text-Entry Questions

Use Storyline 3's freeform text-entry question to create your own fill-in-the-blank assessments.

Tip: You can add multiple text-entry fields to a single slide, but only one can be evaluated in an assessment. If you need to evaluate more than one text-entry field on the same slide, consider this method instead.

1. Insert a Freeform Text-Entry Question
2. Define Acceptable Answers
3. Choose How the Question Will Be Submitted
4. Customize the Question Properties

Step 1: Insert a Freeform Text-Entry Question

There are two ways to create a text-entry question. If you've already added a data-entry field to an existing slide, you can convert it to a freeform question. If you'd prefer to start from scratch, do this:

1. First, do any of the following:
   • Go to the Home tab on the ribbon, click New Slide, and choose Freeform Question.
   • Go to the Slides tab on the ribbon and click Freeform Question.
   • In Story View, right-click anywhere in the workspace, scroll to New Slide, and choose Freeform Question.
   • In Slide View or Form View, right-click anywhere in the Scenes panel, scroll to New Slide, and choose Freeform Question.
2. When the Insert Slide window appears, select the Text Entry question type and click Insert Slide to add it to your project.
3. A new text-entry question will open in Slide View and a text-entry field will automatically be added for you. Switch to Form View and proceed to the next step to define acceptable answers.

Step 2: Define Acceptable Answers

By default, text-entry questions are graded assessments. To define acceptable answers, switch to Form View and type the answers in the answer grid. If the answers are case-sensitive, mark the Answers are case sensitive box above the grid.

If your question doesn't have correct and incorrect responses (i.e., it's a survey question), go to the Question tab on the ribbon and select None from the Score drop-down to make it ungraded. (The answer grid will disappear.)

Tip: If you convert an existing slide with data-entry fields into a freeform text-entry question, use the Field to evaluate drop-down to identify the field you want to evaluate. Only one field per slide can be evaluated.

Step 3: Choose How the Question Will Be Submitted

Learners can click the built-in Submit button on your course player to submit their text-entry responses for evaluation. However, if you're not using the built-in Submit button or you want to provide another way to submit responses, do one or both of the following:

Use your own custom submit button

If you've added your own custom button or hotspot to the slide that you'd like to use as the submission method, select it from the Submit Button drop-down.

Assign submit keys

You can assign a keystroke or combination of keystrokes to submit the learner's answer for evaluation. Just click in the Submit Keys field and press the key or combination of keys you want to use. If you change your mind, you can either press the correct key(s), which will update the Submit Keys field, or click the X button to clear the field altogether. Tip: The Enter key always submits a text-entry field for evaluation, so you don't need to define it here.

Step 4: Customize the Question Properties

After creating a freeform text-entry question, you can customize several of its attributes, including feedback, branching, score, number of attempts, and whether learners are required to answer it or allowed to skip it. To learn how, see Working with the Question Editor.

Can I Convert a Freeform Question into a Non-Question Slide?

Yes. It's easy. Just go to the Insert tab on the Storyline ribbon and click Remove Freeform.

When you remove freeform functionality from a question, it becomes a standard content slide. Text and other objects remain intact. Only question-related properties, such as score and feedback, are removed.