Hi Gordon,
I've had some QuizPort units with a fairly large number of exercises (20 or so which take an hour or more to do) set (except the first and last exercises) to pre-condition=previous quiz, post-condition=menu of all quizzes. My objective was to oblige them to do the exercises in order.
A few students have complained about a Moodle or computer crash (I'm not quite sure what's happening as they don't explain very clearly) forcing them to "abandon" the unit. When they return, they have to start the unit all over again and are justifiably annoyed. Though it's only happened to 3/48 students, I've felt I had to give up the pre- and post-conditions to avoid their frustration.
Is there any way when a computer crashes that their attempt can continue to be considered "In progress" instead of "Abandoned"? Or is their another way to set up the pre- and post-conditions? Or any other way round students being forced to do again what they've already done successfully?
Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson
Re: QuizPort: Forced "abandon" means restarting the unit
by Gordon Bateson -
Even if their computer crashes, they should be able to resume from the quiz they were doing if the unit's "Allow resume" is set to yes, and the conditions for the quizzes allow repeated access to a quiz.
I would think that if you had a pre-condition of "Previous quiz" on all except the first quiz, and post conditions of ">= 80%: next quiz" otherwise "Same quiz", students should be able to resume from the beginning of the quiz where they crashed.
Could you confirm what the unit's "Allow resume" setting is, and give us a screenshot of the condtions?
thanks
Gordon
In reply to Gordon Bateson
Re: QuizPort: Forced "abandon" means restarting the unit
by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Gordon,
Yes, all my units are set to "Allow resume" and "Unlimited attempts" and all the quizzes set to "Allow review" and "Unlimited attempts".
At the moment, I have no conditions (except "End of quiz" for the last quiz) set for the sections the students are currently working on.
You still have access to the course Anglais pour Master 1 ITEF : Parcours santé 2009-2010
if you'd like to have a look.
Units (i.e. Sections) 1-2 have pre- and post- conditions as shown below. That was the way I had everything until I thought maybe removing conditions would solve the forced redoing of all quizzes.
While checking settings, I noticed that, unlike all the other options, "Allow resume" and "Review options" are represented by numbers. I had to do some detective work to find out what 260 meant.
Cheers,
Glenys
Yes, all my units are set to "Allow resume" and "Unlimited attempts" and all the quizzes set to "Allow review" and "Unlimited attempts".
At the moment, I have no conditions (except "End of quiz" for the last quiz) set for the sections the students are currently working on.
You still have access to the course Anglais pour Master 1 ITEF : Parcours santé 2009-2010
if you'd like to have a look.
Units (i.e. Sections) 1-2 have pre- and post- conditions as shown below. That was the way I had everything until I thought maybe removing conditions would solve the forced redoing of all quizzes.
While checking settings, I noticed that, unlike all the other options, "Allow resume" and "Review options" are represented by numbers. I had to do some detective work to find out what 260 meant.
Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson
Re: QuizPort: Forced "abandon" means restarting the unit
by Gordon Bateson -
Hi Glenys,
thanks for giving me access to your site. I went to the QuizPort and tried the first of quizzes. In the third quiz, I clicked on the course page link in the Moodle navigation bar, and clicked "OK" to the warning message about how leaving the quiz would abandoned this quiz attempt but allow me to try the quiz again later.
On the course page, I confirmed that my role was "Etudiant", and went back into the QuizPort. The entry page was displayed for me along with details of my previous attempt which had a "Resume" button by it - see attached screenshot. I clicked the "Resume" button and resumed from quiz number 3. Great - it worked!
At the moment, I think the only way that the students could have restarted the QuizPort would be if the clicked the "Start a new attempt" button instead of the "Resume" button. Maybe those instructions should be in the students native language?
By the way, and please forgive me if you know this already, but if you set the QuizPort's "Allow resume" setting to "Force" then students will be forced to resume the previous unit attempt, which would remove any confusion caused by having two buttons to click.
