Anthony,
I want the questions to go with the quiz. However I don't want to import ALL questions and ALL categories.
Besides I have difficulties deleting the not-wanted categories after an import (after deletion of the not-wanted questions). So far I have been forced to delete them manually from the database.
I can live with the import of ALL the course files as this is the safe way for linked materials to work.
Morten
Thanks Anthony,
I can see the underlying thinking of this mass import.
But this is what I experience:
I import one quiz from course A to course B and then one quiz from course B to course C.
Then course C contains all questions, categories and resource files from course A and B. Most of them are not wanted and we are talking 800 not wanted questions in 40 categories and a lot of files and folders.
I end of having every course containing every other course.
On top of that I'm not able to delete the unwanted categories using the 'Edit categories' interface (after deleting the questions). I get a warning message saying the categori has questions in it (telling me to move the questions first). That is why I have to manually delete these empty categories directly from the database's mdl_question_categories.
Besides my fellow teachers complain that they cannot edit some of the imported questions as they belong to the originator.
So something unhealthy happened to my database during these backup's and restore's during the last month.
The safe way seems to be:
1. Export the wanted questions to the desktop as MoodleXML including the categories (tick the 'to file').
2. Open just that one file in a text editor, and do a FindAndReplace to replace all occurrences of course related resource links like "http://mydomain.com/file.php/32/". Substitute '32' with the course number for the destination course.
3. Make a zip file of the wanted resourse files. Download this to the desktop.
4. Upload and unpack the zip file to the file system of the destination course.
5. Import the questions including the categories (tick the 'to file') into the destination course.
6. Author new quizzes using the imported questions.
Best regards
Morten
Anthony,
The ideal situation is actually what is promised by the import page. You put a check mark on the material you want to be imported.
So if I want to import a quiz then the relevant questions and the category should go with it (ignore import of quizzes with random questions). The questions should also belong to the destination course and thus be editable. If the category allready exist no new identical category should be created. Also only the linked resources in the relevant questions should be imported and the questions relinked. If the source folder and the destination folder in the file system are identical then the resourse files should be put in the existing destination folder (and not rejected).
So what you see is what you get, no more no less.
Something very severe happened to the backup and restore system early september so I cannot say my Moodle sites are acting properly anymore. Others might say everything is smooth and perfect with the import facility.
I tried to import a quiz yesterday. The quiz itself had 8 questions and the source course 38 questions all in all. So I expected the import to bring the quiz and 38 questions (among them 8 relevant). But it imported over 200 questions of which a lot of dublicates.
How do you delete dublicate entries in the database?
Is migrating to 1.9 safe at this point? It might cure my databases.
Best regards
Morten
Hi Anthony
I acknowledge with thanks your hard work on the quiz import feature. And I look forward to see if you can fix some of the bad consequencies from importing quizzes.
Until now I have begged my Moodle users not to import quizzes when they want to share or reuse quizzes. I have spent endless hours on cleaning question banks and files in courses after import of a few quizzes.
So I ask you politely to reconsider your strategy. What is the benefit of being able to import one random quiz if you know you'll later have to remove 800 questions and 40 categories from the question bank and 300 files from the file system in 20 folders?
But if I got your message wrong please do correct me.
And surely you cannot make everybody happy - choices have to be made.
Best regards
Morten
Hi Anthony
Don't get me wrong - I'm totally happy with the import function when one wants to import 'the whole Monty'. We use that a lot with great success
But I also do get mails from frustrated Moodle teachers because of their question banks getting messy after sharing quizzes.
One word about this: I'm trying to convince decision makers in Denmark to use Moodle as the platform for e-learning in the gyms. So we have brought 5 gyms together to test Moodle for its ability to intercooperate and share stuff among mainly math and physics teachers. The goal is to produce enough material all together so that this material can be spread to 25 gyms next summer and tested among other teachers who don't necessarily know how to edit questions and quizzes in the first place.
As you can imagine math and physics teachers use media files a lot, so sharing by exporting questions in categories with missing files and broken links to the desktop is not the smoothest method to use.
And cleaning the question bank and file system after an import is unfortunate also out of the question.
So let me try this proposal on importing quizzes (which someone else proposed): Check if any quizzes contains random quizzes. If so import everything like today. If not only import the wanted stuff.
Easy to ask for, but maybe hard to implement...
However it seems as a solution without loss of completeness.
Best regards
Morten
Anthony,
Working on 1.9 is fine with me. And I believe this issue http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-12403 in the Tracker covers the same request.
Importing only the categories in use by the questions in the quizzes would indeed be a perfect workaround.
Thanks
Morten
I totaly agree with this proposal. It makes perfect sense. Since I never ever use random questions myself, I am quite frustrated at the way the quiz import works at the moment, with hundreds of unwanted questions being imported.
Joseph
EDIT.- Actually, I had already proposed this solution in my Sunday, 23 September 2007 post!
EDIT.- Actually, I had already proposed this solution in my Sunday, 23 September 2007 post!
Hehe - I couldn't find your post when referring to it. Didn't think of looking two posts down
Morten
Louis
Thanks for sharing thoughts and kind advices.
We do share questions among each other using the method of publishing.
Or rather we did share questions among each other with this feature. Questions made public (and 'borrowed' this way) were not editable and files were not readable for students in the destination courses (because students were not enrolled in the source course). Also this method gave problems with hidden questions in empty categories. Imagine you have quizzes with borrowed questions and then someone imports a quiz from this course to another course. Then this course gets filled with all regular questions and all borrowed questions (which you cannot edit).
Today I'm not sure if you can take ownership of imported questions through the publish method because I dare not take the risk of using this method anymore (in 1.8.3). And I'm also not sure if the importing of quizzes also imports borrowed questions.
So the safe way seems to be exporting questions to the desktop and zipping and downloading files to the desktop. Then import questions, upload and unzip files and relink questions.
I know I can make life a little easier by putting files in the file system of the front page which all student have access to, but I don't want non-admin Moodle teachers to put them there in the first place.
I guess things are a lot easier when operating one-man
Thanks again
Morten
Anthony,
> How else could you ensure that a quiz with random questions in it will work.Personally I never ever use random questions in a quiz. Anyway, the import process could be made to check whether the imported quizzes do or don't use random questions and, if they don't, then only import those questions which are actually used in them. That would make sense.
I'm afraid not many Moodle users use the import from course facility anyway, or am I wrong?
Joseph
Joseph,
>I'm afraid not many Moodle users use the import from course facility anyway, or am I wrong?
Speaking for myself; I administer several Moodle sites for institutions and business as well. The feature of reusing and copying of material is the most wanted thing.
And I never use random questions neither.
Morten
