Hi All,

I'd like to know what you think. Please try this block out and add your comments.

Michael;

Hi Michael,

I am glad to see this great block. But it happens nothing when I put it to Blocks directory. Can you tell me something I do wrong?

Michael,

This is very cool and I appreciate the video. That always helps tremendously and should be required going forward when and where possible for downloads and plugins.

Have you thought about adding SCORM activity in the configuration?

Congrats Michael! I really like the block adn believe it goods feedback to enthuse students with some good energy. Two questions: 1) How to translate the name of the activities and the resources? Now it seems it takes the English as default although I have Swedish as language. Other terms and phrases I have translated in the edi strings function. 2) What activities and resources is the bar confined to so far? // Jonas

Translation again (see previous comment): the date seems to take the English as default. Would be good if both the name of the activity/resource and date, follows the language one has chosen in Moodle.

Michael
I have been chasing around for a progress bar for two years, I teach students of 11-16 years and they respond to feedback very strongly, especially something like this, which has overtones of on-line games to it. I had it in use within one day of you posting it. Really great! I am publicizing it among my contacts, for secondary schools this is really useful.
Like everyone faced with a fairy grandperson I am going to push my luck - If a student has not posted an assignment red, if they have green, but what about they have posted it and received feedback telling them how to improve? amber? C'est possible?

Hi Michael,

This is a wonderful block! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

Further to Chris Bradley's idea (amber):

We use quizzes with a single True/False question so students can state whether they have read their required reading materials. With the Progress block if they answer 'false' the status of the quiz still gets coloured green. In this case amber would be great.

So my suggestion is to have an option of highlighting really low scores or zero scores, maybe with stuff like ! ^ < > * so that it's distinguishable form a normal square then we have progress combined with performance.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your praise and suggestions.

Chin: when the block is added you can select activities/resources that already exist in your course by configuring the block. But you have to have created the activities/resources (as you would do normally) first.

Daniel: I have also been asked by email about SCORM modules. I haven't used these myself, but there seems to be table entries which can be monitored, so I will add this for a future release.

Jonas: the names of activities are currently fixed because that was how they are named in the database. I'll look into how these are named in the language files for the activities/resources themselves. For the dates, the format is fixed in the code at the moment (I assume the month names are correct in other languages). I know there are some functions for localisation of dates, which I will look into. All other terms used should be configurable by editing the files in the lang directory. If you develop another language, please send it to me and I'll include this.

Chris and Barry: I'm not sure how easy it would be to look at different levels of completeness for tasks. I'm thinking this would mean something different to different instructors, and while the presentation of the bar is simple and relatively intuitive, I'm reluctant to change that aspect of it. But I'll keep your suggestion in mind.

At the moment, we have been granted a repository for the block (Woohoo!) so that will allow the latest version to always be made available, and others to contribute.

I'm also working on a number of changes to the configuration interface, including locking a date/time to one used in an activity (such as an assignment deadline), rather than keeping an independent date/time.

Michael;

Hi Michael,

To get your block to do more closely what we want (for reading assignments) I made it stay red if a student's grade is zero. By allowing multiple attempts to our quiz, adding extra questions (1. I completed it one time, 2. I'm still busy, 3. I completed it late) and applying penalties we are able to keep red and green making sense for us (goes green again once their score is not zero anymore).


This is all I added (around line 86 to block_progress.php (+ some alterations to the language file):

else if ($module == 'quiz') {$attempted = record_exists_select ($details['actionTable'],$module.'=\''.$event->id.'\' AND sumgrades>0 AND userid=\''.$USER->id.'\'');
}


We like your block a lot! Thanks for sharing it with us.

Hi Michael,

Great block thanks How to disable the expected date. In self study type courses, were date is not essential could lead to confusion.

Peace ...

Hi Michael,

I like the block. But it doesn't seem to include lessons. Something I would like to include.

At the end I also include grades from lessons in the end grade so I would like to include lessons too.

Pieter

I am now using this block in my development setting:

• XAMPP 1.7.0
• WinXP
• Moodle  1.9.5 (Moodle 1.9.5+ (Build: 20090701))

I see following:

• Newsforum
• I must do a posting to a forum to make it green : it's ok
• Quizes
• When I even start a quiz the progressbar goes green. However I didn't finish the the quiz.
• Also the when the quiz has been finished with an unsufficient mark it lights green.
• Resources is OK

What I would like to add in addition to my previous post:

• Color for having started a test/quiz (yellow ?)
• Color for having finished a test/quiz with sufficient mark (green)
• Color for having finished a test/quiz with unsufficient mark (orange, perhaps red?)

