Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Carlos Andrade -
Number of replies: 18
Hello i've been trying to use the Advanced uploading of files as a Feedback but this "Send notifications emails" won't work at all for me.

This is how i intended to use it:

I wanted an administrator or a teacher moderator to send a "feedback file" to each user using the grade evaluation system of this tool(When you click on the top right link of the assignment and on the next page you can click "GRADE" or "UPDATE" button for each user this window i'm talking about comes up). So we would attach a file which would be our feedback for each student(the file would be different for each of them) and then save it.

I was expecting this student who i attached a file without him sending or posting anything, just being part of that specific course to be able to receive a notification saying at least something related to this feedback only the teacher would add, but from what i've tested the user student profile would never receive anything, even if i set them as teacher.

I tried to look the help notification but there was nothing related to this.

Does anyone know how could I do what I want and what's this send notification emails for? I couldn't find much on this tool documentation(other than the notification for teachers which is not what i'm talking about) and the track list.

I'm using 1.9.4

This is a image i hosted at shack.us that shows exactly what i'm talking about.



Thank you!




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In reply to Carlos Andrade

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Ok - I am sorry this isn't much help but - Two things - first, yes that "send notification email" should send an email to the student and if it doesn't then it suggests your email system from moodle isn't working in some way or that the student's profile is set so their emails are disabled.Second - but this is just my own curiosity-why go to the trouble of attaching a feedback file when you could just type individual feedback straight into that box on Moodle below the grades drop down?
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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Carlos Andrade -
Hello thanks Mary for answering,so about what you said:

The student e-mails are enabled, i just checked on the two test user profiled i created, and i'm sure since i tried to send offline messages and i received notifications for that, so is this really a bug on 1.9.4.? I guess what i'm doing is pretty much what the documentation suggests as "You can add files before the student send anything so that he/she works on the file you sent". I was wondering, if i grade the student without him sending anything, and then update the message would it send a new notification for him as well?

I guess i didn't mention before but, would the student receive notifications even if the assignment is set to no grade?

About your second question, this pdf is going to be needed because the students might want to use it somewhere. To be honest, the real purpose of what i'm trying to do is to provide an pdf that could be used to confirm that the student has been aproved on a specific course until the certificate is finished and we can send. It would maybe also be used to send other proof that the user is actually enrolled on an specific course for his/her job and other needs before the course is finished.

Thanks
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In reply to Carlos Andrade

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by ben reynolds -
Hi,
We use advanced uploading for the same purpose. At the end of each week, the instructor uploads a file, adds a comment (which may be the file copied into the text box or may be just "download your feedback for the week").

For quite a long time, our students did not receive notification that the file was there. It seems to be an issue with cron.

Direct messaging does not use cron. So, if I go to Mary's profile and message her and she is not logged into this site, she will get an email containing my message.

But if I were to upload a file in advanced uploading, the message would be handled by the cron job. It took my IT person quite a bit of fiddling to get cron to run the file uploaded/graded notices. Same with the notice teachers should get when the student adds a note to advanced uploading.

The forum email notices have been running fine all along, but the advanced uploading notices were not.

The documentation on cron that I found was severely limited. I do not know where my IT person found more information.
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to ben reynolds

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Clint McDuffie -
Thank you. That was extremely helpful.
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In reply to ben reynolds

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Carlos Andrade -
Thanks Ben! At least now i know where my problem is. I'm going to search around here what i can do, if anyone get other information related to this issue or how to solve it here please let me know.

Thanks
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In reply to ben reynolds

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Rick Barnes -
Hi, we are not using notifications but we have found that pupils are unable to see the feedback files uploaded by teachers in the advanced assignments. Have you had similar problems or have I missed out a step setting them up?
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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by ben reynolds -
Hi Rick,
You must enter a comment in the textbox. Otherwise the file is not visible to students.

I don't know why that is so, but I found someone else's comment that it was so. Below are the instructions we use to tell teachers how to provide feedback.

How to Post Feedback

  1. Write your report (unless you plan to paste it in the feedback box).
  2. Go to Grades.
  3. Click on the name of the report (e.g., Lesson X Feedback, Midterm Report, Progress Report).
  4. Upload the file or cut and paste into box. [FYI, right now you and the student can both upload 3 files max per course. You can delete a file by clicking on the X after its name.]
  5. Even if you upload a file, you MUST also insert a comment in the feedback box or the student won't be able to see your file.
  6. We don't do "grades," but you may choose to use a range of quality scale ("Novice, Apprentice, Proficient") or something similar found in the upper right corner above feedback box.
  7. Save changes.
  8. When you have uploaded/posted comments for all your students, go out to the main classroom page and click on the closed eye closed eye to open it up. Once the eye is open, the students will have access to your feedback in the classroom by following the directions below. [If you don't see the closed eye, click on the "Turn Editing On" button on the Home page and the eye and other options will be revealed.]
  9. Send email to students and parents to let them know that your feedback has been posted in the classroom. Be sure to instruct them how to access the feedback in the classroom and how to post a parental acknowledgment that the feedback was read.


How Student and Parent Access Instructor Feedback

Students and parents:

1. Log into the course and click on Lesson _ Feedback

2. Students: Please read the Feedback (If the instructor provides individualized feedback in the form of an attachment, be sure to click on the attachment icon on the bottom left of the page).

