Moodle in English: assessment elements

assessment elements

by Irene Pelegrí Colomer - Sunday, October 31, 2004, 9:09 PM

Hello,

I'm trying to use the workshop module with Moodle 1.4. Some of the workshop settings are as follows:

grading - accumulative assessment elements - 5 resubmissions - no assessment examples from teacher - 3 number of assessments - 3

The problem is that I can edit only 2 assesment elements. When I edit the 3rd, 4th or the 5th elements I get the following message:

Could not insert workshop element!

and the system takes me out of the course. I can't even edit the workshop.

Am I doing something wrong? This is the first time I'm building a course with Moodle. Thanks for your ideas,

Irene

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Thursday, November 11, 2004, 7:20 AM

I had the same problem today. It was possible to insert 3 of 9 elements, but it kicked me out if I put in too much text. I resolved it by keeping the text in the element box very very brief. Since setting it up two students (out of 80) have been able to assess the sample submission and another has written about the same error I had - "could not insert workshop element."

I'm stumped as to the solution.
Rick Danielson

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Friday, November 12, 2004, 11:44 PM

Ray, do you have any suggestions as to why the error "could not insert workshop element" is occurring in version 1.4.2? I upgraded last week and this week am having quite a few problems with the workshop module. Thanks.
Rick Danielson

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Irene Pelegrí Colomer - Saturday, November 13, 2004, 6:06 PM

Hello Rick,

I've observed the same: if the text is very short (only few characters) I have no problems, but it doesn' work if the last three assessments are around 15 words.

Irene

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Ray Kingdon - Sunday, November 14, 2004, 2:29 AM

Rick, Irene

I've just had a look at the 1.4.2 workshop code in this area. It looks up-to-date and shouldn't cause a problem. The error message could come from one of several places, we will probably need to know exactly where... But first, what database are you using - mysql or postgres?

Ray

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Sunday, November 14, 2004, 10:19 AM

Hi Ray,
Mysql: mysql-3.23.58-2.3
Rick

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Ray Kingdon - Monday, November 15, 2004, 2:21 AM

Ah, thought you were going to say Postgres. Well, I've just set up a fresh 1.4.2+ installation running on MySQL. I can't reproduce the error. I created a workshop with Accumulative grading and elements which had a fair amount of text (several lines in each element description) but it all went into the workshop_elements table as sweet as a nut. Were you using a different type of grading strategy? Have you looked at the workshop_elements table?

Ray

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Monday, November 15, 2004, 3:24 AM

Hi Ray,
Here is a text version of the content of the mdl_workshop_element table. It is taken from phpmyadmin, but I lost the pretty formatting. You can see that the last workshop (20) only has 5 elements. I can't add more and some students are reporting that they are getting the "cannot insert workshop element" error.
Rick

id workshopid elementno description scale maxscore weight 252 17 0 Definition of the skill: how well the skill was d... 3 2 11 253 17 1 Factor 1: description of the factor, rationale as ... 3 2 11 254 17 2 Factor 2: description of the factor, rationale as ... 3 2 11 255 17 3 Factor 3: description of the factor, rationale as ... 3 2 11 256 17 4 Factor 4: description of the factor, rationale as ... 3 2 11 257 17 5 Evidence: provision of research data in support of... 3 2 11 258 17 6 Writing style: grammar/spelling, flow/rhythm, sent... 3 2 11 259 17 7 Originality: degree to which this report is clearl... 3 2 11 289 18 9 Technical/Writing Style: How well did the writer ... 3 2 11 288 18 8 Research Article Summary: How well did the writer... 3 2 9 285 18 5 Report of the Data Obtained from the Practical Sit... 3 2 9 286 18 6 Summary of Practical Implications: Did the writer... 0 1 11 287 18 7 Research Article: Did the writer provide a refere... 0 1 11 283 18 3 Quality of the Comparison Data Write-up: How well... 3 2 9 284 18 4 Description of a Practical Situation: Did the wri... 0 1 11 280 18 0 Personal Data: In the report, was personal data pr... 0 1 11 281 18 1 Additional Data: In the report, was additional dat... 0 1 11

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Ray Kingdon - Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 7:00 AM

Rick, I've just discovered (rather oddly by doing some work on the Exercise module) that the "cannot insert Element" error message appears when there's also a problem inserting Grades blush

. This widens the search and also explains why students are seeing the message. I'll have a look at these other parts of the 1.4.2 code tomorrow...