 Greetings, keep up doing this great work,

Pieter

I am now using this block in my development setting:

• XAMPP 1.7.0
• WinXP
• Moodle  1.9.5 (Moodle 1.9.5+ (Build: 20090701))

I see following:

• Newsforum
• I must do a posting to a forum to make it green : it's ok
• Quizes
• When I even start a quiz the progressbar goes green. However I didn't finish the the quiz.
• Also the when the quiz has been finished with an unsufficient mark it lights green.
• Resources is OK

What I would like to add in addition to my previous post:

• Color for having started a test/quiz (yellow ?)
• Color for having finished a test/quiz with sufficient mark (green)
• Color for having finished a test/quiz with unsufficient mark (orange, perhaps red?)

 Greetings, keep up doing this great work,

Pieter

This is a fair dinkum awesome block. I love the way it tracks if a resource has been viewed.

Great stuff.

A request. We use lots of hotpot quizzes. They don't show up. Can you make them included.

This sounds like it would be great but I have a problem with due dates.  Our courses all have continuous enrolment, si I would like the expected date for an assignment to relate to the date of first enrolment.  e.g.  Quiz 1 due one month into course, activity 2 due 2 months in etc.  Has anyone dealt with this ?

I really love this block. It is very useful and informative. It helps students on keeping track of their activities.

I have a question: Would it be hard to add some more details, for example a number of postings in the forum to make it "green"??

Eduardo

Hi Michael,

This block is just what we require, but when I add the block to my course and configure 3 assignments to monitor, the colour coded element doesn't display. The block has text that says 'NOW' and underneath 'Mouse over block for info'. Why doesn't it display as in the image above?

Also is there any development work being done on disabling the 'Expected by' date?

Awaiting your reply

Many thanks
Nicola.

Hi everyone,

Thanks again for all your feedback.

Please try out the new version. Changes include:
- Inclusion of Lessons and SCORM modules
- Ability to lock dates in the progress bar to due dates
- Japanese language translation
- A few bug-fixes

Please use the link above to get the latest version. The CVS repository exists, but has not been updated as I don't have write access yet.

Here are some responses to questions that have been asked above...

Barry: I could add completeness to quizzes, but it may be that a mark of zero is acceptable in some quizzes, so I will leave that alone.

Aslam: The progress bar relies on dates to order the events. Without dates, it will not work.

Pieter: I've added the Lesson module now, but it would be good if people can test this as I don't use Lessons, so I can't test this properly myself. I wouldn't add the news forum to the Progress Bar as student's can't post to this. I've base the quiz block colour on an attempt. Quizzes are not always used to gain marks, so if I made it dependent on a mark, this might not work for all courses. I think showing the student that there is a quiz and that it is due by a certain time is the important aspect.

Rob: I haven't used hotpot quizzes. If you have, try adding a module entry for this module in the common.php file and see if you can get it to work.

John: Having relative dates would be a major change to the idea behind the block. I'm not sure it can be done without complicating the block quite a lot.

Eduardo: A single posting to forums is all that is needed to change the colour.

Nicola: Hidden activities will be hidden in the Progress Bar until the activity is shown. However there was a bug (now fixed) that included hidden activities when drawing the "Now" arrow above the blocks. You might want to try the new version.

Michael;

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the block.  It just what I wanted.  A couple of issues:

1) On the rollover info, just below the progress bar I get a red X where the image should be and when I click on the link I get the following error message "

Not Found

The requested URL /mod/Quiz/view.php was not found on this server."

Any idea why this might not be working?

2) I get "Lesson not completed" for a lesson that is just a simple display of a couple of pages.  Can you tell us what the block is looking for to verify that a lesson has been completed?

Thanks,

Andy

Hello! Thank you for creating this block. I'm trying to install it in Moodle 2.0, but it won't work. I'm getting the following error:

Plugin "block/progress2009021600" is defective, can not continue, sorry.

Hi Michael:

I'm not sure if this is a bug and is hinted at in Andy Webb's post above I think. If you hover the mouse over one of the listed assignments, or quizzes etc under the progress bar, you can see that the module element becomes capitalised, i.e. ../mod/Assignment, ../mod/Quiz etc. Needless to say, when you click on this link you get taken to a 404 page as the Assignment or Quiz etc folder does not exist. Any idea how to fix this and if so, what file?

Hope this makes sense.

Paul

The "bug" you guys are referring to with the 404 error, can be fixed by doing the following:

1) Go into progress/lang/en_utf8
2) Open the block_progress.php file (in Notepad or other text editor).
3) Do a simple find or search for "Quiz"
4) Find the instance of "Quiz" (the one that is capitalized) and simply change it to "quiz"
5) Re-upload the lang folder or the entire plugin folder.

