Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Cris Fuhrman -
Number of replies: 27

I've asked the local Moodle admins to allow me to set up my question banks so that the following use case would work:

  • I am responsible for 3 software design courses, each of which can be taught by teaching assistants, with or without my involvement.
  • We continuously improve the content of the questions, adding and revising them in each semester we give the course.
  • Sometimes these courses are offered multiple times in the same semester, with different teaching assistants or professors. We collaborate in parallel, to improve the questions.

Here's a concrete instance for this summer session:

  • Undergrad Software Design taught by me and another TA (two separate Moodle courses)
  • Graduate Software Design taught by another TA (a third separate Moodle course)

I would like to set up a question bank that will be the same for all of these (3) courses (or any future combinations of this - it's different each semester), so that each of the instructors can contribute/modify questions in the same bank, use each other's questions in quizzes, etc.

I was told by local Moodle admins that this was not possible, since it would require giving too many (system) permissions to instructors. 

Can anyone tell me if there's a solution allowing a single question bank?

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In reply to Cris Fuhrman

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Doug Moody -

I would suggest a separate course that all instructors have access to where all up to date questions reside. There would be no real content in this course, only question banks. Of course, students could not see this course, only instructors.

Then, make it a habit to put most up to date questions in there and import them as needed into the real courses.

Not perfect, but it will keep your admins happy.

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In reply to Doug Moody

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Chris - have your admins looked at How to let teachers share questions between courses? Although it does involve system permissions that doesn't mean they have extra admin rights and so it is quite safe. (if that's what the admins are concerned about)

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Cris Fuhrman -

Hi Mary,

Thanks for replying. My admins tell me they already set it up according to that page.

The problem (they say) is that I (as a sole teacher) can only share questions within my own courses (e.g., only with myself). It seems we need a way to create a "software design" group (as you would in Linux, or many other systems that have the group metaphor) of several teachers who have permission to read/write questions in this shared bank. In other words, I want to share my questions with other people.

The docs page is somewhat vague. It doesn't clarify whether different teachers can share the same bank. I put in "[...]" for the parts that seem ambiguous:

What teachers need to do

Once you have done the above steps. Teachers who have the Question sharer role will be able to see the shared areas of the [their own, others'?] question bank when they are editing quizzes, or when they click on the 'Questions' link in the course administration block.

Any questions they store in the shared areas of the question bank will be visible in all their [own, collaborators'?] courses.

Finally, the diagram at http://docs.moodle.org/26/en/Question_permissions_explained_with_diagrams#4._Trying_to_share_questions only shows Fred as a collaborator. What about Fred's colleagues with whom he develops questions? 

It's OK to say Moodle is not designed to support sharing a question bank among multiple teachers. It would have saved me a lot of time searching and bothering admins if it's really the case. I'll be happy to add it to the wiki in the interest of saving others that same time.

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In reply to Cris Fuhrman

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by dawn alderson -

Chris, hi

I am going to cut to the chase here. You are dealing with bureaucracy...instead of the possibilities afforded by a comprehensive LMS system....one that has a lot of work put into it!

you will not be the first or the last wink

not helpful, but very true-for the record-shamelessly too smile.

Cheers,

Dawn

 

 

 

 

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In reply to Cris Fuhrman

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Joseph Thibault -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Chris, there might be another way to do this using the LTI provider tool http://docs.moodle.org/26/en/LTI_Provider

In a sense, you have one course that's setup as a LTI provider with the quiz. Each of your other course sections just use the External Link to connect to the course you setup. In a sense, you've now shared 1 test bank with all of the other courses, you can even create new quizzes and share them via the LTI provider link in the case that you make an update (but the quizzes can always pull questions from the test banks within a single collaborative course).

Since the tool can be used to provide access to a single activity it's slightly different than the Meta course links and you can version control you quizzes and make them available in only certain courses.

Hope that helps, 

Joe

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In reply to Joseph Thibault

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by dawn alderson -

nice Joe. smile Makes sense.

Cris-let us know if you get it passed the admins eh tongueout

D

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In reply to Cris Fuhrman

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Paula Clough -

Cris,

Moodle does support question sharing. It may be that your admins don't quite understand the entire process and are not setting up the question sharer role as it needs to be done or not assigning all the involved teachers to the role.  Remember that the shared questions will no longer reside in your course but in a shared repository at the system or category level depending on how it is set up. 

