Visual improvement to Gradebook

Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Paul Vaughan -
Number of replies: 29
I've added an issue to the tracker (MDL-18504) for a simple (I think) improvement to the gradebook, for large numbers of users or graded activities.

The idea is that for large numbers of rows, the header row is repeated every 'n' lines (as in the mock-up, below):

example 1

and the same goes for a large number of colums (another mock-up):

example 2

PHPMyAdmin does this nicely:

PHPMyAdmin

there could be some other logic such as 'never before a total column' and such too.
In reply to Paul Vaughan

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Chris Potter -
My thought was that the names could optionally "float", like the Freeze Pane option in Excel. Then we only have to print the names once and they will always be visible without the extra clutter in the actual grade book. Would this be fairly easy?
In reply to Chris Potter

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Edwinna Lucyk -
I think freezing both the participant name column (1st column) and the headings row (1st row) as can be done in Excel would be a great idea.  Then you can scroll veritcally and horizontally and always have the information you need visible.
In reply to Edwinna Lucyk

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Paul Vaughan -
Well we tried with frames and fixing the width of all the table rows and columns. Despite the fact that frames are depreciated and frowned upon, it looked pretty awful.

"Floating" sounds like a reasonable solution, a bit loke how the ads on some web pages follow you down the page when you scroll...
In reply to Paul Vaughan

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Elena Ivanova -
Paul, can you please tell how the fixing will be controlled?

I have suggested this solution previously:
Add controls to My Preferences, similar to 1.8 gradebook:
- Reprint Headers: select # (meaning how often headers will be repeated)
- Reprint Headers with Categories names: Yes/No (depending on gradebook structure, instructor may want to see just names of the activities or corresponding categories as well)
- Reprint Student names : select # (how often the column with students names will be repeated)
- Stick Student names on the left?: Yes/No (this is what LSU gradebook offers)

What to you think?
In reply to Elena Ivanova

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Paul Vaughan -
Sounds exactly like what we need. smile I must confess I had little exposure to the 1.8 gradebook so cannot comment on that, but *not* having the users names and the column headings within easy reach (similat to Excel!) makes using the gradebook a little cumbersome, and I of course want the experience to be as easy as possible.

Edited to add: What is/where can I find the LSU gradebook? It doesn't appear in the Mods and Plugins area.

Also, if you like the idea, vote for it in the tracker (link at the top).
In reply to Paul Vaughan

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Elena Ivanova -
Paul, you may take a look at the LSU gradebook here: http://test.moodle.org/lsugradebook/ (use the same username and password as for the regular one)
From the dropdown area you may want to review Gradebook, Quick Edit Items and Quick Edit Categories. Plus, if you turn ediitng on , note QE links for columns and rows.

Elena
In reply to Paul Vaughan

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Nicolas Connault -
Although the idea of "frozen" vertical AND horizontal headers sounds interesting, in practice it's quite horrible, because you end up with two scrollbars inside the page, which means that both the list of students and columns of activities would also have to scroll along as the page of grades is moved about. In my opinion it's unpractical and doesn't achieve the desired results.

Elena's suggestion is more appropriate I think, especially for people who don't want the frozen students column.

I have another idea to submit to you: a mouseover info box. As you put your mouse over a grade field, it gives you the name of the student and the activity to which the grade belongs. This would be done in a way that doesn't prevent the user from using the other elements of the interface. Currently there is a mouseover for feedback, but I am not sure it is very useful, compared with this.

What are your ideas?
In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Paul Vaughan -
Hi Nicolas.

Eleana's reply would suit us near-perfectly, and it was pretty much what I was trying to suggest in the first palce (I must work on writing more carefully and NOT using pictures instead).

The mouse-over idea is a good one: it could provide the required information succinctly and quietly.
In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Chris Potter -
I like both of your ideas. My primary concern with the repeated headers was the extra columns (which means even more scrolling), but I suppose there's no "perfect" solution. smile The input you're providing makes sense and I'm guessing coding the gradebook to work in this way amongst the more popular browsers would be a nightmare.

As for the mouseover info, I agree it could be helpful. Not that I want to model the grade book after Bb, but they do have some nice features with the mouseover events that allow more information without having to go to another page (more information, faster). This would seem to be a step in the right direction IMO.
In reply to Chris Potter

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Nicolas Connault -
I've just implemented an early version of the mouseover solution on the test server:

You can login as
username: teacher
password: testm00dle

I added the feedback in the overlib, because otherwise you can't see it without editing the grades. I would like to make the background semi-transparent, but there's no current cross-browser solution for that. Any styling ideas would be welcome.


In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Chris Potter -
I really like it so far. I'm running it by a couple of faculty to see what they think (this was one of two feature requests they had mentioned they wanted when we discussed the grade book with them).

By any chance, is there something out there in the works that allows faculty to sort their my moodle course listings? Should I ask somewhere else?

Thanks for the extremely quick response (and work)! smile
In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Paul Vaughan -
Hi Nicolas. Fast work!! Looks really good.

