New assignment feature - what to call it?

New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -
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Hi everyone, I'm developing a new feature for the Advanced Uploading assignment type which will be submitted as a patch and might go into the Moodle core. MD himself told me to create a patch rather than create a new assignment type. So bearing in mind that this might be used by more than a few people I'd like opinions on what wording to use as I haven't found anything that's just right.

The feature itself is a new option to allow a file to be presented with the assignment text. I imagine this could be used for many more purposes than I can come up with, but I'm thinking:

  • a front sheet where particular information must be given to or gleaned from students. A blank page could be added so students can submit just one file.
  • a file or zip file of example documents
  • a question sheet with spaces left for answers

This is kind of like the Open University resource page, but in-line with the assignements.

SO, on the assignment edit page there will be a box for the filename location and the text to be used for the link. What would you prefer these to be labelled with?

Assignment template? Assignment files? Attachments?


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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Adma Lim -
Hi,

That's a great idea. Teachers could attach a assignment template that they would like their students to work on and submit back via the assignment activity. I could see that this new feature would save time for our teachers, they would not need to upload the template to the Files directory and then add a link to a file after they have created the assignment activity.


Perhaps... you could give it a simple name that it easily to understand what this feature does. Here my suggestions

File name/title: ____________
Upload: ___________________

Or..

Attachment name/title: ____________
Attach file : ___________________

Thanks!
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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Adma Lim -
Hi Red,
When would this patch be available? Hope it works in v1.9.1
Thanks.
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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Martin Dougiamas -
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My +1 vote (only) for "template name" and "template file".

Adma hope you upgrade your site soon to 1.9.4 at least! http://moodle.org/security
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回复Martin Dougiamas

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -

Thanks for the responses. Keep 'em coming.

I should clarify that the string will be stored in a language file, which means it can be changed if necessary. I'm just after a default.

I'm developing this on v1.9.2/3 so v1.9.1 should be fine. We'll be jumping to v1.9.5 as soon as it's available too, so it will work for that should any changes need to be made. Whether we traverse through v.1.9.4 will depend on other peoples decisions. mixed

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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Ray Lawrence -
I'm not sure the suggestions so far actually describe what these options do. Here's my attempt:

Assignment file description
Assignment file

A couple of questions:

Could you code this to allow more than one file to be used?

Advanced uploading only? What about single file upload?

Good stuff, this will be a really neat addition if it hits core. approve
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回复Ray Lawrence

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -

It's currently a 4-horse race with each of the following getting one vote each. Have your say and swing the vote!

Assignment file description
Assignment file

Template name
Template file

File name/title
Upload

Attachment name/title
Attach file

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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Paul Ganderton -
Hi Red,

For my 2c I'd vote for 1 but ask for a small help file/hover over to be included so that students can see what is to be attached. This would be a useful feature especially where you need specific information from the student i.e. cover sheet. I also realise it's possible to do this in other ways but 'intuitive' is in the head of the person (and clerarly varies!).

Thanks,

Paul
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回复Paul Ganderton

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -
Thanks for your input Paul. Since the screenshot I've added help buttons next to both the boxes to help explain what they are for.

The idea is that this will work the other way round. The Teacher sees this screen and gives a good label or description of what the file they are providing for the student is.

Hopefully I'll have a tracker issue and diff file later today
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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -
Now in Tracker MDL-18986.

Can I ask those who are interested to download and try the patch? It's the first one I've done, so I'm not sure if it's right or not.

Thanks
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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -
Can I ask if people are using this, or maybe put off by the fact that it's a diff file? Would a zip file make it easier for people to try it?
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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Davo Smith -
Core developers的头像 Particularly helpful Moodlers的头像 Peer reviewers的头像 Plugin developers的头像
Interestingly I've just implemented a related feature in my UploadPDF assignment type.

My version allows the teacher to specify a PDF to use as a coversheet, which is then automatically stuck onto the front of the PDF files that students have submitted. Before the student submits their work, they have to fill in a number of fields (as specified in a template, chosen by the teacher) and their responses are used to fill in the coversheet.

I don't know if there are any ideas in there that would be helpful, but please feel free to try out my plugin (and let me know of any bugs smile).
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回复Davo Smith

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Brigitte Williams -
Hi there! I'm new to this forum but I'm very interested in learning how to adapt my own e-learning space to incorporate uploads. Can you put me on your list of interested parties. I am new to moodle but have my own site now and I'm creating content for it all the time. I teach in a high school in NSW - in Australia. I wonder how big the moodle community is here - anybody know the answer to this?
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回复Brigitte Williams

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -
I'm bumping this after a discussion with Anthony today brought it back to the front of my mind. We've found this addition very useful at our college and for selfish and selfless reasons I'd like it to be considered for core. The selfless is the obvious sharing, and the selfish is so I don't have to patch each upgrade big grin

Brigitte, and anyone else who likes this idea, you can go to MDL-18986 and vote for it. The more votes an issue gets, the more likely it is to be done.
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回复Red Morris

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Gary Anderson -
Red:

Help me better understand what this feature will do, as it seems to me that you can already do this in existing assignments and other activities as follows:

  • In the current assignment description box, type something like: "Please modify this word document and then upload your modified version.
  • Select the words "this word document"
  • Click the link icon in the editor.
  • Upload the file which will put it in the course file space.

Since we are pretty much confined to browser activities in a web application like Moodle (you can not just open a file and then save -- the student must re-upload it), I am not exactly clear what making a new assignment type or adding a file selector will do that could not be done with the above instructions.

--Gary
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回复Gary Anderson

Re: New assignment feature - what to call it?

Red Morris -

Hi Gary,

What you're saying is correct, and technically I've not written a new feature. I've simplified the process for an existing one.

It shows it slightly differently too because it pulls the file icon and shows it after the assignment text, but that's semantics.

However, do your teachers manage the way you suggested? I know ours couldn't. And the fact that others have commented on this feature without mentioning the existing way of doing this implies to me that it wasn't intuitive to them and/or their teachers would struggle with it too.

As a finishing note, I've now got it implemented in uploadsingle too, and I've added help buttons to explain what the options are for.

Red

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