Thomas,
You are right that one way to go about it would be to use the Topic format but, then there would be no timing of the quizzes, without asking teachers to go into their quizes and change the quiz timings. I think that I am going to be hard pressed to get them to open their course page and press even an attendance button.
I hoping that I can have the content of the course(s) pretty much set up by the time the course begins. But the timing is something that I think will remain unpredictable, and it is something that is very sensitive, crucial. My spelling mistakes and the odd duff question are forgivable but if a quiz is closed, or not yet open, for a class then it will not be cool.
The aim is to have some sort of system to ensure that students do a bit of practice each week. Of course instructors will be encouraged to set their own homework, essays or forums or whatever, but if on top of that, if there is some moodle (hotpoodle) evaul-practice then that would be ideal.
So at the moment I am thinking of one Topic format course (perhaps divided into groups) with quizes open for a three week window but as mentioned before, Students will probably do their homework once every three weeks.
Using one course page for all (26) courses will mean that I will not be able to make the window of opportunity smaller than about 3 weeks.
Splitting into 26 courses will mean that both content and timings would require individual attention, but as I say, I think that the content (other than timings) will not need to change all that much. I can always backup and restore 26 times if I find any serious flaws in the content.
The biggest change-reqiring, workload will be in the timing, I think, for the reasons outlined above (teacher sick, students slow or absent, unforseen holiday due to student festival or bomb etc. Yesterday there was a bomb scare at my university.)
And of coures I can edit timings too. But I just think it is going to be fraught. I will get a mail saying "Half the students were late so we could only do half the material," I will reply saying "So, do you want me to extend the homework for an extra week?" and by the time I get the reply I will be busy or forget exactly until when the teacher wants me to postpone to...
Well... Honest, it seemed to me that a "class-done!" button and quiz-timings relative to presses of that button would be a really good way of going about things.
It would also ensure that teachers visited their pages at least once a week, and who knows, they might feel like posting to forums and the like.
Yes, it would need an extra database entry I suppose. I am not sure though. To implement the lesser of the two types of "class-done" (teacher-attendance) button, that creates a one week time-frame from the moment it is pressed, then it might be possible to use current moodle functionality...
When we make a quiz normally then pressing the final "save quiz button" creates a one week window of opportunity from the time of that key press. One quick option might be to implement the "course-done" button by somehow adding a sort of "(re)make quiz" button on the course page (as opposed to the quiz page). I know that remaking a quiz does not normally reset the dates of that quiz. So the button would both have to be moved (from inside the quiz to on the course page) and its function changed so that instead of REmaking it has the same effect of making from scratch, except leaving the questions intact.
To set up a system to make quizes run *between* button presses would be a lot more difficult.
Longwindedly, sorry,
Tim
Timothy Takemoto
Your request for a lock/unlock mecanisim will be nearly entirely satisfied if each teacher if enrolled in only one group at a time. A course common lock/unlock quiz may be use to control access to all items of a Topic. For example, if teacher of group #3 unlock the topic then the topic will be unlocked for only the students of that group. 