Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Bill Click -
Number of replies: 16
We are using 1.5.2 within Windows. I have built quizzes and included pictures that I uploaded into my class files. I published the quiz so that other teachers could utilize it. When they do, the quiz that they get does not show the pictures that i included. It shows for me. Why can't they see it? Does the picture files need to be in their own class and them re-link to them? That doesn't quite make sense...... Help please.
In reply to Bill Click
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Scott Elliott -
Bill,
I think you are right on with your theory. If you uploaded the pictures into your course and linked to them in your quizzes, students not in your course won't be able to see them regardless if the quiz is published. The idea is that we wan't to protect files in each course to only users in that course. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit well with the idea of publishing quizzes.
Instead of copying the images to every course, you might consider putting them in the site file system. If you do this, everyone will be able to see the images, including students taking quizzes in any course. Notice that even non users will have access to the images. This may not be good for quizzes.
Anyway, I think this is right!
Scott
I think you are right on with your theory. If you uploaded the pictures into your course and linked to them in your quizzes, students not in your course won't be able to see them regardless if the quiz is published. The idea is that we wan't to protect files in each course to only users in that course. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit well with the idea of publishing quizzes.
Instead of copying the images to every course, you might consider putting them in the site file system. If you do this, everyone will be able to see the images, including students taking quizzes in any course. Notice that even non users will have access to the images. This may not be good for quizzes.
Anyway, I think this is right!
Scott
In reply to Scott Elliott
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Ger Tielemans -
Scott, what if you intercept the pciturename and give these pictures crazy long names (randomgenetared) then no one can guess their names and no one can browse the directory.
Using a kind of public key procedure?
In reply to Ger Tielemans
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Dr S Bhatia -
there are some enlightening conversations here and one is reproduced below from my other post
"Actually this is the best way of doing this also because you can then do the following:
Security: since 'images' is a public folder, the students(who are pretty smart) may right click on images during quiz and locate the url of pictures. so do the following:
1. server: set server settings not to allow raw listing of directory contents(this will prevent people from publicly accessing the directory contents)
2. always show quiz in secure window where right click is disabled
3. enable hot-link protection on your site(so that other sites cannot use your images)
This will provide significant security, though nothing is fool proof."
Now your other teachers also cannot access this images folder because you had created this folder by ftp or c-panel. But if your question is a published one, then a 'smart' teacher can import it into one of his quiz without alteration, or worse, locate the url of images and 'leak' it out. So keeping the category unpublished will give max security as only you will know the exact urls of those images.(if you wanna share them, share them by all means)
Moreover, each teacher can also be given such folders to upload their images to be used in questions.e.g. www.yoursite.com/images/teacher1........now the problem will be uploading them if you do not trust them enough to allow them ftp access. This can be solved in one more way, the way discovery's website does it.
tell them to signup for a free site kind of thing like http://teacher1.freesite.com and they can upload their images there in a folder and provide links to it in their question.
Once again- your images are safe
other teachers' images are safe
cross usage can be prevented
student 'leak' can be prevented
hmmpphhhhh...........
"Actually this is the best way of doing this also because you can then do the following:
- lets say you have a folder called www.yoursite.com/images
- put ALL your images there in various folders. eg. test1, physics1, chemistry1 etc
- Create your tests offline in textpad/notepad. A question would look like this:
- which is the correct diagram for water's behaviour with change in temp?<img src="http://www.yoursite.com/images/physics1/q1.jpg"> { ~A ~B ~C ~D =E}
Security: since 'images' is a public folder, the students(who are pretty smart) may right click on images during quiz and locate the url of pictures. so do the following:
1. server: set server settings not to allow raw listing of directory contents(this will prevent people from publicly accessing the directory contents)
2. always show quiz in secure window where right click is disabled
3. enable hot-link protection on your site(so that other sites cannot use your images)
This will provide significant security, though nothing is fool proof."
Now your other teachers also cannot access this images folder because you had created this folder by ftp or c-panel. But if your question is a published one, then a 'smart' teacher can import it into one of his quiz without alteration, or worse, locate the url of images and 'leak' it out. So keeping the category unpublished will give max security as only you will know the exact urls of those images.(if you wanna share them, share them by all means)
Moreover, each teacher can also be given such folders to upload their images to be used in questions.e.g. www.yoursite.com/images/teacher1........now the problem will be uploading them if you do not trust them enough to allow them ftp access. This can be solved in one more way, the way discovery's website does it.
tell them to signup for a free site kind of thing like http://teacher1.freesite.com and they can upload their images there in a folder and provide links to it in their question.
Once again- your images are safe
other teachers' images are safe
cross usage can be prevented
student 'leak' can be prevented
hmmpphhhhh...........
In reply to Scott Elliott
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Bill Click -
It seems to me that somewhere inside Moodle I should be able to have all my images and link to them. I don't quite understand the idea of having store items outside of Moodle to make them available to quizzes. This seems to be a logic problem to me. Why can't there be one area, within Moodle, that allows everyone to link to images without having to utilize some external solution? To me, this is a rather large flaw within Moodle that needs to be addressed. Now to think of all the work that I will have to go through and resolve. This is even more upsetting than I originally thought................... It seems to me that when a problem is discovered in moodle, the solution should first off be resolved within Moodle, not by doing some obscure external solution. I don't understand this.