Ray

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 1:23 PM

Hi Ray,
Yes, I've not been able to get the workshop module to calculate grades correctly for awhile. However I made a workaround by doing it in Excel and putting the final marks up as an assignment. I didn't want to bother you with that problem, since the "cannot insert workshop element" issue was more important. However...if you want to fix both problems for the same price, thank you very much.
(Notice how easy it is for me to accept someone else's hard work?) big grin

Rick

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Ray Kingdon - Thursday, November 18, 2004, 5:36 PM

Rick, I've looked at the 1.4.2 code where these (spurious) "cannot insert workshop element" messages are generated, (the actual problem is records cannot be inserted into the workshop_grades table) and it looks fine. A problem with that piece of code did arise some while ago but the fix for it is in place in 1.4.2.

My suggestions would be

Just to check that the database is fully patched login in as admin and go to the administration page. (It shouldn't need to do anything but as I say just to check).
There's a possible database problem. In which case one way would be to backup all the courses, drop the current database, create a new one, login as admin to get the table structures set up and restore the courses. If that sounds frightening, well, I'm afraid it is .

As far as the calculation of final grades is concerned that whole area has been revised in the current version of Workshop and I haven't got the time to back-port it into 1.4.2. Sorry,
Ray

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Friday, November 19, 2004, 8:35 PM

OK Ray, thanks. I've checked with the admin page and it is uptodate. I will now try procedure #2. How does this sound like a procedure:

Backup courses: Right now I have automated backups every day (include modules plus user data, users = all, logs = yes, user files = yes, course files = yes, keep = 2 files). Therefore I shouldn't need to do anything else there. I might backup the moodledata directory separately and just for safety sake, backup the database (in case this whole procedure bombs).
Drop the courses (pray that I have a good backup). On this point, does my automated backup procedure look all right? Is there anything else I could possibly backup as far as users and courses are concerned?
Drop the moodle database.
Create a new moodle database with the same privileges.
Run the cvs update on the 14_STABLE line.
Login as admin to finish the update.
Restore the courses which were previously backed up.

I'm not afraid.
Rick

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Ray Kingdon - Saturday, November 20, 2004, 1:13 AM

"I'm not afraid" - stout fellow, Rick wink

Sounds good to me, an alternative approach might be a skip step 3, the dropping of the existing database, and in step 4 create a new moodle database with a different prefix (the default value mdl_ I think, something like new_, which is not terribly original). Then in the config.php change the prefix to new_ (or whatever). That leaves your original database in place. You might as well give it a different data directory while you're changing config.php.

All the best,
Ray

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Sunday, November 21, 2004, 2:37 AM

Hi Ray,
No, I AM afraid. I tried not to be afraid, but still was afraid. Oh well.

The only place where I am having problems is in the workshop. I have one more workshop to do this term and don't want to rock the boat if the rest of the system is all right. If it isn't, I will consider reinstalling from scratch. However, I hadn't even restored a course until this morning and it was daunting enough. To think of voluntarily deleting all of my three existing courses (about 130 students) and my 6 or so hidden courses at this point in the term is beyond my current level of courage.

