Offline quiz capability?

Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -
Number of replies: 28

I have several students who do not have internet access.  Is there any capability in Moodle to put a quiz on a floppy, have the student take it off-line on a personal computer, save the result to the floppy and return it for upload and scoring?

We have computers at the school, but daycare and job constraints make it so some of our students can be on campus barely long enough to attend class.  There is usually enough time between classes to upload a few files and view grades, but not enough to take the quizzes (30 mins each).

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim.

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In reply to James Robertson

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Bryan Williams -
No not really. Let your students know that every public library in the US has at least one computer that a patron could use to take an online quiz.  
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In reply to Bryan Williams

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -

Thanks Bryan,

Several of the students use library computers, but four live in outlying areas that have little more than a gas station, much less a library, so they are the ones I am concerned about.  At present the only solution I can see is to give them a paper test, then copy the results online.  Messy, but since it's only four students at present it should work OK.  If anyone has other suggestions let me know.

Thanks,

Jim.

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In reply to James Robertson

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Josep M. Fontana -
I've seen this demand in other threads. It is probably difficult to do but this would be a HUGE enhancement for Moodle. Access to internet in many countries is not that easy. I live in one of the so-called 1st world (whatever that means) countries and more than 2/3 of my students don't have easy access to internet (although almost 95% of them do have computers at home). That makes them a lot less enthusiastic about my using Moodle for my classes because they have to wait sometimes as much as 1 hour in line to get access to one of the university computers (they are in high demand).

Josep M.
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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Vu Hung -

(A little bit off-thread) I see a similar demand with SCORM module. In fact, students don't have enough time (and money) to view a whole SCORM package online. My students asked me many times if they could download SCORM packages including a viewer. If so they can view content offline at home.

IMO this is a very good suggestion for many modules of Moodle.

Vu Hung

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In reply to Vu Hung

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Josep M. Fontana -
I certainly second that motion smile. It would be nice if you could, say, choose to download any combination (user would be able to choose in a similar way to the way we do it when we do a backup) SCORMS, unread forum posts, quizzes, etc.
Then work on them on a local computer. Then go to a computer that has access to internet and upload completed activities, forum answers, etc. That would be awsome.

Josep M.
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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Ian Gaither -

Motion tripled.

Many LMS providers are rushing to integrate offline capability for the reasons listed above. Infact, this is a major deciding factor for many institutions as they want learning to be available when a connection is absent.

I

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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -

Thanks for all the comments.  For the current term I have created a dummy offline assignment named "Paper Quizzes" in which I record offline quiz scores for students taking the quiz on paper.  Awkward, but it works.  Is there a better way?

Jim.

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In reply to James Robertson

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Miles Berry -
Following on from a thread in the gradebook forum, poking around the database suggests that the table mdl_quiz_grades may be the place where the action is. Data from this table seems to be what's displayed over in the gradebook, but changes here don't appear to affect the quiz result reports themselves.
The structure looks simple enough, with an autoincrementing id, quiz number, user id, the grade and a time stamp.
Would it be a Very Bad Idea to write something which adds the offline quiz results straight into this table?
If it is that simple, there is still no way I can learn enough PHP and Moodle code to do this properly before term starts, but I bet someone on here could do it!
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In reply to Miles Berry

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Gustav W Delius -
As long as you make sure that your additional entries in the mdl_quiz_grades table have very high numbers in the 'quiz' field so that they will never conflict with an actually existing quiz id then the quiz module will ignore those entries entirely. The only place where problems may arise is the backup and restore code. I am not sure how your additional entries would be backed up and restored.
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In reply to Gustav W Delius

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Miles Berry -
Ah, actually it's the existing quiz id's that I need to use...

It might be better for me to start with explaining what I'd like to do.
Most of my pupils complete their homework online via Moodle, but there are a few in each class who don't, because they or their parents prefer them to work on paper, "the Internet's broken", or Daddy's laptop's in Dubai. That's fine with me, but in order to use Moodle's gradebook as my markbook, I need to either enter their answers by hand for them, or set up a parallel offline assignment to hold the grades of these few pupils. Neither of these is terribly appealing.
Now, Dan Sherman of The LinuxBox has written a cool extension to Gradebook which allows you to edit assignment grades in gradebook itself, but it won't let you enter or edit quiz grades (Gustav breathes sigh of relief wink)

What I'd like to do, is find a way of entering (or adjusting) the final quiz grade for existing quizzes in gradebook, and my very naïve grasp of Moodle, suggested that mdl_quiz_grades was where such action took place. How much does the quiz module read from this table? My superficial understanding is that quiz just writes the highest scores so far into the table, no?

If it isn't this simple, then is there any chance that you could put this on to the, no doubt very lengthy, wishlist for quiz, under the heading 'Addressing the digital divide'? James, I'm sure, would second this request.

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In reply to Miles Berry

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -
Thanks, Miles, I very much second it, and appreciate your careful description of the problem (I am also using the LinuxBox gradebook extension).
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In reply to Miles Berry

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Rob Barreca -
I've looked into this for contributing to the LB gradebook and found that while changing the sumgrades value in the mdl_quiz_attempts table changes the grade on the Quiz Report page, but changing the grade field in the mdl_quiz_grades table actually changes the grade on the Grades page.

So, I guess to manually edit the grades for quizzes using the LinuxBox gradebook extension we'll need to modify both the sumgrades and grade field in their respective tables? 

The only problem I see is with reviewing somebody's answers after manually changing their grade.  If you change the score from 1 to 2, when reviewing that quiz attempt, the score will say 2 even if the answers show one correct and one incorrect.  Anybody see a problem with this?