In reply to Bill Click
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Joseph Rézeau -
Bill >
It seems to me that somewhere inside Moodle I should be able to have all my images and link to them.
One should always keep in mind that Moodle sites can range from a one-man run site (one Admin who is also the only teacher) with maybe 10 "students" to a site catering for hundreds of teachers and tens of thousands of students. In the last situation, it is not feasible nor desirable for all of the images available to the various courses should be made available to all courses/teachers/students.
However, a feature I have called for ever since I started using Moodle a couple of years ago is a "teacher repository" where, as a teacher, I could upload all the material I need to use and re-use in several of my courses. So far, this feature does not exist- at least not in standard distributions of Moodle. If I need to use image01.jpg or audio file audio.mp3 in two or more of my courses, I have to upload one copy of each of those files for each of my courses. This situation is a waste of storage space and of time and energy. There have been numerous posts on the Moodle forums calling for this "teacher repository" feature, all in vain so far.
Joseph
In reply to Joseph Rézeau
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by John Isner -
I agree that there is a need for a teacher repository. Before I read your post, Joseph, I was searching the bug tracker to see if anyone had submitted a request for this feature and didn't find one, so I created one, plagiarizing heavily from Bill Click's post (hope that's OK) 
"It seems to me that there should be a place WITHIN Moodle where all teachers can upload images and link to them -- kind of like site files, but accessible to teachers. I don't quite understand the idea of having store items outside of Moodle to make them available to quizzes -- which is the common advice given to newbies in the forums. Why can't there be one area, within Moodle, that allows teachers (who do not have admin privileges to create site files) to link to images without having to utilize some external solution which may not even be feasible for many teachers? This issue comes up almost daily in the forums, which should be evidence that this is a rather large flaw that needs to be addressed."
| MDL-6853 |
"It seems to me that there should be a place WITHIN Moodle where all teachers can upload images and link to them -- kind of like site files, but accessible to teachers. I don't quite understand the idea of having store items outside of Moodle to make them available to quizzes -- which is the common advice given to newbies in the forums. Why can't there be one area, within Moodle, that allows teachers (who do not have admin privileges to create site files) to link to images without having to utilize some external solution which may not even be feasible for many teachers? This issue comes up almost daily in the forums, which should be evidence that this is a rather large flaw that needs to be addressed."
In reply to John Isner
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Bill Click -
Thank you John. And of course you can plagarize me any time you wish when it comes to Moodle and it's needs. I appreciate the support. I understand our medium, just don't have the skills anymore, (I'm an old programmer/data analyst) to do the fancy stuff. I understand the needs and how things work, so I sometimes see 'different' solutions than others. But on this one, we all seem to see the same solution. That great. Now if only...
In reply to Joseph Rézeau
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Bill Click -
The "Teacher Repository" would be a blessing. This would solve all my issues with this problem. So, would the powers-that-be please consider this solution. I don't have the current programming skills that everyone else seems to share so I have to depend on the generosity of others. Please...please... please.
In reply to Bill Click
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by John Isner -
In reply to Joseph Rézeau
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by John Isner -
Here's a hack I suggested that creates a sort of teacher repository. You need the cooperation of your Moodle admin for this to work. You could also modify the code, but I have a small site so I did it manually, as described below.
The admin, using the shell, creates a subdirectory of moodledata/1 called teacher_repository:
cd moodledata/1
mkdir teacher_repository
The admin then goes to moodledata/2, moodledata/3, ... moodledata/N and creates symbolic links to this directory:
cd ../2
ln -s ../1/teacher_repository
cd ../3
ln -s ../1/teacher_repository
etc.
Now within any course, the teacher will see a "teacher_repository" directory within his Files area, and will be able to upload files to this directory and choose files from this directory using the standard Files interface. Files uploaded by the teacher of course 2 will be seen by the teacher of course 3 in its teacher_repository directory. I.e., the files are global.
The reason for creating the physical teacher_repository in site files is to enable the admin to monitor what's going on, and also so that the files get backed up (they get backed up along with course 1).
Policies are needed to prevent chaos. For example, each teacher may be asked to create a subdirectory for their own stuff.
Does anyone think this is this a workable solution?
The admin, using the shell, creates a subdirectory of moodledata/1 called teacher_repository:
cd moodledata/1
mkdir teacher_repository
The admin then goes to moodledata/2, moodledata/3, ... moodledata/N and creates symbolic links to this directory:
cd ../2
ln -s ../1/teacher_repository
cd ../3
ln -s ../1/teacher_repository
etc.
Now within any course, the teacher will see a "teacher_repository" directory within his Files area, and will be able to upload files to this directory and choose files from this directory using the standard Files interface. Files uploaded by the teacher of course 2 will be seen by the teacher of course 3 in its teacher_repository directory. I.e., the files are global.
The reason for creating the physical teacher_repository in site files is to enable the admin to monitor what's going on, and also so that the files get backed up (they get backed up along with course 1).
