Hello Moodlers!
I would sure appreciate some input on this. I created a large database of mathematics questions that other instructors would like to use and of I would love to share but do not want the questions in my quizzes changes as each instructor customizes and edits them as they need to. I realize if they do a "save as" it will not change the original question but the chances of someone forgetting to do that are high. Is there a way I can change the extension to multiple questions quickly. I have over a thousand questions in many different categories. What is the quickest way to accomplish this?
Thanks for your input!
The standard advice is to publish your question categories. Then they will be visible to other courses, and read-only too. If you do this, however, you will probably run into problems with the visibility of images contained in questions, because the images belong to your course. To make them visible outside your course, you would have to move them to a public place like site files, or somewhere publicly accessible on the Web. This would be a lot of work for you, since you'd not only have to move the images, but also repair all the broken links in your questions.
Another way is to make your course a meta-course and make all the other math teachers' courses depend on it. This makes your questions AND images visible. But as I understand it, other teachers would have editing permission in the meta-course and could modify your questions. Oops.
I too have a large database of math questions and have similar requirements to yours. The solution I chose (after trying all the others) only works if you are site administrator or have editing privileges in course 1 (the "front page" of the site, which is also actually a course!). If so, you can backup your course (questions only) and restore it into course 1. Then publish all your categories, making them visible everywhere. Your images become site files, making them visible everywhere as well. The links should be automatically adjusted by the restore, so there are no broken links to repair, but this is a quirky area of Moodle, and I wouldn't bet on it. But as I said, this is a solution that is only available to you if the site is under your control, or if you are very friendly with the site administrator
Yet another way to do what you want is to offer backup files of your course to anyone who wants to use your questions. In making the backup, only export the questions. Give a backup file to the other teacher (e.g., put it on a disk and hand it to them). By restoring your course into their course, they will get their own personal copy of all your questions, images, etc., so their changes won't affect you. Of course this is not true "sharing." You now have multiple versions of your questions floating around the school. If there's an error in one of the questions, it's replicated multiple times. Bad, bad, bad! Much better to share a single copy through one of the other methods.
Another way is to make your course a meta-course and make all the other math teachers' courses depend on it. This makes your questions AND images visible. But as I understand it, other teachers would have editing permission in the meta-course and could modify your questions. Oops.
I too have a large database of math questions and have similar requirements to yours. The solution I chose (after trying all the others) only works if you are site administrator or have editing privileges in course 1 (the "front page" of the site, which is also actually a course!). If so, you can backup your course (questions only) and restore it into course 1. Then publish all your categories, making them visible everywhere. Your images become site files, making them visible everywhere as well. The links should be automatically adjusted by the restore, so there are no broken links to repair, but this is a quirky area of Moodle, and I wouldn't bet on it. But as I said, this is a solution that is only available to you if the site is under your control, or if you are very friendly with the site administrator
Yet another way to do what you want is to offer backup files of your course to anyone who wants to use your questions. In making the backup, only export the questions. Give a backup file to the other teacher (e.g., put it on a disk and hand it to them). By restoring your course into their course, they will get their own personal copy of all your questions, images, etc., so their changes won't affect you. Of course this is not true "sharing." You now have multiple versions of your questions floating around the school. If there's an error in one of the questions, it's replicated multiple times. Bad, bad, bad! Much better to share a single copy through one of the other methods.
to put it simply:
create a metacourse for teachers.
import those questions which you'd want to share into that metacourse.
period.
Metacourses solve only half of Debra's problem. Questions in a metacourse are not read-only and can be modified by teachers in sub-courses. There is no "simple" solution to this problem.
Hi,
I created a metacourse and imported my question bank. I've added the subcourse I want to have access to the bank, but it does not show up under questions or question categories. I've double checked that they are linked, etc...
Does anyone know of a walkthrough/tutorial on the process somewhere? I haven't been able to find anything via searching as of yet that says how to do it, as opposed to describing what can be done.
Thanks in advance for any help,
-Russ
I created a metacourse and imported my question bank. I've added the subcourse I want to have access to the bank, but it does not show up under questions or question categories. I've double checked that they are linked, etc...
Does anyone know of a walkthrough/tutorial on the process somewhere? I haven't been able to find anything via searching as of yet that says how to do it, as opposed to describing what can be done.
