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It's because some teachers have published their question categories. This problem results from misunderstanding of what it means to publish a category. Some people seem to think publishing a category means making it available for quizzes in their own course. In fact, it means publishing a category all over the site for all the teachers to see and to use.
We've had this problem on our site, too - several of our teachers inadvertently published their categories which resulted in some confusion (just in your case). If you are an admin of your site, you can easily track down those "public" categories in the database - search the mdl_quiz_categories table for any records with publish set to 1. You will then see which courses they come from and you will be able to contact the teachers of those courses and ask if they really wanted to share their questions with all the other teachers on the site.
Hope this helps,
Przemek
We've had this problem on our site, too - several of our teachers inadvertently published their categories which resulted in some confusion (just in your case). If you are an admin of your site, you can easily track down those "public" categories in the database - search the mdl_quiz_categories table for any records with publish set to 1. You will then see which courses they come from and you will be able to contact the teachers of those courses and ask if they really wanted to share their questions with all the other teachers on the site.
Hope this helps,
Przemek
In reply to Przemyslaw Stencel
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>Some people seem to think publishing a category means making it
available for quizzes in their own course. In fact, it means publishing
a category all over the site for all the teachers to see and to use.
One option I would very much like to see in Moodle is for a teacher to be able to "publish" question categories in order to share them within all of their own courses, not a whole Moodle site. This makes sense a) when you teach a number of related courses where you would like to avoid replication of questions and b) when you work in a large institution where "publishing" categories for the whole institution site might mean hundreds of items among which it woud be hard to find your own categories, especially if each teacher uses their own naming system for categories.
Joseph
I work with two different versions of moodle and I have observed a difference in behavior with respect to published categories, as explained below.
As expected, both versions allow me to see categories published by other teachers. The difference in behavior has to do with MY ability to export (or not export) other teachers' categories.
When I attempt to export other teachers' categories in version 1.5.2.0, moodle says "Only the teacher can export quiz questions." I like that behavior because it prevents me from copying someone else's work, unbeknownst to them.
In version 1.5.4+, however, moodle lets me export other teachers' categories. That doesn't seem right.
According to the admin for our 1.5.2.0 moodle, the "Only the teacher..." message is hardcoded into the /mod/quiz/export.php file. The message is not to be found in later versions of this file. Was this an oversight, or a conscious decision?
I had planned to use export as a way of sharing my categories with other teachers on a commercial site. I want the other teachers to be able to use my categories to make quizzes, but I do not want them exporting my hard work and setting up businesses to compete with mine! If export of published categories is permitted, is there another mechanism to restrict what other teachers can do?
As expected, both versions allow me to see categories published by other teachers. The difference in behavior has to do with MY ability to export (or not export) other teachers' categories.
When I attempt to export other teachers' categories in version 1.5.2.0, moodle says "Only the teacher can export quiz questions." I like that behavior because it prevents me from copying someone else's work, unbeknownst to them.
In version 1.5.4+, however, moodle lets me export other teachers' categories. That doesn't seem right.
According to the admin for our 1.5.2.0 moodle, the "Only the teacher..." message is hardcoded into the /mod/quiz/export.php file. The message is not to be found in later versions of this file. Was this an oversight, or a conscious decision?
I had planned to use export as a way of sharing my categories with other teachers on a commercial site. I want the other teachers to be able to use my categories to make quizzes, but I do not want them exporting my hard work and setting up businesses to compete with mine! If export of published categories is permitted, is there another mechanism to restrict what other teachers can do?
Sounds like this may be a bug.
Howard.... have you changed the export settings?
Howard.... have you changed the export settings?
Hi Ray,
Assuming this is a bug, how do I find out if it has has already been reported? If it has not been reported, how do I report it? I know, the answer to both questions is "the bug tracker," but the bug tracker is sufficiently mysterious to me that I need a more detailed answer!
Thanks
Assuming this is a bug, how do I find out if it has has already been reported? If it has not been reported, how do I report it? I know, the answer to both questions is "the bug tracker," but the bug tracker is sufficiently mysterious to me that I need a more detailed answer!
Thanks
How to see if the bug is already reported:
The bug is much more likely to get fixed in you write a good bug report. The mozilla project has some excellent guidelines for writing good bug reports: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html
Obviously a few bits of this are not relevant, but most of it is.
The key points are:
- Go to http://moodle.org/bugs/ and log in. (I can't remember if it is the same logins as moodle.org or not. You may have to create a new account.)
- Click on Query Issues from the link on the left.
- Click advanced query page at the top.
- Type an appropriate keyword into the Title of bug box.
- Click Submit query, then scan down the list of bugs.
- Repeat 4-5 for some other plausible keywords.
The bug is much more likely to get fixed in you write a good bug report. The mozilla project has some excellent guidelines for writing good bug reports: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html
Obviously a few bits of this are not relevant, but most of it is.
The key points are:
- Make it very clear to me what I need to do to reproduce the bug on my server. If I can't reproduce it, I can't fix it. The kind of detailed steps I gave at the start of this message for searching is the level of detail I would expect.
- Say exactly what you saw that is wrong. Copy and paste any error message. Screenshots are also good.
- Say what you think should have happened instead. That is, explain why you think what you saw is wrong.
- Write a summary which is short, but which says exactly what the problem is. (This is hard, do your best.)
- File this sort of bug under either Questions or Quiz component. Try to guess which of the two is more appropriate, but it is not that important. They all come to me.
Thank you for your excellent guidance! I have entered bug 5978.