Oh, and while we are talking about "Allow resume" thanks for pointing out that it is displayed as a number not text on the "Edit quizzes" page. I have corrected that, and also removed the "Review options" because they are not really doing anything at present, and you can get the improved display next time your Moodle site is updated with the latest QuizPort.
To further investigate the difficulties of the students who say they have "crashed", we need more information about what happened. If you would like to send me a private email about which etudiant(s) we are talking about, we can look at the logs and the QuizPort reports to try and work out what happened.
regards
Gordon
thanks for giving me access to your site. I went to the QuizPort and tried the first of quizzes. In the third quiz, I clicked on the course page link in the Moodle navigation bar, and clicked "OK" to the warning message about how leaving the quiz would abandoned this quiz attempt but allow me to try the quiz again later.
On the course page, I confirmed that my role was "Etudiant", and went back into the QuizPort. The entry page was displayed for me along with details of my previous attempt which had a "Resume" button by it - see attached screenshot. I clicked the "Resume" button and resumed from quiz number 3. Great - it worked!
At the moment, I think the only way that the students could have restarted the QuizPort would be if the clicked the "Start a new attempt" button instead of the "Resume" button. Maybe those instructions should be in the students native language?
By the way, and please forgive me if you know this already, but if you set the QuizPort's "Allow resume" setting to "Force" then students will be forced to resume the previous unit attempt, which would remove any confusion caused by having two buttons to click.
Oh, and while we are talking about "Allow resume" thanks for pointing out that it is displayed as a number not text on the "Edit quizzes" page. I have corrected that, and also removed the "Review options" because they are not really doing anything at present, and you can get the improved display next time your Moodle site is updated with the latest QuizPort.
To further investigate the difficulties of the students who say they have "crashed", we need more information about what happened. If you would like to send me a private email about which etudiant(s) we are talking about, we can look at the logs and the QuizPort reports to try and work out what happened.
regards
Gordon
In reply to Gordon Bateson
Re: QuizPort: Forced "abandon" means restarting the unit
by Glenys Hanson -
Hi Gordon,
Thanks so much for going to have a look.
The students have the interface in French, they have instructions in French and I've explained several times in forums about clicking on "Resume". But I'm not sure if that's the cause of the problem.
No, I didn't realise I could set the "Allow resume" button to "Force". I'll try that.
I'd been wondering what the "Review options" did these days.
I'll send you a list of students who've had problems tomorrow. It's getting a little late for me now.
Cheers,
Glenys
Thanks so much for going to have a look.
The students have the interface in French, they have instructions in French and I've explained several times in forums about clicking on "Resume". But I'm not sure if that's the cause of the problem.
No, I didn't realise I could set the "Allow resume" button to "Force". I'll try that.
I'd been wondering what the "Review options" did these days.
I'll send you a list of students who've had problems tomorrow. It's getting a little late for me now.
Cheers,
Glenys
In reply to Glenys Hanson
Re: QuizPort: Forced "abandon" means restarting the unit
by Gordon Bateson -
I suppose we could try a real crash - just unplug the electricity cable to the PC while we are in the middle of a quiz 
I wouldn't like to do that on one of my main computers, but I might try it on an old machine that is no longer "state of the art" and which I have abused before in this kind of extreme computing experiment.
Here it is starting up ... oh, Windows 98 !! .. start the browser (IE 5.5) ... go to your site, log in as a student, access the QuizPort, click "Resume", finish the attempt at Exercise 2, here comes Exercise 3, select a few answers, click check (30%), now pull the plug (!!) ... black screen.
I restarted the computer and let it do the disk checking that it likes to do after a crash. When I went back to your site and logged in again as a student, the "Resume" button took me back to the start of Exercise 3, which is what I expected. Great 
. I finished exercise 3 and the menu of quizzes was displayed.
From what I have seen to far using my computers, everything looks normal. But obviously the students had a different experience so I look forward to receiving info more information tomorrow.
regards
Gordon