You have assignments that need attention

You have assignments that need attention

by Joe Amatrucola -
Number of replies: 17

Hi

We are using Moodle 2.4.2+ (Build: 20130315)

I'm looking for some more information about what, specifically, triggers when the phrase "You have assignments that need attention" appears on a user's My Home page for a given course (whether that user be a student or teacher).  I'm finding that the phrase seems to be perpetually present for both students and teachers, no matter what the student/teacher submits, accomplishes or grades.  For example:

  • even if a student has completed and submitted all assignments for a given course, he still gets the "You have assignments that need attention" message for the course on his home page
  • even if a teacher has graded all pending assignments for a course, he is still getting the "You have assignments that need attention" message for the course on his home page.

We are encouraging our teachers to use Assignments for posting HW assignments, whether or not an online submission is required, so that the assignments are automatically posted to the course & students' calendars ... but this seemingly counter-intuitive behavior of the "You have assignments that need attention" label is causing users to lose faith in the Assignment module.

On a somewhat related note, it's not clear how we should be posting "offline" assignments in Moodle 2.4, where offline assignments are defined as those which do not require any file submission (such as reading assignments).  We would like to post them as Assignments, so that the reading assignments post to the course calendar and such, but at some point that reading assignment needs to fall off the RADAR so that the student is not continually reminded that he "has assignments that need attention."  I've experimented with setting the Cut-off date in conjunction with the Due Date, and have received mixed results.  Earlier versions of the Moodle assignment activity refer to offline assignments, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the new Assignment activity.

Should we be looking to implement completion tracking?  Will this help, or complicate the situation?

Thanks
Joe

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Sakshi Goel -

Hello Joe

 The Course overview block on "My home" page shows the courses you are enrollled in and the assessment activities which you need to do such as assignemnt, forum, lesson, quiz etc with their available dates and due date, finish date plus your status whether you have complete it or not. So when a student completes that activity it still show on its course page, it wouldn't dissapear the only thing it do is change status to completed for that activity.

For teachers it does not the number of assignment submitted by students and how many left for grading. For finding the assignments that need grading in the course you can make use Ajax marking block in moodle, it will work for you to get how many more assignment need grade (you dont even need to get into assignment activity then check how many are left etc etc)

Offline assignment activity is available in older versions of moodle but not in moodle 2.4.2. Offline activity means suppose you have given a model or some offline work to students and you want to grade them for that work (that not require any physical file to submit in moodle) then it appears in the gradebook and student get reward for his work.

Completion tracking feature in moodle is useful when you want to set criteria for your course to be completed. for example A students need to complete 5 activities in course to complete the whole course. so with the help of this feature you can put restriction and completion criteria on different activites.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Donna Hrynkiw -

Joe said:

> I'm finding that the phrase seems to be perpetually present for both students and teachers, no matter what the student/teacher submits, accomplishes or grades.

Agreed. Strongly agreed, as a matter of fact.

If the phrase is always present, no matter the status of the individual's completed or graded assignments, it quickly loses its effectiveness, is ignored and just becomes screen clutter. I would like an option to remove it.

HrynkiwKwantlen Polytechnic

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Donna Hrynkiw

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Tom Hulse -

I agree with this also. Our students are getting quite frustrated by this message and keep on doing the lessons over and over again until we tell them not to. It doesn't make sense for it be always present, even when the student has completed the activities.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Rob Rutten -

I have exactly the same feelings as Joe does on this point.

The information given in the course overview block regarding the status of the assignments is particularly annoying. I even went through the source code to find out what is happening. My ideas / feelings/ suggestions:

  1. The statement "You have assignments..." is misleading and pointless. Most of the time there are no assignments that need attention because they have already been either submitted or graded.

I would like to be able to use the course overview block as a to-do list for both students and teachers, so:

  1. It should list only the assignments that have not been either submitted (students) or graded (teachers)
  2. It should list all the assignments (of point 2) regardless of whether they have a due and/or cut-off date or not. Assignment that are past the cut-off date can no longer be submitted and are therefore removed from the list for students, but not teachers.
  3. Sorting should be done based on the due-date.
  4. When a user (e.g. guest) does not have the rights to do anything with the assignment, it should not be listed in the course overview block at all.

Right now the course overview block is useless as a to-do list as it does not represent the status of the assignments correctly. It is also useless as a course summary as it leaves out assignments that do not have a date attached to it or that are not "open" at the moment.

