In fact, we speak of the activity "Assignment" which allows students to submit their work online. A feature called "Download All" allows teachers to download all the work as zip archive. If the weight of this package is too large (eg what the course has a large number of participants) will be impossible for the teacher to complete the download because of a timeout. He can still download a work by one, but it can be very tedious.
For now the only solution we have found is to use groups for these activities to achieve the ability to download the work group.
Do you know a easier way to get to download all the files in a single attempt without the problem of php timeout (eg, background batch process with email notification When The Job Is Done).
We do not want to raise the php timout limit.