Information

The Information element is the all-purpose text block in Theta. Use it to present anything you'd write in prose to a learner: a patient's case history, instructions for the lesson, background context, or a written prompt you want them to answer. It can be display-only (the learner reads it and moves on) or it can collect a written response (the learner gets an editable answer box).

It replaces what used to be separate "case history" and "impressions" elements — one element now covers both, plus anything else you'd express as rich text.

Design

You author an Information element from the lesson designer. There are four fields, and only one of them is strictly required.

You must fill in at least a Title or a Description — the Save Changes button stays disabled until one of them has content.

Authoring rich text

The Description field is a rich-text editor (built on Lexical). A small toolbar above the writing area gives you:

• Bold, Italic, and Underline text formatting
• Bulleted lists and numbered lists

That's the full set — there are no headings, links, colors, or images inside the description. The formatting is intentionally minimal so the text stays clean and readable in the lesson and on the report. Use the Title field for your heading rather than trying to style one inside the description.

Whether to collect a response

The Collect a written response from the learner checkbox decides whether this is a one-way or two-way element:

• On (default) — the learner reads your description and is given an editable writing area to type their answer. Use this for prompts, questions, or "record your impressions" steps.
• Off — the element is display-only. The learner sees the title and description but no writing area appears. Use this for instructions, context, or any text you just want them to read.

Whether it belongs on the report

Include this block in the report is on by default, which is right for case history, prompts, and anything the reader of a report needs for context.

Turn it off for pure wayfinding text — "Read the referral below, then click Next" — that would otherwise clutter every learner's review as noise. The block still shows during the lesson exactly as before; it just doesn't reach either post-assessment surface — the on-screen results or the PDF. Its Instructor Feedback is held back with it.

Reference answer and feedback

The Instructor Feedback field is where you put the model answer, the expected impressions, or teaching points. It is not shown to the learner while they're working — it only surfaces on their report after submission, so it acts as immediate post-assessment feedback without giving the answer away during the lesson.

Template vs. fixed

The Information element holds plain authored text — there are no per-submission generated values, so it behaves the same whether the lesson is a template or fixed. The title, description, and feedback you write are presented to every learner exactly as authored. (Generated, category-driven values apply to the clinical simulation elements like audiometry and tympanometry, not to text.)

Settings

Everything configurable lives on the design form above — the Information element has no separate settings panel. To summarize the options the element exposes:

Both checkboxes also have an organization-wide default. If your organization's settings preset turns one off, every new Information element starts that way — you can still flip it per element.

Testing

This is what a learner encounters when they reach an Information element in a submission.

They see a card with the title at the top (or just "Information" if you left the title blank) followed by your description, rendered with its formatting and lists intact.

What happens next depends on the response setting:

• Response collection on — below the description, an editable writing area appears with the same toolbar you had in the designer (bold, italic, underline, bulleted and numbered lists). The learner types their answer there. Their text saves automatically a moment after they stop typing, and immediately whenever they click away — including on Back, Next and Submit.
• Response collection off — there's nothing to fill in. The learner simply reads the content and moves on to the next element.

The Instructor Feedback never appears here — it's held back until the report.

Scoring

The Information element is not automatically scored. There is no scoring configuration for it, no correct-answer comparison, and it contributes zero points to the submission score. Free-text responses can't be graded automatically, so Theta doesn't try to.

Instead, the element is report-only: whatever the learner writes is captured and surfaced for manual review — which is exactly what the scoring summary labels it. In that summary and on the report you see the provided information, the learner's response, and your Instructor Feedback together, so an instructor can read the answer and judge it themselves.

Report

Provided Include this block in the report is on, the Information element shows:

The same three parts appear on the on-screen scoring summary, so a learner sees your feedback as soon as they open their results — they don't have to download the PDF for it.

This gives the reader the full picture in one place: the prompt or information you provided, what the learner wrote back, and your feedback or model answer for comparison — all without affecting the numeric score.