You might need to invite them to post to this forum so we can hear from them what they have done and help them straighten things out.

cool

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In reply to Paula Clough

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

"Moodle does not support question sharing."  Thanks, Paula, for making it clear. This is a tragic fact of Moodle, and unfortunately the goal of teacher collaboration (i.e. question sharing) is not currently an HQ priority, as attempts to fix the Question Bank are dismissed or scoped out of changes.  Vote for the newer MDL-41924 issue and also the older MDL-12403 issue (which was prematurely closed), if you care about question sharing in core.

Now I presume you meant to say, "without the Question Sharer role, Moodle does not support question sharing".  What happens when I turn on the Question Sharer role, following the instructions Mary has laid out?  Do all questions in the whole site appear for me to browse through?  Though I have been using the Question Bank for over ten years, and tried turning on a Question Sharer role for me and my co-teachers, I am still confused as to what happens.

I presume it is not that simple as just adding the role, but I also need to restructure my Question Bank, moving questions out of course level contexts, balancing the categories that teachers can use, dividing it up so that backups don't get enormous, etc.

P. S.  My co-teachers find the Sharing Cart to be a useful tool to help sharing quizzes and a quick Import tool.  It is not, however, a solution to the problem we are discussing.

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In reply to Paula Clough

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Cris Fuhrman -

Thanks Paula. This is helpful. I'll pass the info along to the admins.

They have always been helpful with all my Moodle requests, so I'm the last guy who'll blame bureaucracy in this case smile

My guess is that part of the problem is in the complexity of Moodle, and the quality of the explanation of how to set it up.

Regarding How to let teachers share questions between courses and Question permissions explained with diagrams I'll offer some possible improvements:

  • Paula mentions "Remember that the shared questions will no longer reside in your course but in a shared repository," -- shouldn't that be explained in the "How to" page? I'm happy to add this to the Wiki if someone wants to sanction the proper wording. I can't see any explicit instructions of how to set this up.
  • If "question contexts" are a pre-requisite to sharing, that should be explicit. I'm not sure my school's Moodle uses contexts at all (it's actually the first time I've heard of it). 
  • Neither page explains a scenario with two different teachers. Fred is mentioned in the second page, but the other name is Annie (an Admin). I was expecting the other named person to be the other teacher that Fred wants to share questions with. The name of the admin is not important in sharing questions. This second page would be improved if a second teacher were introduced into the scenario, and shown in the diagram(s). 

Cheers,

Cris

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In reply to Cris Fuhrman

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by dawn alderson -

Morning from here smile

in sum then, Moodle does afford question sharing for a team of teachers/across their courses BUT the functionality is broken! Yes? And, as Mary pointed out there is documentation....cool.  That documentation states.....admin rights only.....

So, if all the above were in place then the admin would just need to put a green light for teachers (assign them access) above the repository so that they can access the shared areas of the question bank.....this all makes sense to me or I may still be half asleep and still have it wrong about who can do what in order to share a series of questions  with a colleague mixed 

Seriously, I imagine teachers really would welcome an accessible and easy way to share their resources, exam questions for example, without having to seek admin input  (seeking admin input to navigate freely around my work station- reminds me so much of BB-sorry sad).

 

hope I dont sound as though I got out of the wrong side of bed!

Cheers,

Dawn

 

 

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Thanks, Dawn, for correctly stating what I wanted to say.  And sorry, Paula, for misquoting you.  I was reading what I wanted to read.  black eye

Now, I wish someone would explain a little case study of how they set up the "shared areas of the question bank" that you mention.  That would help me--how to set up the categories and at what level.

I am also curious about the LTI approach that Joe mentionned.  I read those links, but I am afraid I didn't understand. It seems to be a broader kind of sharing than sharing individual questions.  We are not discussing how to share quizzes, which are collections of questions, but the individual items themselves. This is because we reuse and reconfigure the questions in various tests, exams, even random tests that pull from the bank.