Thanks in advance for any help,
-Russ
Hello Debra.
Hopefully the questions in your large database of maths questions are grouped into various question categories (in the Moodle jargon) named e.g. DebraMathsAlgebra, DebraMathsGeometry, DebraMathsTrigonometry, etc.
You are willing to make those questions available to other teachers on your Moodle site. Kind of you.
You want those teachers to be able to edit the questions, but you don't want your own original questions to be edited, botched up, etc.
What about this scenario?
- In your own course (DEBRA01), give all the categories you want to share the "publish" status.
- Teacher John Doe can now see in his course's question bank the questions in the DebraMathsAlgebra(DEBRA01), DebraMathsGeometry(DEBRA01), etc. categories. He can use them "as is" in his own quizzes, he can preview them, but he can't edit them.
- If teacher John Doe wants do edit some (or all) of the questions in category DebraMathsAlgebra, he will have to copy them to his own questions bank first by doing the following.
- In Edit Questions mode, JD goes to the DebraMathsAlgebra((DEBRA01) category and clicks on the Export questions to file link. He selects an export format (I would recommend Moodle XML format, in case the questions contain images).
- The DebraMathsAlgebra category questions are saved in JD's course's Files/backupdata/quiz folder, under the name e.g. quiz-cf101-debra_s_questions-20061116-1459.xml
- JD now creates a new question category, called e.g. JohnMathsAlgebra. This category is empty.
- JD clicks on the Import questions from file link; selects file quiz-cf101-debra_s_questions-20061116-1459.xml to populate his own JohnMathsAlgebra category will all the questions from DebraMathsAlgebra.
- Now JD can preview, edit, use the former Debra questions as if they are his own questions.
- For tidiness's sake, JD should now remove the quiz-cf101-debra_s_questions-20061116-1459.xml file from his Files/backupdata/quiz folder.
Note.- I have tested this on my Moodle 1.6.3 local install, it works fine (including images in question text). I have not tested it with sub-categories.
This scenario looks complicated, but I think it might be one acceptable solution (alongwith the other solutions suggested by John). Please test and report to us,
Joseph
Hi Joseph,
The images may seem to work fine, but it is easy to be fooled. Try accessing the questions from a course in which you are neither a teacher nor a student. You will see the questions, but the images will appear as broken links because you do not have permission to look at someone else's course files. Oops.
The images may seem to work fine, but it is easy to be fooled. Try accessing the questions from a course in which you are neither a teacher nor a student. You will see the questions, but the images will appear as broken links because you do not have permission to look at someone else's course files. Oops.
Oops, John, you are quite right. In my quick testing I had forgotten to empty my browser's cache, so I could see those pictures even when I was enrolled in their original course.
Maybe my workaround still works for Debra if she does not have images in her questions.
Joseph
Maybe my workaround still works for Debra if she does not have images in her questions.
Joseph
Oh God...are we going to go allover again about image issues?
I think the previous discussion too was between John, JR and I when we had discussed this at length.
1.Anyway...if teachers modify questions in meta course, it's ok with debra coz she has her own questions stashed away in her course and they don't get affected.
2.for images, a metacourse would serve them as well but if you don't want that then there are the options of keeping images somewhere else and putting <img src="etc etc"> in the question (i find it the easiest and quickest way of inserting images)
I think the previous discussion too was between John, JR and I when we had discussed this at length.
1.Anyway...if teachers modify questions in meta course, it's ok with debra coz she has her own questions stashed away in her course and they don't get affected.
2.for images, a metacourse would serve them as well but if you don't want that then there are the options of keeping images somewhere else and putting <img src="etc etc"> in the question (i find it the easiest and quickest way of inserting images)
Thanks everyone for your feedback. I do appreciate it and unfortunately I do have a lot of images i my questions but it sounds like this will work for some. I will try the metacourse idea and let you all know how it goes.
THANKS
THANKS
Yes, please give us a report on your experience.
You can always export them in one course and import them in another. Use the Moodle XML format as that will transfer the images too.
Since this discussion shows up in searches, I thought it would be a good idea to refer people to the following page so that you get information that is current.