That should fix your problem. Looks like just a little issue there.

Awesome plugin Michael! Thanks.

Thanks Tim.  That did the trick on the "bug".  I still can't get my lessons to show as completed.  Any hints on what the progress bar is looking for?

Great block - like many here - just what I need. But I also have the same issue as Aslam - my course is self directed and doesn't need the expected date.

I have no problem putting in a dummy date (2020) but would like to comment out the text that says Expected:

My php is not good enough to see what's going on in the files but wouldn't it be possible to comment out that extra line of text i.e. essentially it still requires a date, just that users don't see it?

If so, which file and line is it on?

Thanks

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your feedback again.

Two things I have corrected:

• The language files somehow reverted to an older version; I've corrected that and they should work consistently now.
• There was a database issue with Lessons. I think I've corrected that, but I would like people to test this to see if it works the way they think it should. Currently a student has to complete an entire lesson.
  

• Japanese
• German
• Portuguese-Brazilian

I love your Progress Bar, but I have one issue. Isn't it possible to put more activities in it to view??? I use the database a lot and also the workshop and sometimes the projectmodule. Is it possible to implement them???

But perfect module so far!!! Thanks

This is a great block, but I too have no need of the time deadline, but do want to use something like this.

As a solution I have removed the references to the time/deadlines in the code like so:

1. I commented the entire section out that calculates the 'now' arrow above. This is helpfully commented as "Place now arrow"

1. Then I removed the text "Expected" from the lang file as suggested by Michael 9/11
2. Finally I edited line 135 of block_progress.php to remove the printing of the deadline and the colon, so it looks like this get_string('time_expected','block_progress').' <br />";

I've just noticed that the icons used for activities and resources are the default icons. Is it possible that I can redirect the code to the icons in my own theme?

Thanks to Dan and Michael for the hacks - works great.

Is there anyway it is possible to link to SCORMs and wikis? It's a shame they can't be added - is there any way they could be linked to too?

Thanks again

Neil

Hi Neil,

I've added SCORM functionality, but it could do with some testing.

How would you judge completion of activity in relation to a Wiki? Would an "entry" in the Wiki be needed, or do you want people to simply read the Wiki?

Michael;

Hi Michael,

Great block. We use scorm quite a lot and this was a perfect solution. But for some reason after doing the scorm quiz, the progress bar still show "Scorm not attempted" as you mouse over. The Scorm is attempted and does show in the grades.

The SCORM setting is:
Grading method: Highest grade
Maximum grade: 100

Will continue to test as you provide newer download. Hoping not too long . This block is awsome.

Kind regards,
Winston

Hi Winston and All,

I managed to get my hands on a sample SCORM file to test the block. Using that I was able to see an SQL error that was occurring because an incorrect field was being accessed. I've corrected the field, but it would still be useful to know if it is functioning how you expect it to. The block will go green when an attempt is made. I don't think it has to be completed.

Let me know if this works for you.

Michael;

Hi All,

CVS Updated
I have now managed to write to the CVS repository for this block and updated the code there (see link at top of page). If you are using CVS to update this block it should now work.

Bug Reports
In future, if you find errors, could you please report these using the bug tracker. That way I will be notified by email and can update the CVS repository accordingly.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and support.

Michael;

Hey Michael, I'd not checked in on this for a while, but just seen that you have revised it for SCORM. Brilliant! Just testing it now and it seems to be going well. Thank you.

Hi Michael,

I would post this as a bug, but I don't know if it is or not.  I would still like an answer onhow the progress bar determines whether a lesson is done or not.  So far I can't get it to work, but then again, I'm just trying stuff.  Any guidance on this?

Thanks,

Andy

Hi Andy,

Sorry, I seem to have missed your previous question.

I had to go back and look how Lessons were being judged as complete. I had it set so that a grade was needed before the Lesson was seen as 'complete'. This is not in keeping with the way other modules are judged as 'complete' in the Progress Bar, so I have taken this back to Lesson 'attempted'. I think one answer has to be supplied in order to constitute an attempt. I've updated the Zip file and will update CVS soon. Could you try this and see if it suits your purposes.

Also, the module can now check viewing of 'Directory' resources.

Michael;

Where are are the instructions to install Progress Bar? Do I unzip progress.zip and then paste it to the moodle/mod directory? Done this and it does not work. Thank you,

I'm using moodle 1.9.5


Aureliano Nava

Hi Micheal,

We're looking into your module, it seems a great tool too help them tracking their "where have I been status".