Please correct me if I am being dense, but the test server's gradebook has a horizontal scroll-bar, which my Moodle (1.9.3+, 20090120) does not. It is a very useful and welcome addition to the gradebook. Do we need to get the latest 1.9.3 weekly or is that particular addition not available just yet?
In reply to Paul Vaughan

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Nicolas Connault -
Paul,

None of the improvements you see on the test server are yet in Moodle CVS. This a long-winded process which must pass many tests before we can put these improvements in 1.9.5. We will keep everyone informed of the release date of this version.
In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Brian Pool -

Just looked at the new test server gradebook.  It is the first 1.9 gradebook that has made me think we may actually upgrade from 1.8!  Great job putting these improvements in!

Scroll bars, mouse overs, and the simpler interface will make it much more usable for the low end user.

My only request would be the ability to "take away" options in the gradebook dropdown through and administrative menu to make it even simpler.  I know I can code them out (which I will do as an alternative.) There are just soo many options I think I will confuse alot of my users with the upgrade.

Brian

In reply to Brian Pool

Re: Removing options from the gradebook dropdown menu

by Helen Foster -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Brian, thanks for your feedback.

Regarding the gradebook dropdown menu, a number of options can be removed by changing permissions. Please see Simplifying the gradebook by changing permissions for more details.
In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Removing options from the gradebook dropdown menu

by Brian Pool -
Thanks...I didn't see that one.

Any idea when these improvements in the test gradebook are slated to make it to a 1.9 release? I hope in the next few months! They are exactly what most of us have been looking for!

I have a lot of custom modding to do on 1.9 before I would be able to go production in the fall and would love to get started.

We put in some automated processes and other reports in our 18 version...like K-12 progress reports...that we need in the K-12 environment. I can only make those changes in the summer and I don't want to start until there is a version of 1.9 ready to be worked on.

Brian
In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Mark Pearson -
>Although the idea of "frozen" vertical AND horizontal headers sounds interesting, in practice it's quite horrible, because you end up with two scrollbars inside the page, which means that both the list of students and columns of activities would also have to scroll along as the page of grades is moved about.

Nicholas,
I don't think that this is necessarily the case. If you go to Stu Nicholls' CSS Play and take a look at the Layouts you'll see that the CSS frame demo page has a moving centre section with space on the top and left side, and the movement is controlled solely by the browser scrollbar rather than internal scrollbar. All done with CSS. Mind you, I'm not sure how compatible this is with Internet Exploder versions or whether it is suitable for the particular gradebook interface we're focussing on, but it might be a technique worth looking at.
In reply to Mark Pearson

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Barry Oosthuizen -

On the CSS frame page the frozen column on the left does not scroll together with the centre section so this wouldn't work for student names (frozen) and grades (moving).  They need to move together and line up with each other. 

If the centre section were bigger than the screen a vertical scrollbar would appear and scrolling horizontally would cause the content (grades) to move but the headers to remain fixed.  So the content (grades) would not line up with the headers.  So sadly this CSS solution will not work for the gradebook.

In reply to Barry Oosthuizen

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Nicolas Connault -
I agree with Barry on this one. In any case, I'm pretty convinced that the tooltip solution, considering its ease of implementation, is much superior to any other fancy CSS/Flash/Ajax solution out there, which would most likely take weeks of work to implement and test across browsers. It does the job simply and effectively.
In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Paul Ganderton -
Hi,

Must add my agreement with these improvements. This makes it far easier to use and more likely to be taken up by our lesson tech-oriented staff.

One small point - the LSU gradebook example has fixed the name column but let the other float. Can the same be done vertically i.e. to float both dimensions or can the scroll bar be at the top as well. Often I need to check out a years worth of students which is 200. Scrolling to the bottom of the screen, altering the view and going up again would be time consuming. small point but if it can be investigated...

thanks,

Paul
In reply to Paul Ganderton

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Nicolas Connault -
Paul,

I just realised the link between your name and your user icon smile

I explained earlier in this thread that this double-floating solution would not work with the gradebook. Maybe you could explain why you need to "Alter the view" when at the bottom of the form, and why you need to "go up again".

As you said, it's a small point, and trying to implement a workable, usable, accessible, cross-browser solution with floating vertical and horizontal headers would be absolute overkill considering it's a small point. The mouseover solution should cover most of your needs in this regard.
In reply to Nicolas Connault

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Claire Browne -
Is there any way of changing how the page is displayed within the php?

I mean by having the students names at the top as columns and the asignments on the right?

Also is there a collapsable icon so you only see one student at a time?
In reply to Chris Potter

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Clark Moodler -
Hello -

floating names in the gradebook is in the tracker:

http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-13950

please vote for it!


re: repeated headers (18504) -the sad thing is that they used to exist in 1.8 - and then disappeared in 1.9....


I'd really like to see Ajax work in the gradebook, too for drag and drop when editing categories and items, etc...

best,
clark
In reply to Clark Moodler

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by Paul Vaughan -
I've been informed by a few people now that repeating headers used to exist, can't think of any good reason why they were taken out. Anyways, 'floating names' gets my vote.
In reply to Paul Vaughan

Re: Visual improvement to Gradebook

by David Fountain -

Repeating headers were a part of the gradebook plus (GBPv2) hack for versions prior to 1.9. So they weren't actually taken out but were a part of this hack that didn't make it across into core when most of its functions were included. ( I think)