 

 

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi all. I'll do my best to get to these docs asap and try to improve them (although anyone is welcome to, of course) Chris -teachers should  be given the role in the system context and then when they save questions in their own courses then they should see a question category which goes across all courses. If they save their question there, then other teachers in other courses will be able to access it. (This is normally the case for administrators - if they make a question in a course then when they save it they can save it just to the course, or to the "system", ie, the whole site. The new role you need to give teachers allows them to do the same but with fewer admin permissions.) OK - I will try to get to this later today....

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

I have tweaked the page How to let teachers share questions between courses Let me know if it is any clearer. (I haven't yet looked at the diagrams page)

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Cris Fuhrman -

Hi Mary - I added comments to the wiki page using that facility. I hope someone will get them. Or is it better to post them in the forum?

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In reply to Cris Fuhrman

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Chris - I had another go at editing the Question sharer docs so I hope it's a bit clearer now - and I will try again if not smile

If you go to one of your courses and click Course administration>Question bank>Categories, do you then see the Add a category button? If you choose System as the parent category then once you have made that category and added questions to it, you will be able to access it from other courses elsewhere in Moodle. And teachers with the system wide question sharer role will also be able to do so.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Cris Fuhrman -

Hi Mary, thanks again, I'm understanding better. The redirect to the Question Sharer page is helpful.

You stated: 

Chris -teachers should  be given the role in the system contextand then when they save questions in their own courses then they should see a question category which goes across all courses.

"see a question category which goes across all courses" - this is not clear to me. Can you use a concrete example?

 

If they save their question there, then other teachers in other courses will be able to access it. (This is normally the case for administrators - if they make a question in a course then when they save it they can save it just to the course, or to the "system", ie, the whole site. The new role you need to give teachers allows them to do the same but with fewer admin permissions.)

In the question bank, I can create new questions in "system" under my username cfuhrman. However, I cannot create categories in that part of the bank. When I choose edit categories, I can only see the hierarchy for my course.

I recall the admins explaining to me that I would have to ask them to create categories. Categories are rather unstable (at least in the beginning), so I'm not sure that they or I would appreciate having to make a support call for each change to a category. I have over 175 questions (and it's growing) and not using categories would be a nightmare, especially since there's no support for searching on question tags (non hierarchical categories).

I second the motion to have a case study documenting a real (and productive) sharing of a question bank over multiple course topics with multiple instructors. 

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

"Moodle does afford question sharing for a team of teachers/across their courses BUT the functionality is broken!"

This is a good one-line summary, and I can only apologise really. I have been aware that this is a problem for several years. The backup-and-restore issues that Don linked to are not the real problem. They are symptoms that the whole question bank system is too complex, while at the same time not supporting all the things that peole want.

Unforunately, depsite having a good understanding of what the problem is, I still don't have a good proposal for a solution. And I am relucant (and have been too busy with other things) to implement a partial solution. If we just change some things, then it will annoy some people without satisfying everbody.

So, I am going to go on thinking about it until I can think of something good. One bit of good news is that doing something about this is now on our priority list at the OU. The bad news is that there is probably a good year's worth of work higher up the priority list than this.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by dawn alderson -

Crikey, Tim-hear you...I totally understand the notion of hugely busy-of the inundated sort....and prioritising stuff is a gem of a strategy...am with you on that for sure smile No need to apol eh.

I think time for an upgrade on the Green & Black's front...never mind the mini-pocket...secret solution...get the kingsize bar and do not share it!  Works for me ;0)

This thread has turned out to be interesting though eh, nevertheless.

Want to include a bit of rhyme and reason here, if I may. Although, other stuff, 'I know' needs priority.

I would say across education, practitioners hold meetings for the sharing of (to go back to my point of exam questions) info, to ensure continuity and progression across courses (given the title of this thread).

I guess, I was focusing on Moodle, as an LMS to support 'purpose' in view of the sharing of exam questions-specifically-that could of course include the quiz item.

What I mean, to elaborate here,is across ed circles......staff come and go....but say you have a three year course of sorts, and say I was a teacher for year three-fresh in....I get to assessment period...look at the syllabus..and think right.....how can I level...assessment for level 3...how can I write my exam questions without duplication...how can I make sure I am accommodating progression...in view of what the students have done before...in terms of knowledge/understanding/application and so on-in other words how can I get a good idea of what the students covered in level 1/2.

