Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Joseph Rézeau -
ຈຳນວນການຕອບກັບ: 7
ຮູບພາບຂອງ Core developers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Particularly helpful Moodlers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Plugin developers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Testers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Translators

I am opening this new discussion further to the problem described in this discussion: Moving on to next section.

1.- As far as I know, the Lesson activity was the first Moodle activity to have a "prerequisite" feature. See Lesson_settings#Prerequisite_lesson. This features makes access to a Lesson B dependent on another lesson (e.g.) Lesson A, according to 3 criteria:

a. Time spent (in Lesson A) : number of minutes
b. Lesson A completed
c. Minimum Grade obtained in Lesson A (in %).

2.- Starting with Moodle 2, the Conditional activities feature was introduced along with the Activity completion feature. This dual way of making access to a Lesson instance dependant upon completion etc. of another instance makes things unnecessarily complicated and leads to confusion. Therefore I would like to create an issue in the Moodle Tracker to ask for the removal of the Prerequisite feature from the Lesson activity.

3.- However, there is one criteria in the Lesson Prerequisite feature that is not currently available in the Conditional activities feature: time spent on the previous activity (lesson). Is this criteria actually used by Lesson users (teachers)? If so, and if people think it is worth retaining, I see 2 possibilities:

a. Rework the Lesson Prerequisite to contain only the Time spent feature.
b. Add a Time spent in activity conditional access criteria to the existing Conditional activities feature, in a future Moodle version (2.8 or higher).

What to Lesson users think? I'd be especially interested to know if anyone is actually using the Prerequisite "Time spent" feature, and whether they think it is important to them.

Joseph

ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ: -
ໃນການຕອບກັບຫາ Joseph Rézeau

Re: Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Mary Cooch -
ຮູບພາບຂອງ Documentation writers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Moodle HQ ຮູບພາບຂອງ Particularly helpful Moodlers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Testers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Translators

Well I'd initially vote for option (a) Rework the Lesson prerequisite to contain only the Time spent feature. (I have no idea how many people use it; I "blogged" so to speak about it here: Time based activities in Moodle

As for option (b) add time spent to Conditional activities, I am sure lots of people would love that, even though many of us appreciate that it is often pretty meaningless. 

It will be interesting to see the responseຍິ້ມ

ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ: -
ໃນການຕອບກັບຫາ Mary Cooch

Re: Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Benjamin Wagner -

For what it's worth, I would vote for B.

Although it can be meaningless, we get a lot of people post here about needing this sort of feature, and at the moment a lesson is about the only way to do it. Having a general time condition would be more flexible and could help these people out more


Ben

ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ: -
ໃນການຕອບກັບຫາ Mary Cooch

Re: Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Joseph Rézeau -
ຮູບພາບຂອງ Core developers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Particularly helpful Moodlers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Plugin developers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Testers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Translators

@Mary,

Thanks for your reply and for the link to Time based activities in Moodle.

As you know, I totally agree that counting time spent on a Moodle site/course/activity can be pretty meaningless, but... a number of people (especially hierarchy) hold that delusion.ກະພິບຕາ

Joseph

ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ: -
ໃນການຕອບກັບຫາ Joseph Rézeau

Re: Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Michael Penney -

Most US public schools are funded based on ADA (Average Daily Attendence) which looks at time spent in the 'classroom' on a given day and funds/defunds if the minimum time spent is/is not met. This may change sometime in the next hundred years, meanwhile...ຍິ້ມ

Since ADA affects ~50M students (and many US corps and federal/state training uses a similar funding model), years ago Remote-Learner developed an algo to calculate time-spent from the log entries and a report that shows it as part of the ELIS system and open sourced the code. It's not perfect, but it works.

For a time I served as a treasurer on a public school's board and IMHO it would help Moodle in the US market to have this as a standard report.


ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ: -
ໃນການຕອບກັບຫາ Joseph Rézeau

Re: Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Wendi Daniels -
I need the "time spent" feature, and that was actually the only reason I went with "lesson". Please do not remove it.
ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ: -
ໃນການຕອບກັບຫາ Joseph Rézeau

Re: Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Jean-Michel Védrine -

Hello,

I have created MDL-48715 to add a new "time spent" custom completion rule to the lesson activity.

As Joseph noted this would permit to consider the old "lesson dependancy" feature as obsolete and advise people to only use activity completion for their new lessons starting from Moodle 2.9.

I don't know if we can go further remove it completely ? Maybe not to break existing lessons, we could just make the old settings for lesson dependancy hiden on the lesson form but not remove the code so existing lessons continue to work but dissallow people to use them for new lessons ?

Please Mary can you look at the English strings in my patch, I am fearing I am completely lost between time spend and time spent ເສົ້າ

ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ: -
ໃນການຕອບກັບຫາ Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: Prerequisite Lesson vs Conditional activities

ໂດຍ Tim Hunt -
ຮູບພາບຂອງ Core developers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Documentation writers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Particularly helpful Moodlers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Peer reviewers ຮູບພາບຂອງ Plugin developers

If you were feeling really brave, you could write upgrade code in mod/lesson/db/upgrade.php to convert the old "lesson dependancy" settings to the equivalent new equivalent activity completion and conditional availability settings.

Then you could drop the old code completely.

Of course, you would need to worry about sites that use "lesson dependancy", but which have either activity completion or conditional availability turned off at Site administration -> Advanced features. However, you could even handle that using a custom environment check (like https://github.com/moodle/moodle/blob/master/admin/environment.xml#L1131 )

This is all theoretical, to point out that it could be done. I am not saying that this is necessarily a worthwhile use of your time.

ການຈັດອັນດັບສະເລ່ຍ:Useful (2)