Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Helen Foster -
Number of replies: 9
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Dear Workshop fans,

Coming soon in Moodle 2.5 are forms with collapsible sections, as illustrated in the attached screenshot of the workshop settings page. (If you'd like to try them out, please visit the QA testing site.)

As the setting page was not designed with collapsible sections in mind, it could now do with some improving / refactoring.

Does it make sense to split the form into more or fewer sections? Is it still necessary to have show/hide advanced fields?

Currently only the first section is displayed open by default; should another section (or sections) be displayed open too? If you're interested in how workshop settings compare with other activity settings, you can check the settings pages review spreadsheet.

Please let us know your ideas in order to help us improve the workshop settings page in Moodle 2.5.

Attachment workshop settings.png
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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by AL Rachels -
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Hi Helen,

I have just this past two weeks started using the workshop again and hope to incorporate it more. I do like the new collapsible settings in general, but would not mind having something to click on that would open all of them at once when I am first setting up an assignment.

I also think it would be nice that when you do open a collapsed section, it completely opens it instead of having to click Show more...

One additional item I would like to see in the settings is the capability to set View author names, and View reviewer names without having to remember to go set that in the workshop permissions...I have forgetten everytime, so far (only3x). wide eyes (Being from South Alabama, I wish there was a deer-in-the-headlights emoticon! big grin ...local joke)

AL

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In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Tim Hunt -
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Expand/collapse all has already been implemented. (Thanks to Fred @ Moodle HQ.) The other thingsare exactly the kind of feedback that Helen was after, I think.

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In reply to AL Rachels

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Sue Barnes -

I would also like to see:

"One additional item I would like to see in the settings is the capability to set View author names, and View reviewer names without having to remember to go set that in the workshop permissions...I have forgetten everytime, so far (only3x). "

Sue

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In reply to Sue Barnes

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Helen Foster -
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Thanks everyone for your feedback. As Tim mentions, one of the things we need to decide up is whether to keep advanced settings hidden until you click 'Show more' or whether it's better to show all settings within a section all the time. Anyone else have any opinions on it?

Regarding being able to change permissions on the settings page, I suggest someone creates a tracker issue for this. (I tried searching but didn't find it reported previously.)

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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Mark Pearson -

+1 for  'advanced' option not needed with collapsed settings. On opening a setting section I'd like to see everything and not have to click again. This would seem most intuitive.

+1 for setting permisssions in the settings area. Especially anonymous responses. In fact, it would be good if there could be a Moodle system wide default setting for some of these commonly used permissions in the context of workshop, eg Teacher creating assessments, anonymized responses.

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In reply to Helen Foster

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by David Mudrák -
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Thanks for raising this issue Helen. And thanks everyone for joining this discussion.

We have used collapsible areas in Workshop UI a lot. As the main Workshop page usually displays a lot of information (especially for teachers), I found collapsible areas pretty useful. My general approach to them has always been: the page should display all the information that requires the user's attention. All other information should be hidden (collapsed) and displayed on demand only.

In practise, this for example means that if assessing example submissions is required prior to submitting own work, the relevant section is expanded by default to students. If, however, assessing example submissions is optional, the section is collapsed, giving more screen space to other more important information. This is how Workshop works already in stable branches.

When it comes to the workshop setting form, I must admit I like the possibility to have both collapsible sections and advanced settings (appearing only after "Show more" link). By declaring a setting as advanced, I am trying to send an implicit message to the Workshop users that it's safe to ignore such setting unless they know they need it. I believe it can help especially to those who are starting with this activity. So, to summarise, my suggestion is:

Following sections should be expanded by default because they should be always checked and eventually amended to the teacher's needs:

  • General
  • Grading settings - the grades and the grading strategy are essential settings
  • Submission settings - the Instructions for submission are expected to contain essential information for students. The submission attachments settings might be moved into the advanced setting as their default value is reasonably set to "1" already (only one attachment file is allowed).
  • Assessment settings - again, I think it is important to describe what peer-reviewers are supposed to do via the instructions field. The rest of the settings can be advanced.