However I have 3 questions of enhancement requests, hope you don't mind:

• groupings
• SCORM ( when finished/in progress/not used)
• lessons ( idem)

Groupings

I want to use groupings so my question is : is it possible to make the block groupings aware. So students see only the items the also see on the main page of the course. For example:

So people in grouping 1 see only activities 1 and 2, and people in grouping 2 see only activities 1, 3 and 4. This with only one block "install". Another possibility would be two progress bar blocks, one for grouping 1 and one for grouping 2.

Lessons

It still would be good to have explicitly clear that a lessons is completed. My proposal would be to use "grade to pass" in the Grades>Categories>Edit Grade Item (show advanced, Moodle v1.9.5, which we run). I you equal or exceed this level you have "passed", thus completed the lesson.

When started the lessons turn orange (or stay red for that matter) and turn green after passing the minimum grade level.

SCORM

It's a kind of same storie. We use modules made with UPK from Oracle. At least in these SCORM modules you can set a "grade to pass" and return a status (passed/failed) but also a score.

Then I think of the following solutions:

• Use the raw score (see log output, beneath), and the "grade to pass" in the grades menu
• Use the Passed/Failed variable from the scorm module.

And further enhancement would be : attempted orange (below "minimum grade"), green (above "minimum grade")

Logging output from the SCORM module:

SCORM/AICC: SCORM Module

      First access: Friday, 5 March 2010, 02:24 PM (27 mins 7 secs)
      Last access: Friday, 5 March 2010, 02:24 PM (27 mins 7 secs)
      Report:
          o  Maximo
         +  Maximo
            #  Monteur OB/SB
               * Completed Opstarten taak: controleren bioreactor
                  o cmi.completion_status => completed
                  o cmi.exit => normal
                  o cmi.score.max => 100
                  o cmi.score.min => 0
                  o cmi.score.raw => 92
                  o cmi.session_time => PT00H00M01S
                  o cmi.success_status => passed
                  o cmi.suspend_data => S=X,T=X,K=C,P=X,PASS=1,SCORE=92
                  o cmi.total_time => PT4M30S

Hi all,

Fantastic you've had time to add Lessons and SCORM - thanks Michael.

Just installed the latest version but there seems to be a problem with the way the coloured blocks are rendered - looks very strange both in IE (too big) and Firefox (too small).

I have commented out lines 148 - 165 as I don't want the now arrow (making this non time bound) but this did not have any negative repercussions in the previous version.

Any ideas how to get this more Goldilocks (just right)?

Firefox: (tiny)



IE: (too big)




Many thanks,

Neil

Hi All,

Aureliano: the Progress Block is installed like other blocks. Some instructions are available at http://docs.moodle.org/en/Blocks, and there are some setup instructions specific to using the Progress Bar block linked above.

Pieter: I'll have to think about groups and groupings and how this affects what is shown in the Progress Bar. I think the best solution would be to check if an activity is group based, then only include the activity if the user would normally see it. I have been asked before to set the check for SCORM modules to completeness rather than attempt. I've created an alternate block_progress.php file, currently called in the block_progress_scorm_pass.php, which you can rename to block_progress.php to test it. My concern, for lessons and SCORM modules, is that completion might not be required, or even possible, in all cases.

Neil: I'm wondering if you have an older version. I put up some new code last week, and I've built in the ability to hide the NOW arrow, without changing the code. If you haven't tried that, please do. You may have inadvertently commented out the calculation of the width of each block of the progress bar, thus causing the odd width effect.

Michael;

This looks like a great module...

I tried to install this, but moodle says the module does not include a version.php file. I manually created the file but then it says it doesn't have a db folder and refused to install. Running Moodle 1.9.5.

G.

Sorry, my mistake. I was installing it as a mod, not as a block.

Hi Michael,
great block! Principally I´m working with modules ‘book’ (lots of them in my courses). How can I get the book modules beeing tracked too?

Hi All,

Joachim: I've added book support.

I have also limited bar height.

Michael;

Michael,
This is a great module. However I am having problems with it in Firefox. In Firefox it looks like this:




And in any other browser it looks like this:

Hi Suzanne,

I'm wondering if you are using the latest version of the block. A few improvements on controlling the block size have been added recently.

I actually do my development using Firefox, so it should work there.

In future, if people have something they think is a bug, could they please report the bug on Moodle Tracker. I get notified of the bug and have to follow processes to fix it.

Michael;

Hi All,

I've just updated the video demo for the block to demonstrate recently added features.

Michael;

Hi,

I have the same problem of the Suzanne Faber.

