Template design challenge: re-useable event attendance checker

Template design challenge: re-useable event attendance checker

by Ted Holzmann -
Number of replies: 3

Hello Quiz module users/developers!

I am an Online Developer at a small university in South Carolina.

A dean of one college within the university would like to use a quiz format to monitor student participation (attendance/listening online/non-attendance) at certain functions. Those three options would be the multi-choice "answers." The question content would be the dates and speakers of the events.

The requirement for participation is based upon the number of credit hours a student is enrolled. So each student would need to choose the "attendance quiz" for his/her level (of which there are three).  So, a three credit hour student gets 100% if 3 events are "attended" or "listened online." A seven credit hour student gets 100% if 7 events are "attended" or "listened online." A student with more than seven hours must "attend" or "listen" to at least 9 events.

This set of three quizzes needs to be re-created each semester, based upon the event calendar. There may be up to 55 possible events to which a student would need to respond. Creating all 55 questions and turning them into quizzes each semester is a very tedious job!

Here's the task: Design a template (Word or Excel versions '07 or '10) that can be given to any secretary to enter the event calendar items (there were 54 events for this Fall), and which will then create one multiple-choice question per event, with two options getting 100%, finally generating the completed XML/GIFT uploadable quizzes.

I have experimented with a Word template, but in Multiple-Choice questions it allows for only one correct answer. In this case both "Attended" and "Listened Online" get full credit. IF the response "Not attended" could be made the default, that would be super.

Perhaps someone has already developed something of this nature?

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Sincerely,
Ted Holzmann  [ted (at) holzmann (dot) us]

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In reply to Ted Holzmann

Re: Template design challenge: re-useable event attendance checker

by Tim Hunt -
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First of all, this is not a quiz at all. Have you thought about how long it would take you to knock up a custom module specifically for this? That would be easier to administer, and more obvious for users.

Anyway, if you stick with the quiz, your problem is to take something someone typed, and turn it into a format Moodle can import. Moodle's import/export formats are pretty simple, so surely you can just knock up a script to do this. Since the answers are standard, you should just need to take a list of events as input.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Template design challenge: re-useable event attendance checker

by Ted Holzmann -

Thanks for the feedback, Tim.

I may need to apologize for ignorance, but I don't understand the suggestion of "a cutom module." I'm all for making thigs "more obvious" if the solution meets the requirements.

The second proposal, to create a script, is what I had in mind. I have not yet created any scripts, other than inside of Escel spreadsheets... about 15 years ago. Perhaps you, or someone else can point me in the right direction. This does seem like a straightforward scripting task. Don't know if I even have the tools to do it, though I'd be happy to learn how!

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In reply to Ted Holzmann

Re: Template design challenge: re-useable event attendance checker

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Ah, when you introduced yourself as an "Online Developer" I immediately thought Software developer, because that is the kind of world I live in.

Moodle is a modular, system. All the different activities like forum, quiz, wiki, ... are plugins. If you are a software developer, you can make a custom plugin that does anything you want (within reason). Developer_documentation

Making a script to turn a list of events into Moodle XML format is a very simple programming task, so would be a good place to start learning how to program. There are many different ways you could do it, but sensible choices would either by to do it in PHP, since Moodle is written in PHP, so that is a language worth learning. Just Google PHP tutorial. Alternatively, you could do it as a Word or Excel Macro, because that is the tool the person typing the list of events is familar with, and you are trying to make life easy for them.

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