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Question_Engine_Changes_in_Moodle_1.9#Access_to_question_categories_shared_outside_a_course
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Question_Engine_Changes_in_Moodle_1.9#Access_to_question_categories_shared_outside_a_course
Hi Debra
I am mathematics teacher and would like to use your questions. Is it possible I could use them?
As part of my PhD I'm conducting research into how to support teachers sharing question databases.
If you have a question database and have shared it or are planning to, please contact me. Even if you have no intention of sharing your question database, I'd like to talk to you too if you have specific reasons.
turadg@cs.cmu.edu
thank you,
Turadg Aleahmad
If you have a question database and have shared it or are planning to, please contact me. Even if you have no intention of sharing your question database, I'd like to talk to you too if you have specific reasons.
turadg@cs.cmu.edu
thank you,
Turadg Aleahmad
Hi,
Would it be possible to obtain a copy of your database in GIFT format?
Thanks
James
Would it be possible to obtain a copy of your database in GIFT format?
Thanks
James
I understand the new contexts in Moodle 1.9. However, I have a situation where we run one moodle server for the whole school district. Then, we have setup a sub-context for each school. Then within each of those contexts we have specific courses. The problem we are having is teachers from different schools wish to share questions.
The only place they meet is at the top or system level. We could create categories here, but it will get too busy too fast. Each one of these courses uses about 20 question categories. Multiply that by even a few courses and the number of shared categories the average teacher will see will blow them away.
So is there any way to share questions between courses that do not share a context? Any help would be very valuable. Thank you.
This is what we have:
But this is the kind of sharing we want. Remember, each of the schools named in this graphic are not in the same context. They only meet up at the very top level or the System context:
The only place they meet is at the top or system level. We could create categories here, but it will get too busy too fast. Each one of these courses uses about 20 question categories. Multiply that by even a few courses and the number of shared categories the average teacher will see will blow them away.
So is there any way to share questions between courses that do not share a context? Any help would be very valuable. Thank you.
This is what we have:
But this is the kind of sharing we want. Remember, each of the schools named in this graphic are not in the same context. They only meet up at the very top level or the System context:
What you are asking for is not possible at the moment.
While the sharing options in Moodle 1.9 are much more flexible (and less buggy) than what went before, I now think that they are still not sufficiently flexible for everything people want to do. Therefore we will need to re-visit this some time. However, I am not likely to have time to work on it until Moodle 2.1 at the earliest. For now, we just need to have the discussions about all the different ways people want to be able to share questions, so, when it comes to designing a new improved system, we know what the goals are.
While the sharing options in Moodle 1.9 are much more flexible (and less buggy) than what went before, I now think that they are still not sufficiently flexible for everything people want to do. Therefore we will need to re-visit this some time. However, I am not likely to have time to work on it until Moodle 2.1 at the earliest. For now, we just need to have the discussions about all the different ways people want to be able to share questions, so, when it comes to designing a new improved system, we know what the goals are.
We have our Moodle admin create a 'shared' folder in the Moodle file system, and then we put (manually) symbolic links in the Files for each Moodle course we want to have access to these resources. Then faculty in different courses can all link to the same media in the same way. or they can import questions without having to re-import the course files each time.
it's manual and needs techie intervention, but it's not hard. And once it's setup it seems to work ok. The danger is, of course, when people start deleting other people's stuff. But we've explained this issue to the faculty involved in detail and mostly it's been ok in practice.
it's manual and needs techie intervention, but it's not hard. And once it's setup it seems to work ok. The danger is, of course, when people start deleting other people's stuff. But we've explained this issue to the faculty involved in detail and mostly it's been ok in practice.
In my opinion, questions and access rights are handled more consequent in 1.9 ... but metacourse seems to be not regarded, which I find is inconsequent.
I expect to have all permissions in the metacourse that I have in the connected child-courses - to access files and questions stored in the connected metacourse.
Since this is not implemented, quite a lot of additional work has to be done at our site, to rearrange question-sharing.
Does anyone know an entry in the moodle-tracker for this topic ... I'd like to vote for it.
Best Regards,
thomas
I expect to have all permissions in the metacourse that I have in the connected child-courses - to access files and questions stored in the connected metacourse.
Since this is not implemented, quite a lot of additional work has to be done at our site, to rearrange question-sharing.
Does anyone know an entry in the moodle-tracker for this topic ... I'd like to vote for it.
Best Regards,
thomas