All other sections can be collapsed by default as the defaults are usually ok:

  • Workshop features - this just needs to be fixed so that "Students may assess the work of others" is checked (enabled) by default. I have this on my todo list for 2.5 yet.
  • Miscellaneous settings - this contains the Conclusion field at the moment only but the section provides a container for future miscellaneous options that do not fit to an other section and are not worth enough of having their own section.
  • Access control - if the section is collapsed by default, there is no need to keep the deadline settings as advanced (so I propose to change it). I would still prefer having "Switch to the next phase after the submissions deadline" setting as advanced though.
  • Common module settings - obviously.

Please let me know what you think of this proposal. Thanks in advance.

p.s. I forgot to mention that assessment forms and the forms for editing assessment forms should not use collapsible sections at all.

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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Paula Clough -

I have worked with many new Moodle users over the last 7 years. I find that being able to hide the advanced features is very helpful in the all the activities for these newbies.  They can go in and set up their activity and get it going with the least stress because they have the most commonly used and all the necessary things right there.  As they build confidence and begin to ask ...but can I do this as well?  They can explore (or be directed to) the advanced settings. 

Paula cool

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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Mark Pearson -

David,

As someone who would examine the contents of a .BAT file before running it I always switch to [Advanced] because a) the items that get classed as 'advanced' are often totally arbitrary, and b) I like to know all the options available. And certainly if you're collapsing sections like this I don't see the point of 'Advanced' settings that encompass a single item as many of the Workshop advanced settings do (eg Grading settings : show advanced reveals 'Decimal places' alone).

It would be great to put 'Common module settings' and 'Restrict access' into a collapsed section -- I would hazard a guess that these are used much less frequently than other settings.

Would it be possible to add a section into the Settings that adjusts / displays / or at a pinch, links to, the Permissions. I have got my knickers in a twist several times because I forgot to set these correctly. Thinking in terms of the following defaults:

  • Peer assess : add Teacher role
  • View author names : remove Student
  • View authors of published submissions: remove Student

I guess these could be set by the Moodle Site administrator for the default Teacher and Student role.

 

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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Ideas needed for improving the workshop settings page

by Frédéric Massart ⭐ -
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I like your suggestion David, however here are a few thoughts:

  • The more sections we open by default, the less improvement in terms of user experience and usability we get. Of course, I'm ignorant when it comes to Workshop itself, and I trust your judgement, but in other modules we added more default values to simplify at its maximum the form. The idea being that teachers can easily add a new activity, but still have the power to change some settings if they feel the need to and look for more advanced settings.
  • I dislike the "Miscellaneous settings" section as its name does not evoke anything at all, and we should make efforts to avoid the simplicity of having a section which holds what does not fit anywhere. This is not usable and a user MUST open the section to know what's inside (loss of the usability). And the next time he/she edits the workshop, he/she'll have forgetten again what this mysterious section hides. My suggestion would be to either move the only setting into another section, or rename the section legend to something more sensible, taking the risk that it would be renamed in the future to hold some more settings.
  • If "Workshop features" is collapsed by default, then it should not obstruct the flow of the form and be positioned after the default expanded sections. It would be rather confusing to have a collapsed section lost in the middle of expanded ones.
  • I am not a fan of having only one setting set as advanced, especially if the section is already collapsed. If you expand a section, because its legend is clear enough to represent what it contains, then you should not have 1 advanced setting in there. And if you end up with loads of advanced settings, then you probably need a new section.
  • Solving the problem of 1 advanced setting can sometime be done by renaming the labels in that section. Clearer names help a user to focus on what he needs to see/edit.

Those are thoughts based on the work done on other forms. I understand that each module is different, but the more we standardise, simplify and add consistency, the easieer it gets for the users.

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