Having a question bank, which would afford an oppt to look at what has gone before... would provide for a deductive approach...and to ensure my questions are authentic.

that is it folks! ;0)

P.S Mary....you sound as though you are beavering away there with the docs...but to be honest...are 'we all' comparing like-with like here.....that said..tis Friday early eve here....and I may not be seeing this in the right way! LOL smile

Here is to a relaxing weekend all. Hope helpful.

Dawn 

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by dawn alderson -

oops! an addendum...

in terms of the shareable question bank....what not

I would also like, in an ideal world to draw upon the level 1/2 questions (from the past) for the shared course....just in case I have leisurely learners who could do with some formative assessement/to practise/consolidate what has gone before.......now that would be nice also- to use past questions/quiz items from colleagues, in order to build up to summative assessment.    

Am done-promise :0)

Dawn

p.s. nice text editor...simple, but efficient and Mozilla/Firefox friendly.

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Dawn - you can already do this in Moodle, either by teachers within the same course or by using the Question sharer role.

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by dawn alderson -

Brilliant! Thanks Mary.

To be clear, this can be in place over a 3/5/6 year period....to include resource-questions in the bank for part-timers?  I guess my confusion is to do with short term-same course sharing/and long term storage/access.

be grateful for that clarification.

thanks

Dawn

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by dawn alderson -

Hi Mary,

been thinking about this-to try to express myself more clearly so, here goes:

say you have a three year undergraduate degree in medicine, this is not the same learning approach as say, the languages or other practise-based courses....where context/knowledge frame the application skills.  Rather, it is application that frames the context/knowledge.....

So, that degree would include stuff-essential for application in more than one way.....over three years of training....a full trajectory is expected....there is a need to check year 1 is in place before any progress can be made...in terms of application.

year one then could be considered as a child-course (in my world) and therefore, only those on that course will have access to any shareable-course bank that has an expiray date-I could be wrong :0)

Dawn 

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Tim,

"Moodle does afford question sharing for a team of teachers/across their courses BUT the functionality is broken!" 

This is a good one-line summary, and I can only apologise really. I 
have been aware that this is a problem for several years. The 
backup-and-restore issues that Don linked to are not the real problem. 
They are symptoms that the whole question bank system is too complex, 
while at the same time not supporting all the things that people want.

OK, I see, these two tracker items are just the tip of the iceberg.  An overall re-working of the question bank is needed, both simplifying the structure/interface and extending it to meet teaching team needs.

So, I am going to go on thinking about it until I can think of something good. One bit of good news is that doing something about this is now on our priority list at the OU. The bad news is that there is probably a good year's worth of work higher up the priority list than this.

Yes, that is good news.  If OU puts its resources towards the problem it will get done eventually.  Knowing your committment helps me be patient.  In the mean time I can use the specific guidelines that Mary has put into Docs to ease the troubles. The detail just added does help.  We also need some case study descriptions (use cases) with screenshots as a part of the "handbook" to help teaching team managers like me to set up the categories properly.  In our 15-teacher team, we have about 5000 real questions and about another 5000 or so duplicates and broken questions, mostly due to teachers who are confused with categories and are redoing work that has already been done.

Thanks!  

Don


                                    

                
                
                
                                        
                
                
                                            

                                                    
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                                        In reply to Don Hinkelman
                                        
Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

                                        

                                            by Emma Richardson - 
                        

                                

                
                                        

                                                        Picture of Documentation writers
                                                        Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
                                                        Picture of Plugin developers
                                        

                            

                
                            

                
                                

                                    

                                        
As a big user of the "shared question bank", I guess I will throw in my comments.  
I am actually about to rebuild my whole site....again..., reimport all courses WITHOUT question bank, then import questions into individual courses to avoid the horrible consequences of having a large shared bank.  It is a sad step to take but I have run into so much trouble with restoring and importing, it seems like the sensible solution for now.
The main issues:
1. A large system level question bank can break the backup restore process.  First, it adds a large amount of Mb to the course backup which can become problematic when trying to restore causing constant timeout errors, etc.  With 2.6, if I was able to restore a course with a quiz in it (and frequently it would fail altogether), it would take anywhere from 30-60 minutes per course.

