Moodle

It is a not a bug but a limit of the cloze implementation.
The regular multichoice question type allows either single or multianswer ( a,b,c, d etc.) and the elements related to a,b,c,d, can be shuffled.
The actual multichoice implementation in multianswer question type allows only a single answer as for other question types implemented in the multianswer. So there is just one question and the choices are not shuffled.
Is there any real usefullness to the choices ordering given that in the single answer the choices are displayed in a select HTML element. The risk that the students could see easily on the computer screen of another student its answer is not very great.

If there is a major revision of the cloze type, so that it conforms to the HTML(XML and ...) standards, this should be considered .
I let Tim give you the final decision on this.

Yes, this should be implemented, but I am unlikely to have the time. Patches welcome.

Pierre, this looks like your area of expertise. Reassigning.

The actual default is that there is no shuffle.
If we don't want to disturb actual questions we will need to create other multiple choice question types.
So

1. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE or MC), represented as a dropdown menu in-line in the text
2. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_S or MCS), represented as a dropdown menu in-line in the text with shuffle

1. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_V or MCV), represented a vertical column of radio buttons, or
2. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_V_S or MCVS), represented a vertical column of radio buttons,with shuffle

1. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_H or MCH), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons.
2. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_H_S or MCHS), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons.with shuffle

This can be done...

Yes, but it is a bit of an ugly solution...

Hmm. I wonder if people who have turned on shuffle answers in the quiz would object if it suddenly started working for Cloze questions. If there would be no objections, we could just fix this without introducing new subquestion types. Perhaps one to discuss in the forums. Still, I don't think this is high priority anyway.

I can second Tim. My -1 against adding new question types. Those who expect answers not to be shuffled can always switch shuffle off in the quiz settings. This issue could be considered a bug, not an improvement because (as stated in the issue description), expected behaviour is to have answeres shuffled. So I am not worry about disturbing users in this case.

I have many quizzes in which both types of questions - questions in which shuffle works and cloze questions in which shuffle does now work - are present. Keeping the non shuffling in cloze options, specific things have been done. For example:

Which of the following is correct?

a) 2+2 = 5
b) 5*2 = 8
c) 5*0 = 0
d) 9/3 = 2

If the general remark says, the correct answer is (c) and if options are shuffled then one can imagine what would happen. This type of feedback containing (a),(b),(c)..... has not been provided where shuffling works.

Quiz is a testing tool and it is important that it gives correct feedback to the test taker.

Shuffling should be there in cloze but there should be an option to turn it on/off if desired for smooth transition.

However you can have in the same quiz a Cloze question which you want to be shuffled and another one that should not be shuffled like an horizontal displaying true, false, don't know .
like http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=96799.

Well, in that case I would like common question settings (ie. available for all question types) "Do not shuffle". When this is checked, the question (regardless it is Cloze, Multichoice or True/False) will never be shuffled, even the quiz settings says so.

Actually
"Shuffle answers

If you set this option to "Yes", then the order of the answers is randomly shuffled each time a student starts an attempt at a quiz containing this question - provided that "Shuffle within questions" in the Quiz settings is set to "Yes".

The intention is simply to make it a little harder for students to copy from each other."

As this is a specific setting for multichoice, the Cloze version of multichoice should have the same setting.
Actually Cloze multichoice defaults to not shuffle, this should stay as it is and for those who want shuffle, they will just name their multichoice as

1. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_S or MCS), represented as a dropdown menu in-line in the text with shuffle

1. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_V_S or MCVS), represented a vertical column of radio buttons,with shuffle

1. multiple choice (MULTICHOICE_H_S or MCHS), represented as a horizontal row of radio-buttons.with shuffle

The rule is to be upward compatible as much as possible, this is why the new options like vertical, horizontal or usecase with shortanswer where added using extension to the question types.
Then there is no possible conflict with the thousand, hundred of thousands already built Cloze questions.
Moodle statistics show more than 25 millions questions worlwide...

As for the forum a search using the keywords Cloze and shuflle give around 10 references one (Rézeau) giving the info that

"Just to add that in Moodle 1.6 a new setting has been added to the Multiple Choice question type: Shuffle answers: Yes/No. (september 2006)"

Some are just about the differences on import.
But apart from this issue there is no request to add shuffle.

I think we could wait or deferred...

I concur. We can just leave this for now. Plenty more bugs out there.

please add shuffle

teachers i work with, are always surprised to see it not working

This should be done in the new question-engine developped for 2,0 see

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=134156