Question created and modified times

Question created and modified times

by Tim Hunt -
Number of replies: 5
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The Moodle question bank tracks the time when each question was last created or modified.

The Moodle backup and restore system has a feature where, during the restore process, you can choose to change the course start date, and then all the other dates in the course are adjusted by the same amount. This is helpful if, for example, you always want a given quiz to open 10 days after the start of the course, in any copy of the course that you make.

The question is, does it make sense to apply this logic to the question timecreated and timemodified fields? My colleages at the OU and I think that these fields are more metadata, which should be left alone; rather than course settings, which should be update. That is, however, just one opinion, and before I change anything I would like to hear everyone else's opinion, so please tell me what you think the right behaviour is here. Thanks.

(The tracker issue is MDL-36650.)

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Question created and modified times

by Paolo Oprandi -
The restore creates a new instance of the question right? In that case I think the time created date should be set at the same time as the restore. smile
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In reply to Paolo Oprandi

Re: Question created and modified times

by Tim Hunt -
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Is that what you would expect if you restored a deleted file from a backup?

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Question created and modified times

by Paolo Oprandi -

Ah I see. Change of heart then.

In the use case of back up and restore being used for disaster recovery I would expect the date to stay the same, as I would the question times.

And in the use case of backup and restore being used to create replica courses and assets I would expect the date to change.

I think I'd need to know which of these is the primary use case and which is a work around. I think clearly defined use cases throughout Moodle would be useful so developers like you can make these decisions.

FYI, if someone came to me having lost a file I would retrieve it from tape not backup and restore. I couldn't do that with a quiz though.

So, in conclusion, I think the primary use case of backup and restore is probably disaster recovery and so the dates should stay the same - 

And the only use for import is create a replica asset so the dates should change.

Is that helpful?

smile

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Question created and modified times

by Joshua Bragg -
I would rather that they keep the original create and modified times. Our SOP for a new semester is to duplicate the course using a backup and restore. I'd rather know how long ago I made the actual question and when I last worked on it. If I have to update something then I don't have to wonder anymore when it I did it. I'd leave it alone if it were up to me.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Question created and modified times

by Pierre Pichet -
I agree with the metadata concept.
Take the case that as a teacher I build a quiz using questions from the course category questions and other questions from my personnal category questions.
The question timecreated and timemodified fields should not be modified.
Pierre
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