When I think about my upgrades over the past 9 months or so, there was only one time during which things didn't go as planned. I use cvs and at some point in the summer, upgraded from (I think) 1.3.? to 1.4. I didn't realize that it was necessary to specify the moodle_14_stable root so I ended up upgrading to some other level (forget which now). I solved it by re-applying the upgrade to the 14_stable platform and it proceded well. My recent upgrade from 1.4.1 to 1.4.2 went fine with no errors. I also upgraded to 1.4.2+ today and it went fine too.

Do you think I caused system-wide problems for myself last summer, or are the problems specifically with the workshop module? I guess this question is also directed to Martin.

I have "repaired" my database using phpMyAdmin several times in the hopes of getting the workshop going smoothly. Since this hasn't worked, is there some other less draconian strategy available? If not, how do I make sure I don't lose all of my course backups and user information? If I backup a course and download the backup to my own computer it is possible to get the backup in the server again, but the procedure is complicated because of the various security measures I have in place on the server. As noted above, it is also just too scary a move to make without being pushed into a corner with nowhere else to go.

Sorry to be a chicken after all.
Rick

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Ray Kingdon - Sunday, November 21, 2004, 3:44 AM

Understandable

. Howsabout trying an install on a "spare" machine, your desktop machine? (I use four machines all of which run various forms of Moodle, it's a bit sad really...) Run up a working 1.4.2+ version of Moodle on it and then plug in the backups and restore them. That would prove something.
Ray

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Mark Pearson - Friday, December 10, 2004, 12:21 AM

Irene & Rick,

Can I ask if you have sussed out your original problem? I have found that it's very easy to accidently add an apostrophe or comma or other punctuation that makes php barf and then not realise what was really happening. Are you sure that your original problems was not caused by php hiccuping on punctuation in the assessment field?

Mark

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Irene Pelegrí Colomer - Sunday, December 12, 2004, 11:15 PM

Hello Mark, Rick and Ray,

I apologise for not answering the last messages. I was completely overwhelmed with this technical discussion avergonyit I am not the administrator and I can't help you because I don't know the database or any technical especification, I am sorry. I haven't been able to meet the administrator yet but I will try to talk to him soon. He is a guy that has a fellowship and he can only use a few hours each week to this job.

I do not know why, but I could write and save the assessment elements when I changed from one server to another. If this is important, I can ask the administrator what has been changed.

Thank you for all this productive discussion. I have seen from some other forums that some improvements have been made on the workshop module. I will try to use them.

Irene

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Rick Danielson - Monday, December 13, 2004, 1:14 AM

Hello Mark, Irene and Ray,
Your point is interesting Mark, and might possibly explain my problems. I checked the contents of the text portions of the assessment fields for the lab that caused the problem. There were 9 assessment elements and the errors occurred in the fourth one. That one contained the following text: "Skill Aspects which could benefit from Part Practice: How well did the writer describe aspects of the skill which could benefit from a part practice procedure? How effective was the writer's argument?" As you can see, there is an apostrophe in the text field. It could have caused the problems.

If you have followed my troubled thread on this issue, you can see where I chickened out in following Ray's advice about re-creating the database. It just seemed too scary so late in the term. I gambled that it might have been network problems or something like that, and the last lab in fact, went quite smoothly.

If php can't take punctuation in a text field, the assessment elements are going to have to be pretty simple. Assuming that this is the problem, do you have any advice as to how to work around it? Thanks.
Rick

Average of ratings: -

Re: assessment elements

by Mark Pearson - Monday, December 13, 2004, 4:41 AM

I think you were wise in not remaking the database. The consequences of hiccups are just too dire ... At Earlham we have not moved from v1.3 for that same reason - better to work around minor bugginess (and I have received very few complaints) than risk a major upgrade in mid semester.

As to a workaround for punctuation in assessment text, I think it would consist of 'escaping' the punctuation with a php escape sequence. What that is I don't recall off the top of my bonce but I'll look it up. It strikes me that it should be possible to parse the assessment text using a regular expression that looks for a set of punctuation characters and then inserts an escape character in front of each one. Ray??

Mark

Average of ratings: -