Use firefox 3.6.3

Hi All,

If you are seeing segments of the Progress Bar narrow and without borders...



...try loading the page while bypassing the cache (shift + refresh). The styles can live in your cache without refreshing for up to 2 days.

Michael;

Thank you Michael for this block.

I too am a SCORM user. In one comment you said there was a blocks_progress_scorm_pass.php file that we could rename? I can't find it.

We have scores out of 100 and students need to show green only if they get a score above 99.

Thanks for the great block. We have a simple health requirement coursae that students will take all year long so I will also be using the dits made by Dan Roddy to remove dates.

This is soo helpful to my High schoolers.

thanks again

Great block Michael.

Is there an option that when a user passes a lesson with x%, the lesson is marked as complete?

Thanks.

Hi there,

A rather long post,

I did some tests with the SCORM module and below you find the results. Conclusion is that it doesn't react to "passing" the SCORM lesson.

General

• gradepass = 0 (zero) then merely opening the activity will turn the progressbar green (standard behaviour)
• gradepass >= 1 then when grade >= gradepass will turn the progressbar green
• gradepass >= 1 then when grade >= gradepass and date >= maxdate then green.

SCORM test

Hi All,

A few people have asked me about changing the functionality of SCORM modules from attempted to passed/completed. I'm not sure if this is desirable in all cases and I've tried to keep the level expected of students minimal so as to suit the majority of situations. After all, this is supposed to be an advisory tool for students to help them with time management, it is not supposed to be a tool for reporting their assessment success.

If you would like to show SCORM passed/completed status on the Progress Bar, go into the block_progress.php file and replace these lines...

else if ($module == 'choice' || $module == 'lesson' || $module == 'scorm') {
    $attempted = record_exists_select($details['actionTable'],$module.'id=\''.$event->id.'\' AND userid=\''.$USER->id.'\'');
}

else if ($module == 'choice' || $module == 'lesson') {
     $attempted = record_exists_select($details['actionTable'],$module.'id=\''.$event->id.'\' AND userid=\''.$USER->id.'\'');
}
else if ($module == 'scorm') {
    // Test for scorm completion
    $sql="SELECT value
    FROM {$CFG->prefix}scorm_scoes_track
    WHERE userid='$USER->id'
    AND element='cmi.core.lesson_status'
    AND scormid='$event->id'
    AND (value='completed' OR value='passed')";
    $attempted = record_exists_sql($sql);
}

Hi All,

It is difficult to keep track of message posted here. I would like to hear from you, but could you please send messages in the following fashion.

Thanks to everyone who has tried the block.

Michael;

My progress bar displays with text including code, is wide and long, no colors or hovers. See below.

Your Progress Bar

G15 / G40 videosVideos de G15/G40','not completed','Wed 9 Jun, 01:10 PM','346');" bgColor="#FF3300" />

My text blocks include language tags for english and spanish. Is that the problem? and what is the solution because this would be a great motivator for our courses.

Scott

Hello,

I've installed the moodle version 1.9.8 and have a course with many activities including links to outside resources; I also have another course with fewer activities. I've installed progress bar. And it seems that on the course with many activities, the selected activity to be displayed on the progress bar are not being saved. While on the course with fewer activity, progress bar works just fine. I am not sure if this is the issue (the number of activities) - and by the way, not all activities are being selected - only about 7 out of 100 need to be displayed on the progress bar.

Has anyone else experience this issue? please help!

Hi All,

If you think you have found a bug, please post it to the bug tracker, not here.

http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/CONTRIB/component/10489

I'm happy to help, but I won't come back here regularly to check postings.

Michael;

Hello Michael

I really love the progress bar it is exactly what i was looking for. However i cannot seem to get it configured correctly. I implmented it into a Scorm enviroment.. If a student attempts to do a Scorm package then it turns green even if they did not answer any questions.

Is'nt it  supposed to turn blue if they attempt then only turn green once they have passed?

How do i configure that?

Thanks,

Stephen

@Stephen

Check out Michael's comment from 17 May 2010. You need to adjust the code yourself, but it's not too difficult to do. Just read his message closely and it explains things.

Thanks alot this was very helpfull in customizing the progress bar.

I have now fixed the scorm to not only check completed it now checks if the correct mark was achieved.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We've had great success with this block, however, we now have our Moodle 1.9, courses and content setup bilingually (language toggles on click). Assignments, labels and resources are named using the span lang class, e.g:

<span lang="en" class="multilang">English Title</span><span lang="cy" class="multilang">Teitl Cymraeg</span>

Unfortunately this breaks the Progress Bar.

Is there a version with multilang support available?

Thanks,
Aled