3. Parents: Please scroll down to the end of the Feedback page--not to the end of any attachment-- to the Notes section, click on Edit, enter your name and comments, and click on Save Changes. This Note lets the instructor know that you have read the feedback for that lesson.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to ben reynolds

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Rick Barnes -
Thanks, I knew there would be a reason, I could not find any related settings.

I always type up my feedback in the comment box, but one of my staff has just started to annotate pupils pdf files and upload his version for pupils to look at. Caused chaos this morning when his lesson plan was based around the feedback files and they were not available.
Takes me back, I used to annotate in word using the reviewing tools until I moved to a school using office 2000 and needed to keep file sizes on the Moodle server down by using pdf uploads.
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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Rick Barnes -
We have gone back to check that feedback has been entered in the HTML editor as well as the uploaded feedback files. Pupils are still unable to see the feedback or the feedback files.

Rick
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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by ben reynolds -
Argh. It's a bad day for me, so I won't be able to test this problem until tonight. Memory says that the feedback should be visible immediately, but I've never tried adding it to the html editor after a file has been uploaded. And, I'm pretty sure when cron runs the notifications has nothing to do w/ visibility.
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In reply to ben reynolds

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Rick Barnes -
Most of the pupils should have already had feedback before the files were uploaded but it may not have been edited when the files were uploaded.

Rick
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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by ben reynolds -
Hi Rick,
I finally got a few minutes to test this problem. Here's what I did.

  1. as teacher, uploaded file. put no comment in the html editor, did not use the grade drop down. Saved changes.
  2. logged out and logged back in as student.
  3. could not see the uploaded file.
  4. logged out and logged back in as teacher
  5. wrote a note in the html editor, did not use the grade drop down
  6. logged out and logged back in as student.
  7. hit control-R for the hard refresh (before I even looked, darn it; i should have looked to see if it was visible).
  8. the comment and the file were visible to the student less than 30 seconds after the comments had been posted
So, I'm not sure why your students aren't seeing the uploaded files.

I also realized after all this log in/log out stuff that 2 browsers would have been easier & faster, but it's the middle of the afternoon on Friday.
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In reply to ben reynolds

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Rick Barnes -
Hi, been away for halt term with no internet or mobile, what a luxury.
Pupils can't see any feedback since we uploaded the first feedback files.
Deleting the feedback file and/or editing the feedback comments has no effect.
The effect seems to be for all users of that assignment, once feedback files have been uploaded no feedback is visible. For assignments where no feedback files have been uploaded there is no problem.

However.....
I have just tried to recreate the problem by uploading a file to a new assignment in a new course with no problems at all.

The only difference between the courses is the use of groupings in the problem course.
Rick

Rick
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In reply to Rick Barnes

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by ben reynolds -
Oh groupings. That's something I haven't personally used. Anybody else have comments about Advanced Uploading Assignments and use of groupings?
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In reply to ben reynolds

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Susan Montgomery -
His IT person installed MoodleCron, then went into regedit and altered the entry to call the cron via web, i.e. 
http://site.example.com/admin/cron.php?password=opensesame

MoodleCron (on Windows) will call the cron via direct path, for example, C:moodle\admin\cron.php
If you are running with the code as implemented, it seems to do better with cron being called through the url.

To do this, install Moodlecron, creating each instance as usual.
Go to Start/Run type in regedit, and enter.
The registry will pop up.
navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Moodlecron/sites
In the right pane, right click the cron you wish to edit and select modify
In Value Data, paste the url with your server details and password (deafault is opensesame)
Click Ok
Do this for each site.
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In reply to Carlos Andrade

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Derek Chirnside -
My question is a little different. I'l not start a new thread.
The desired scenario of to have time to mark the assignments and then have all the e-mails to students and feedback to happen at the same time.

What I did was:
  1. Create assignment
  2. Accept submissions
  3. Hide it
  4. mark it
  5. Unhide it
Nothing was mailed out.
By way of check: marking when unhidden does result in e-mails. So e-mail seems OK. But if I understand cron jobs, what I suggest is difficult. Cron just sends mails on time, not doing other stuff like checkng when they were queued etc.

- Derek
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In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Teresa Gibbison -
Hi Derek
Some of our lecturers also require this scenario, my solution to them is
  1. Mark each assignment individually without sending feedback
  2. View the assignment submissions screen with 'Allow Quick Grading' preference checked & saved
  3. Alter the comment field slightly for each student (a space at the end of a sentence is enough)
  4. Check the 'Send notification emails' checkbox
  5. Click "Save all my feedback" at the bottom of the page
This is time consuming when there are lots of students but the feedback that I have received is that it works well.

I hope this helps
Cheers
Teresa
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In reply to Teresa Gibbison

Re: Using Assignment(Advanced uploading of files) as a Feedback

by Matt Bower -

Hi.

I am using Moodle 2.0 and even if I enter a comment in the text box after uploading a file students cannot see the uploaded feedback file. I have to go into each student assignment and manually select "send notification email".

Once all tutors have uploaded their feedback files it would be handy to be able to select all students at once to send them a notification rather than scroll through a class of hundreds of students and manually check the box.

Is this a Moodle 2.0 bug or is there some way around this?

Thanks for your help.

Matt

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