guest access

guest access

by Maria Steinschweiger -
Number of replies: 13

I have a question/problem. I have a Joomla site connected to Moodle 2.0 through Joomdle. Everything works fine. Registered users are able to log in through Joomla and are able to participate in courses and perform quizzes in the Moodle section.

What I would like to have is the ability for not registered users (guests) to do a (sample) quiz. I do understand that Moodle is built in such a way that guests are not able to perform quizzes. Because answers are stored in the database it becomes quite messy when several guests are performing the same sample quiz at the same moment.

It could be an option to offer a demo account by which interested visitors will able to take the sample quiz. In this respect some issues are not clear to me:

  1. I do not want the guests access to the complete site with all its courses and quizzes. Is there a way to restrict the access to the guests to the sample test only? If yes how to do that?
  2. I assume that the answer on the above questions is a yes. Is it then possible to deactivate the overview of the scores and attempts of the (hundreds) of guests before the last participant? Ideally every new guest will start with a clean new sample test. Afterwards the guest will be able to see right, wrong and feedback but will have no access to the results of this predecessor guests. If yes how to achieve this?

I do not know if this is possible within Moodle 2.0 bit would be pleased to hear ideas and suggestions.

 

Adriaan

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In reply to Maria Steinschweiger

Re: guest access

by vidya kaushik -

I am facing a similar problem.

I am trying to put up a quiz on my website which visitors to the website can attempt - just to give them a feel of the study methods.

I tried to set up a quiz in a course which is open to guests and call that quiz up directly into my website page. However even after chaning the settings in the roles to allow Guests to atempt quizzes, I still get a message that guests cannot attempt quizzes. The moodle docs also say that due to a number of persons who may use the guest account, the guests cannot be permitted to atempt quizzes.

Is there any manner in which I can call up and display this quiz outside moodle on my website directly ie without a log in into moodle and visitors can attempt them.

Request for some help now that there are more perrsons facing similar problems.

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In reply to vidya kaushik

Re: guest access

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

If you want guests to be able to take quizzes, you can create a visitor account, say with username = password = visitor, for everyone to share. Or you can make a quiz in a different program (such as Hot Potatoes) and add it to Moodle as an html file and the guests can do it that way

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: guest access

by Gordon Bateson -
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Yes, Mary is absolutely right. Guests can't do quizzes. There is a line in the PHP script which displays quizzes and it specifically tests to see if the user is a guest and if they are it sends them to the login page - regardless of the permissions that you assign to the "guest" role.

regards
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: guest access

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Mary and Gordon,

Sorry to disagree with such eminent people, but what you say isn't quite true.

If the permissions have been set up right, guests can do a Quiz if they click on "Preview" (Prévisualisation in French).

If you follow this link: http://uepd.quizport.com/mod/quiz/attempt.php?q=27 it's true as Gordon has said you'll be redirected to the login page, but if you click on "Connexion anonyme" (French is the default language of the site) the quiz will open as below. (Vous êtes connecté anonymement = You are currently using guest access)

Not the most user friendly of procedures and I hope somebody will change things so that it's easier to make demo sites.

Cheers,

Glenys

PS With the Hot Potatoes version of this, there's no problem at all for guests - at least, not in Moodle 1.9. ;)

Attachment screenshot_04.jpg
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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: guest access

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Actually, yes; I remember you saying this previously Glenys over on the French forums I think.smile Does it work the same in 2.0?  I presume it does  -if so I can add it to the docs as a workaround (or you could!)

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: guest access

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Mary,

I haven't tested on V2 and it's quite a lot of fiddling about with permissions. I'd have to look up my notes to remember how I did it.

And really, I think there should be a simpler way to do it. I can't be the only person wanting to show the wide world what great things Moodle can do without forcing people to enrol first. thoughtful

OK  - I'll put it in the Tracker and see if it gets any response there.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: guest access

by Tim Hunt -
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Please don't put it in the tracker. It is already there.

FInd the existing issue and vote, by all means.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: guest access

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Tim,

I do know to check that an issue isn't already there before creating a new one but it isn't always easy to find. Maybe my search techniques are not optimal. "Guest access" came up with 10654 results in the tracker. surprise

After searching for 15 minutes, I found MDL-17892 and I'm not surprised to see I'm already among the 19 people who've voted for it since 2007.

However, I see that other issues that are close to my heart are now being worked on so I'll be patient. The core developers are keeping to their promise to tackle other problems after 2.1 came out.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: guest access

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

I think the reason why it forces them to enrol first is because the quiz is a graded activity so you need to be a member of a course in order for your grades to be recorded - and if you are a guest -  then how would the grades work? They would just be overridden each time a new person did the quiz - but if you set it to "unlimited attempts" Hmm... like a questionnaire... a guest can do a questionnaire (well at least in 1.9) Interesting discussion.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: guest access

by Joseph Rézeau -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

What happens if two or more people are logged in as guests at the same time and take the same quiz? Would not the answers from Guest A overwrite those from Guest B etc. ?

Tim?

We have the same problem with Questionnaire.

I think that Andreas has found a workaround to this conundrum for his Feedback activity.

Joseph

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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: guest access

by Glenys Hanson -

Hi Joseph,

I can see that could be a problem, but what does "at the same time" mean in Moodle? The same minute? second? nanosecond?

In the sort of use I'm thinking of, I don't imagine guests wanting to do Quizzes (and of course Questionnaires and other activities) "for real" - I imagine them to be mainly teachers and other professionals just wanting to have a look to see how they actually function. The activities I have that already function in guest access are mainly used in this way and abandonned before they're finished.

If I understood him rightly, Gordon Bateson has a workaround on his own sites for Hot Potatoes so that different guest attempts are kept separate.

Cheers,

Glenys

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In reply to Glenys Hanson

Re: guest access

by Gordon Bateson -
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Ah yes, but that was a major kludge to the core code (specifically the require_login() function in "lib/moodlelib.php") so that instead of using the standard Moodle "guest" account, there are multiple visitor accounts that are maintained automatically. When guest access is required, the system tries to find a spare (i.e. not currently logged in) visitor username. If it finds one, it clears out the previous quiz scores and grades and uses that username. Otherwise, it will create a new visitor account and use that. In this way, all users, including guests (=visitors), have unique usernames and can have access to the quizzes, hotpots and quizports.

I don't recommend this system for the faint-hearted though because it has proven very tricky keeping the core modifications intact when Moodle code is upgraded. Yikes !! surprise

regards
Gordon

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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: guest access

by Gordon Bateson -
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after checking a little more thoroughly, I realized that most of modifications were in "login/index.php". That is where the visitor usernames are created and reused.

regards
Gordon

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