In 1.99 I had the plugin created in order to import Examview questions into Moodle. It looked like 2.0 had this plugin created by default.
I am currently unable to get the examview questions imported in 2.0 now. When I import view Blackboard or Blackborad v6 I get the following error.
questioni/cannotfindquestionfile
Anybody have any ideas? Thanks.
are you using the latest 2.0 code or one of the early RC releases? - Tim has done a lot of work over the past month tidying up bits of the quiz/question code - if you are using the latest code, have a search in the tracker to see if anyone else has reported the issue - if not, create a tracker issue for it and include a file that can be used to test/reproduce your issue.
Yes, I did a lot of work, but I am not sure I got to everything. In particular, while I spent a lot of time making sure GIFT and Moodle XML worked fully, I barely touched the other formats, so it is highly likely that they are broken. Part of the problem is that I don't have access to things like Examview, so I cannot generate any files to test with.
What we ought to have, for example in the Moodle Features Demo course, are example question files for each supported import/export format, that include one example of each type of question which that format supports. That would be really useful for testing.
If you could make an example file like that for Examview, that would be really helpful.
I have created a ZIP file with the following information in it. Hopefully this will help to get the bugs out. If I am able to help in any other way, please let me know.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2105372/ExamviewFiles.zip
Included is
Created using Examview 6.2.1
MDL-25492 seems to be a tracker issue that covers this, so I am attaching the file there.
Hello Tim and others,
My school district is planning to upgrade our current 1.9.x site to Moodle 2 over the next summer. The ability to import files from Examview is one of the "must have" capabilities needed before we can go forward. The other is the Google Apps SSO integration. That has now been updated for Moodle 2 by Catalyst IT .
I am wondering if anyone is actually working on this. The tracker item (I have voted) has not had comments added since January. I am not a developer, but would be willing to try coding the update if noone is currently working on it. I would need a lot of guidance.
Examview is ubiquitous with K-12 textbook adoptions in the U.S. I am sure my school district is not the only one needing this update.
ExamView does not yet offer a Moodle-native export format. However, test
and question bank questions can be uploaded to a Moodle LMS using another
format that is already available.
NOTE: Because Moodle is an open source software package, it is continually
evolving through its active community of contributing developers. It is
recommended that your Moodle installation is updated to the most recent
stable version of the software. For the latest information regarding known
issues, recommended work-arounds, and code fixes, check the Using Moodle
forums at moodle.org. The forum for the Quiz module under the "Moodle
modules - help and discussion" category is especially useful.
TO GET QUESTION CONTENT INTO MOODLE:
1. Build or open a test/question bank in ExamView.
2. From the File menu, choose Export, then Blackboard 6.0 7.0. A save
3. Set the location where you want to save the exported file. Enter a
filename, and click the Save button. The question content will be saved as a
".zip" file.
4. Complete the dialog options with any entry. These dialog options are not
used by Moodle but are required to complete the export process for
Blackboard.
5. Click OK to complete the export. The questions and any images (including
equations, which are converted to images) are compressed into a zip file.
These images must each be uploaded into Moodle and re-linked to the
question separate from uploading the question content.
8. Select a Category from the pull-down list or create a new category by
clicking the
Edit categories button.
I am with Rob, our district has sorely missed this ability since we did upgrade to 2.0 months ago.
I'm sorry. As far as I know, no one is working on this at the moment.
This is a relatively easy and self-contained problem. It should only require changing code in the question/format/examview/ folder, and there is not much code there. The kind of changes that are necessary will be similar to the changes that were made to question/format/gift and question/format/xml just before the 2.0 release.
Oh, actually, it seems to be more complicated than that. I seems that when you lot talk about 'Examview import'. That actually corresponds to selecting 'Blackboard' (or is it Blackboard 6+) format in the Moodle UI. That is bloody confusing.
If you want to have any hope of having this fixed, someone had better add clear instructions to MDL-25492 explaining what to do with the files attached there to reproduce the problem.
Thanks Tim. I was encouraged by your fist paragraph ("fairly simple"). That is likely where my coding ability lies. Your second paragraph ("more complicated") was what I was expecting. ;)
The plugin developed for 1.9 does use a Blackboard export. It allows test questions with images and feedback to import into Moodle. The "Blackboard 6/7" export from Examview produces a zip file. The zip is what teachers upload. It is the ability to import the images without needing to relink them that has my teachers dependent on this plugin. Teachers see a new inport format option, "Examview Blackboard 6.x. The imported images are placed in a site files subdirectory. I am sure this make a 2.0 version even more complicated, as the legacy site and course files need to be enabled in Moodle 2.
I have posted the above information in the tracker item.
Thank you to anyone willing to help with moving this along.
Well, the problem is simple in that all the question importer class has to do is to take the data from the import file it is given, and convert it into the data structure that the question code expects to get in order to save the question in the question bank. So, it is simple data munging.
The expected format looks something like this: https://github.com/timhunt/Moodle-Question-Engine-2/blob/qe2_wip/question/format/xml/simpletest/testxmlformat.php#L613 What you are seeing there is some of the self-test code for Moodle XML format (for a multiple-choice question).
If you look at that, you will see that imports including files are actually easier in 2.0, because the core of the import system will handle the files for you. (Although this self-test does not actually include any files yet. All the examples there pass 'files' => array().)
But again, it is fairly simple. The kind of data structure you need to build if there are files can be seen in this code: https://github.com/timhunt/Moodle-Question-Engine-2/blob/qe2_wip/question/format/xml/format.php#L235
Of course, what we really ought to have is some developer documentation that explains how to write a question import plugin by describing exactly what the data-structure that the plugin has to build is. I just added that to my todo list, but don't hold your breath. For now, deducing what needs to be done from the other import plugins is not too hard.
Of course, just fixing the the various importers that are currently broken, is only part of the battle (but please, someone, do it). What would be ideal is if whoever does the fix also creates self-test code similar to the code I linked to above. That way, it will be much easier to keep the importer working in future.
I am fully commited to making sure examview export will work with moodle, but it seems strange that both common moodle development and einstruction (makers of examview) seems to consider EXAMVIEW->MOODLE an option of modern school integration.
Examview is ubiquitous is so many textbooks these days, and more so for any math textbook. I have found a great video on importing examview into Moodle 2.0
Here is my summary of all I know, but read further for all the detail and links:
Examview used to use an XML export format in version 4.x but it(Examview) was eliminated because it was "abused". So the "Import->Examview" that shows in the Import of Moodle is only refering to version 4.x and below, This was a sad change to Examview compatibility.
I am using Moodle 2.0.3 (Build 20110505), but I hope to upgrade to Moodle 2.1 soon. In which case, if any change is obvious, I will post an update to this
THIS MUST BE A PRIORITY FOR MOODLE DEVELOPMENT!!
Here is the key information everyone should know...
More to come...
Ok, so in summary, examview 6.x import is broken for images.
Keep using examview 4.0 for easy Moodle import because it supports and XML format.
I wonder why eInstruction got rid of XML format? Why did it think it was abused?
There is a plugin for importing Examview Blackboard exports into Moodle that works very well. Images get imported too.
Hi Rob,
can you please post a link to this plugin. I searched plugins (new and old) for examview & blackboard with no luck. Is it for Moodle 2.x ? I've used the old one for moodle 1.9x listed in the forums but now I'm moving to Moodle 2.x Thanks in advance
There are two versions that work with Moodle 2.1. The links are in the same thread as the 1.9 plugin.