Let me know if anybody agrees with all this and I'll start coding it. 
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In reply to Rob Barreca

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Miles Berry -
Hi Robert,
I've posted a more detailed response over in the gradebook forum, but I think it would be wiser to leave mdl_quiz_attempts alone, and only change the score in mdl_quiz_grades.
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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Marc Lachmann -
Hi Josep,

actually I don´t have a ready-to-go solution for your problem.
But we are working on it.
One of my team members develops a so called moodle-liveCD.
It´s a moodle with a autorun function that starts from a CD without installing it.
You can use the moodle like a normal server-based system.
Because you can integrate your normal courses into the image of the liveCD the students can use the quizzes on their home computers.
Another major feature is the possibility of uploading and downloading new courses via USB memory stick. We still have some problems with recognizing all usb devices, but it works already.
And best of all: It´s totally free because we are using a free linux os.

One big problem might be that the documentation is only in German.
But he promised to translate it into English in the next couple of months.
You should find the image here: If you got any questions feel free to use the german forum:
http://www.moodleschule.de
http://www.moodleschule.de/course/view.php?id=32

Hope it helps.
Marc
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In reply to Marc Lachmann

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Josep M. Fontana -
Hi Marc,

I return from my vacation and I find your message. This is really great news! I thought we would have to wait a long time to see this happening. Have you announced this anywhere else? I think there are a lot of people looking forward to this. Keep us posted. I think I'll wait untill the documentation is available in English as my German is extremely poor. I used to speak it many years ago but now Ich habe alles vergessen (I'm sure there must be some grammar error here :-})

Josep M.
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In reply to Marc Lachmann

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -

That is great news!  When you have a stable version, please let us know.  Or is it ready for testing now?  My high school German never was very good and that was 40 years ago, so I don't think I will be able to read anything in the German forum.  But even so I would like to test this as soon as it is stable.

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In reply to James Robertson

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Maik Riecken -
Hi,

I have to add a few things... I am the developer currently working on this live-distro. There is much to do, so don't expect an early solution. I'll need a couple of weeks to get all the features working fine.
It is no problem for me to produce live-distros including a running moodle featuring much file- and mediaformats und customized module settings, but I am something like a linux freak...
The goal is to find an easy way for windows-user to produce their own customized CDs containing their own moodle using only a normal burning-programm - this feature is still under construction and will take some weeks to be included.

greetings from germany!

Maik
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In reply to Maik Riecken

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -

Thanks for the report.  Sounds like you are doing some great work...I don't mind waiting.

Jim.

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In reply to Maik Riecken

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Josep M. Fontana -
Thanks Maik and Marc,

I don't mind waiting, either. I've been waiting so long for this functionality (and I had lost hope that it would be implemented ) that waiting a bit longer is totally bearable. Thanks for your work.

Josep M.
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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Maik Riecken -
Hi,

maybe this post may be interesting for you:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=30365

(first release of the LiveCD - english, a little earlier...).

yours,

Maik
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In reply to Maik Riecken

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Josep M. Fontana -
Thanks Maik,

I read the post and I have the same question as James Peterson. When the user runs Moodle from the LiveCD, how does the new data (a completed quiz, for instance) which is generated get transferred on-line again?

If this is explained in the instructions just point us to the section containing this info.

Thanks again.

Josep M.
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In reply to Marc Lachmann

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -

I tried to reach the German forum, but found I had to register as a new user.  I mistyped my email address, so tried again.  The email sent did not include a comfirm link -- it simply had an attachment, "noname."  Not sure what I did wrong the 2nd time, but I don't want to add any more useless usernames, so I will wait for further information in this forum.

Jim.

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In reply to James Robertson

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by James Robertson -

Received a confirmation email today & logged into site.  Found download page, but wasn't able to download, not sure what to do even if I succeed.  If anyone tries it successfully, please post here & tell what you did (in English wink).

Thanks,

Jim.

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In reply to James Robertson

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Marc Lachmann -
Hi James, hi Josep,

sorry, we had some trouble with our server. This might be the reason for your problems.
Anyway I would suggest that you wait another week or two until the new version is ready for testing.
Our admin changed the basic OS and enhanced some new features.
So it should be worth waiting.
I encourage him to translate the install instructions into English, promised.
In case you guys can´t wait, give it another try:
http://www.moodleschule.de/mod/resource/view.php?id=532
(log in, first wink ) - I checked it and it worked.

Cheers
Marc

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In reply to James Robertson

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Ashish Namdeo -
Hello Jim,

We have developed Offline Quiz for Moodle using Google Gear.

1) User can go to moodle quiz and on attempt page he will get the choice for Offline and Online both mode of quiz.

2) if he select offline mode Quiz is downloaded to his system (using google gear)

(After that net connection is not required till the exam is finished)

3) He can attempt the quiz offline on his system

4) once done he can connect to internet and sync the result.

5) Whole quiz will be sync to moodle database (as if it was attempted online)

you can review the Demo version of it at my site.


http://www.eddytools.com/eddyQuiz/

if interested we can customize and implement the same module to your moodle setup. Please contact us at
<contact @ eddytools . com>

Ashish,
Co-founder
EddyTools (TM) Anwesha Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
www.eddytools.com
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In reply to Ashish Namdeo

Re: Offline quiz capability?

by Peter Ward -
Hi Ashish,

I tried your solution by visiting your site. After installing google gears and running the test I get screen message 1000% downloaded. But the page then hangs. I am unable to run the test offline.

I can see the eddytools.com folders and files written to my machine.

Using Vista, IE7, Google Gears Version 0.5.33.0 and Javascript V6 update 17

Any ideas?
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