Jeff G. is finishing up the Blackboard 6 import. One outstanding problem is what to do with essay questions.
I tried our question_type_essay, it mostly installs fine in 1.5, just one little thing to fix.
So we can map the BB essay questions to question_type_essay, and throw up a warning (you must install the essay question type to import BB essay questions) if it's not installed.
However, we don't want to do this if essay questions are going to make it as a standard question type into 1.5. Any word on this?
I don't think they will, given what's going on in Quiz right now ... it would be best to print a nice message during import and drop those questions for now.
Our professors really want essay questions in quizzes, and I was hopeful after reading a 12 March 2005 message from Gustav Delius in this thread:
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=15960
"I believe the situation is that the essay question type currently is still lacking a convenient mechanism for doing the grading. I am sure there will be an essay question type that works with Moodle 1.5 but it will probably take a few weeks before it is ready."
But now it sounds like it is not to be. We could, of course, include the Humboldt essay question for quizzes code (though I haven't seen a demo yet), but we are using Postgres, and our web developer (who has already added the Humboldt gradebook - which our professors really like) said that he does not have enough time in his schedule to redo both each time there is a new version of Moodle (Moodle is a very small part of his schedule). I mention Postgres because it means more work than MySQL for adding this code.
Maybe we could have our web developer add the Humboldt essay question for quizzes to Moodle 1.4, and then vow not to upgrade Moodle again until essay questions for quizzes are part of the core. That does not seem like a wise long term solution, though.
Any programmers, known and respected by (or on) the Moodle team, who would be interested in submitting a bid for this work? Any other schools who also need essay questions in quizzes interested in sharing the cost of this work, particularly if you are also using Postgres? We're a pretty small school, so we may not be able to afford this on our own.
Venita
Hi Venita, 2 things:
Gradebook_cdc (with some heavy rewriting and moodleizing enhancements by Martin and Eloy--thanks guys!) is standard in 1.5, so your db guy won't need to re-write the PG code.
We'll get get our essay question working in 1.5 (actually it pretty much already does) as soon as 1.5's quiz mod code stabilizes, if essay questions aren't put in by Gustav's folks.
The main problem in the grading is that the quiz module in 1.4 requires alot of hacks to make a clean better grading interface than the one our coder (Mark N.) coded up--see his interface for essay questions in lesson, for example. We didn't want to make alot of hacks to the 1.4 quiz mod code since quiz is getting a rewrite.
However, if 1.5 doesn't have a essay questions build in, and you either want us to provide a PG version of our essay question or a build a nicer one into 1.5, we'd be happy to provide an estimate (just making a PG version wouldn't cost very much, but making a nicer grading interface that would get essay accepted into the quiz standard might be the long run best way to go).
My email is in my profile if you'd like more information
.
Gradebook_cdc (with some heavy rewriting and moodleizing enhancements by Martin and Eloy--thanks guys!) is standard in 1.5, so your db guy won't need to re-write the PG code.
We'll get get our essay question working in 1.5 (actually it pretty much already does) as soon as 1.5's quiz mod code stabilizes, if essay questions aren't put in by Gustav's folks.
The main problem in the grading is that the quiz module in 1.4 requires alot of hacks to make a clean better grading interface than the one our coder (Mark N.) coded up--see his interface for essay questions in lesson, for example. We didn't want to make alot of hacks to the 1.4 quiz mod code since quiz is getting a rewrite.
However, if 1.5 doesn't have a essay questions build in, and you either want us to provide a PG version of our essay question or a build a nicer one into 1.5, we'd be happy to provide an estimate (just making a PG version wouldn't cost very much, but making a nicer grading interface that would get essay accepted into the quiz standard might be the long run best way to go).
My email is in my profile if you'd like more information
Michael,
I wonder whether the following is possible: in the essay question, whether it is through the lesson module or the future quiz module, I'd like to have a way of limiting the number of words the students can use in their answers. Very often I give them a limit for their essays, but they rarely pay attention to this limit. I guess it is as hard for them as it is for me to figure out whether they have gone beyond the limit. Could some function be included in the essay question whereby the teacher establishes the limit and then the student cannot use more than this amount of words when s/he answers?
I don't have a lot of money left from my project, but if this is possible and the price is right, I'd be happy to commission you to work on this feature.
Josep M.
I wonder whether the following is possible: in the essay question, whether it is through the lesson module or the future quiz module, I'd like to have a way of limiting the number of words the students can use in their answers. Very often I give them a limit for their essays, but they rarely pay attention to this limit. I guess it is as hard for them as it is for me to figure out whether they have gone beyond the limit. Could some function be included in the essay question whereby the teacher establishes the limit and then the student cannot use more than this amount of words when s/he answers?
I don't have a lot of money left from my project, but if this is possible and the price is right, I'd be happy to commission you to work on this feature.
Josep M.