The whole idea behind "open" is wrong at the moment. I would consider an assignment to be "open" when I can still submit it (being a student) or as long as I can still grade it (being a teacher).

Sorry if this post is a bit of a rant, but I really think this needs to be fixed fast. I get a lot of questions and complaints about the course overview block, and I advice my users not to use it anymore (as it is confusing) and even consider disabling the block all together.

Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to Rob Rutten

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by David Baines -

Rob, thank you for this post. You have summed up the problems that the staff here have mentioned with this message. It would be great for us if the message would work as you have described.

 

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Donna Hrynkiw -

Returning to this issue (because continues to confound and confuse our users).

Part of the issue is usability. It is not at all obvious that there's a link on the icon next to the "You have assignments that need attention". Clicking on the icon will produce a list of assignments with due dates, and if there are assignments with unmarked submissions there will also be a highlighted link to the marking form for that assignment.

Edited to add: Suggestion to extend the icon link to the message added to bug tracker
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-40000

(Issue number 40,000 -- wow. Do I get a prize or something?)

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Paul Brown -

We get constant messages from students on the issue (You have assignments that need attention) even though they have completed the assignments. Since the course work is work at your own pace we do not set Final Submission dates and with approximately 800 students this can be challenging as well as frustrating for our instructors and director. To resolve this issue, for the time being, I added the following custom CSS to hide that line of text.

We use the Formal White them which we customize using the Custom CSS settings provide in the theme settings (see image below). The custom CSS is saved into the database so that if Moodle is updated the custom CSS still remains in tack without breaking upon update.

To enter the custom CSS in the Formal White (I am sure there is something similar in other themes) go to:

Site Administration > Appearance > Themes > Formal White and then scroll to the very bottom where you will find the Custom CSS area.

 

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Paul Brown

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Mitchell van Gerwen -

Hello Paul,

We are using formal white to and I think I need your solution for this. are you willing to share your CSS code with me?

Thanks in advance

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Paul Brown

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Keith Murray -

We're using the essential them but would like to tray this as well; seeing there is no resolution to this issue from the standpoint of fixing this error and/or supplanting the block with something else (center content issue).  Mind sharing?

Thanks so much!

Keith

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Joe Amatrucola -

In an effort to re-surface this issue and see if others will support it as a bug that requires attention, I've logged it in the Moodle Tracker as MDL-43384.  Please vote for it if you would like to see this behavior addressed.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Joe Amatrucola -

Actually, I was informed that this issue was already reported as Issue MDL-41922 in the bug tracker.  Please vote for it there.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Daniel Neis Araujo -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Translators

Hello,


just pinging people about this because it is still open and is the second most voted issue on tracker with 117 votes at the moment.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Daniel Neis Araujo

Re: You have assignments that need attention

by Kenneth Mentor -

Instructor receiving "You have assignments that need attention" message when no assignments appear to need attention. 

As Daniel points out, this problem is open on tracker, although the thread primarily refers to problems with students. 

Has anyone found a solution that applies to teachers?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Daniel Neis Araujo

Solution to the problem: You have assignments that need attention

by Javier Nieto -

To solve this issue you need to make sure to uncheck the boxes for :

Allow submissions from
Due Date
Cut-off date

If you have a single assignment with the Due Date check box checked the students still able to submit or modify what they sent, so that is the reason to have the message "You have assignments that need attention" the message will be remove it after cleaning the boxes.

As a good practice make sure to remove those check marks after  grading an assignment.


Attachment 12.JPG
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Joe Amatrucola

Solution to the problem: You have assignments that need attention

by Javier Nieto -
To solve this issue you need to make sure to uncheck the boxes for :

Allow submissions from
Due Date
Cut-off date

If you have a single assignment with the Due Date check box checked the students still able to submit or modify what they sent, so that is the reason to have the message "You have assignments that need attention" the message will be remove it after cleaning the boxes.

As a good practice make sure to remove those check marks after  grading an assignment.


Attachment 12.JPG
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Javier Nieto

Re: Solution to the problem: You have assignments that need attention

by Hanaa Aboushahla -

"Due date” is checked - Once unchecked the message will disappear.

If you are willing to uncheck the due date, I recommend setting up a cutoff date that matches the due date. Doing so will prevent students submit assignments after the cutoff date.

Note: due dates are needed for notification purposes.


Average of ratings: -