Policies are needed to prevent chaos. For example, each teacher may be asked to create a subdirectory for their own stuff.
Does anyone think this is this a workable solution?
In reply to John Isner
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Bill Click -
John I like this idea. I just want to hear from one of the "powers-that-be" as to what they think about this hack. I am slightly uncomfortable using a hack as I know what happens with every update. I would like to see a permanant solution that wouldn't require me having to remember what was done previously to 'make' it work. I don't trust my memory as I used to. Plus I want to hear how this hack works in the realm of Moodle. But, I still like your solution. Seems simple and clear.
And for those teachers who never learned to "share"........ OK, Ok, I understand there are teachers who work dilligently to build their course material and others who work just as dilligently to utilize others work. It's just a shame we can't all just get along..........
In reply to Bill Click
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by John Isner -
Sharing is not always motivated by altruism. Here's a case I'm dealing with. Four math teachers in a large high school district are told to collaborate to build a substantial question database that will be used by the remaining 100 math teachers to prepare students for a certain standardized test (the 100 teachers will use the question database to build custom quizzes for their classes). Almost every question contains an image. How do we implement this in Moodle?
In reply to John Isner
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Dr S Bhatia -
John, Bill et al
What we are discussing here emanates from a basic problem-
"Whether my repository of images should be sharable or not?"
Now if it's sharable, then too, it should have conditional access( if you wanted an open to all folder, we wouldn't be discussing this here)
If it's not sharable, how will my students access it?
If it's not sharable, then the same teacher may have to create duplicate repositories for various courses.
How will they be backed up.
There is no simple straightforward solution and that's why i had suggested an additional folder somwhere on your server.
However, it appears that that may neither be very agreable nor secure enough for certain users.
Here's a suggestion worth trying:-
there are web-locking softwares available for free which password protect a folder on the web. so try password locking a folder. zip it. upload it into site files. unzip it there. use it as your repository.
Try.(_if anyone needs such a folder password locking software, go to downloads.com or freedownloadscenter.com or message me
What we are discussing here emanates from a basic problem-
"Whether my repository of images should be sharable or not?"
Now if it's sharable, then too, it should have conditional access( if you wanted an open to all folder, we wouldn't be discussing this here)
If it's not sharable, how will my students access it?
If it's not sharable, then the same teacher may have to create duplicate repositories for various courses.
How will they be backed up.
There is no simple straightforward solution and that's why i had suggested an additional folder somwhere on your server.
However, it appears that that may neither be very agreable nor secure enough for certain users.
Here's a suggestion worth trying:-
there are web-locking softwares available for free which password protect a folder on the web. so try password locking a folder. zip it. upload it into site files. unzip it there. use it as your repository.
Try.(_if anyone needs such a folder password locking software, go to downloads.com or freedownloadscenter.com or message me
In reply to John Isner
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Tim Hunt -
That looks like a good workaround. Quite elegant as hacks go.
In reply to Joseph Rézeau
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Michael Penney -
A big issue comes in with how to handle Backup and Restore:
Copy the images to the backup?
Leave the images linked to the repository?
Both cause problems with transferring courses from one system to another, from one teacher to another.
Copy the images to the backup?
Leave the images linked to the repository?
Both cause problems with transferring courses from one system to another, from one teacher to another.
In reply to Bill Click
Re: Students not seeing pictures that I embedded into quiz questions
by Matt Campbell -
We teach about 80 programs, each of which has anywhere from 10-30 courses. I determined early on that we would have a metacourse for the program itself, and then all the courses for that program would be child courses of the metacourse. This means that any student in any of the courses would automatically become a student of the metacourse with access to all of it's resources.
We use metacourses in many different ways, but by far the two most popular are announcements and files. Teachers enable RSS on one of the forums that only they post to and then put a remote RSS feed block on each of their courses. Now, they only have to make an announcement once and it's reflected in all their courses.
The same idea works for their files. They create a file structure on the metacourse and then simply place links to the files wherever they need them.
It's a bit bulky and cumbersome at first, but most of the teachers have gotten used to working with two browsers open and cutting and pasting the links. They like it because they don't have to upload multiple copies of the same file, and I like it because it saves on disk space and the resources aren't just out there for the whole world to see.
They still can't share their tests, and it will break anything that's not placed back into the same metacourse, but it works if you can accept the limitations.
Thanks,
Matt
We use metacourses in many different ways, but by far the two most popular are announcements and files. Teachers enable RSS on one of the forums that only they post to and then put a remote RSS feed block on each of their courses. Now, they only have to make an announcement once and it's reflected in all their courses.
The same idea works for their files. They create a file structure on the metacourse and then simply place links to the files wherever they need them.
It's a bit bulky and cumbersome at first, but most of the teachers have gotten used to working with two browsers open and cutting and pasting the links. They like it because they don't have to upload multiple copies of the same file, and I like it because it saves on disk space and the resources aren't just out there for the whole world to see.
They still can't share their tests, and it will break anything that's not placed back into the same metacourse, but it works if you can accept the limitations.
Thanks,
Matt