Just noticed this "notice" in Moodle 2.1 and more recent versions.
Scenario:
- "Adaptative mode"
- Question type: MCQ, short answer, Cloze, Match, etc
When a student Checks an "empty" or "incomplete" answer they get this error notice/warning:
The submission was invalid, and has been disregarded without penalty.
That notice is not displayed in "Interactive with multiple tries" mode.
Now, I think that that notice is (a) not well-suited to all cases, (b) and even not very useful. I think that "invalid" belongs to the language of computing, not pedagogy.
1.- For what I would call "single input" question types (MCQ, SHORT ANSWER, MATCH, numeric types?), a better formulation would be something like:
Your submission was empty, and has been disregarded without penalty. (or... simply nothing)
2.- For "multiple input" question types (Cloze, Drag and Drop (and some other of the new OU questions), a better formulation would be something like:
Your submission was incomplete, and has been disregarded without penalty. (or... simply nothing).
The reason I think that that notice is not useful anyway - and could well be done without - is that there is already a perfectly suited notice being displayed, telling the student, according to the question type, that their answer is incomplete:
- match: Please answer all parts of the question.
- short answer: Please enter an answer.
- MCQ: Please select an answer.
However, the Cloze question type does not have (as it should) an "Incomplete answer" notice. Or it could use the match question string "Please answer all parts of the question."
Joseph