2. Any changes to a question, unless the question is saved as a new copy, change the questions everywhere.  This can cause havoc when questions are shared between multiple teachers.
That being said, I love the concept - that you can have a question bank that all teachers can access is a great idea.  To fix the issues now is not a simple line of code and I applaud anyone willing to take it on.
Here are my ideas for what might help - 
Create a repository that hosts the questions.  This would allow us to have a question bank all contained in one folder or an external drive that could be backed up and restored separately.
Make the questions that are saved to the question bank read-only.  This means that any question placed in the bank could not be changed but could be linked to and used in quizzes.
Create the following options for a teacher who wants to use a shared question -
1. Use a read only copy that is hosted in the repository.  This means that the teacher can put it in a quiz, students can answer but no changes can be made to it - ever....even by the teacher that originally created it and shared it to the bank.
2.  Copy the question to the course where it becomes editable.
Create the following options for teachers who are creating questions - 
1. This is a private question only to be used by me.
2. I want to save a read only version of this question in the question bank for other teachers to use.
I think that these two changes, (yes, I know this isn't a piece of cake!!) would greatly enhance the shared question bank and make it functional.
And thank you to all the coders out there that actually read the forums and try to make our lives easier!!  We really appreciate  you!

                                    

                
                
                
                                        
                
                
                                            

                                                    
Average of ratings: Useful (2) 

                                                    
                                            

                
                                        
                                

                            

                        

                    

                
        

                

                    

                        
                
                        

                            

                                        

                                                
                                        

                                

                                        In reply to Emma Richardson
                                        
Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

                                        

                                            by dawn alderson - 
                        

                                

                
                                        

                                        

                            

                
                            

                
                                

                                    

                                        
Emma, hi
you have summarised the headers....thanks.
Makes for some interesting possible movement forward.
cheers,
Dawn

                                    

                
                
                
                                        
                
                
                                            

                                                    
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                                        In reply to Don Hinkelman
                                        
Re: Sharing questions among teachers of same course types

                                        

                                            by Emma Richardson - 
                        

                                

                
                                        

                                                        Picture of Documentation writers
                                                        Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
                                                        Picture of Plugin developers
                                        

                            

                
                            

                
                                

                                    

                                        
As a big user of the "shared question bank", I guess I will throw in my comments.  
I am actually about to rebuild my whole site....again..., reimport all courses WITHOUT question bank, then import questions into individual courses to avoid the horrible consequences of having a large shared bank.  It is a sad step to take but I have run into so much trouble with restoring and importing, it seems like the sensible solution for now.
The main issues:
1. A large system level question bank can break the backup restore process.  First, it adds a large amount of Mb to the course backup which can become problematic when trying to restore causing constant timeout errors, etc.  With 2.6, if I was able to restore a course with a quiz in it (and frequently it would fail altogether), it would take anywhere from 30-60 minutes per course.

2. Any changes to a question, unless the question is saved as a new copy, change the questions everywhere.  This can cause havoc when questions are shared between multiple teachers.
That being said, I love the concept - that you can have a question bank that all teachers can access is a great idea.  To fix the issues now is not a simple line of code and I applaud anyone willing to take it on.
Here are my ideas for what might help - 
Create a repository that hosts the questions.  This would allow us to have a question bank all contained in one folder or an external drive that could be backed up and restored separately.
Make the questions that are saved to the question bank read-only.  This means that any question placed in the bank could not be changed but could be linked to and used in quizzes.
Create the following options for a teacher who wants to use a shared question -
1. Use a read only copy that is hosted in the repository.  This means that the teacher can put it in a quiz, students can answer but no changes can be made to it - ever....even by the teacher that originally created it and shared it to the bank.
2.  Copy the question to the course where it becomes editable.
Create the following options for teachers who are creating questions - 
1. This is a private question only to be used by me.
2. I want to save a read only version of this question in the question bank for other teachers to use.
I think that these two changes, (yes, I know this isn't a piece of cake!!) would greatly enhance the shared question bank and make it functional.
And thank you to all the coders out there that actually read the forums and try to make our lives easier!!  We really appreciate  you!

                                    

                
                
                
                                        
                
                
                                            

                                                    
Average of ratings:  -