Could we make the quiz timer better?

Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Tim Hunt -
Number of replies: 13
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At the moment, the quiz timer displays like this: HH:MM:SS and, for the final 15 seconds, the colour changes to warn you that time is nearly over.

There are several problems with this:

  • For a 3-hour exam, an warning in the last 15 seconds is not really helpful. A warning with 5 mins to go might be better (but not for a 5-minute exam).
  • For a long exam (several days) being told there are 76:54:32 left is not very helpful.
  • You don't really need to know whether you have 1:23:45 or 1:23:46 left, and the constant changing of seconds is probably unnecessarily distracting.

I am thinking it might be better to do something like this:

  1. For times of more than 10 hours, display the time left like 2 days 7 hours.
  2. For times less than 10 hours and more than 1 hour, display it like 1:23. (How do you know that is hours and minutes, not minutes and seconds, well, it does not keep changing!)
  3. For time less than 1 hour, display the time as 54:32.
  4. With 5 minutes to go, make some change to the display, to act as a warning. Not quite sure what would be best.

Obviously, there are various things there that could be adjusted, e.g. exact display formats, or whether 10 hours is the right cut-off. What do people think?

(I have thought about this in the past, but this post now has been inspired by MDL-49916.)

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Emma Richardson -
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I would be tempted to specify hours and minutes a little more clearly so that students cannot use the "I thought there was an hour left, not a minute" excuse!!  Perhaps my teachers are the only ones with students like that - but they are in high school and not college!!

Perhaps something like 1h 23m for anything greater than one hour.  (I don't see the need to change anything at 10 hours)  Once you get over 12 hours, add the 1d 11h 23m  format.  Under one hour - 54m 12s.

Of course, it would be really nice if teachers could specify when they would like the timer to change color (I like the change in color - probably to red and maybe bolded)- that way it could be made to be more fitting for each quiz length.  A setting on the quiz settings page??

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Tim Hunt -
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Remember that Moodle has to work in any language, not just English.

Also, I really don't see the need to make this a setting. Teachers have more important things to think about. Surely we can come up with heuristics for how the timer should behave, so that it just works for all lenghts of quizzes, without anyone having to worry about it on a quiz-by-quiz basis.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Emma Richardson -
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True, but surely the language files would handle something as generic as h,m,s.  Aren't those basic time abbreviations?   Maybe not..I have just been inundated with students blaming Moodle for their laziness this year and hate to encourage any change that would give them more excuses!!

So, would you adjust the time left setting for certain lengths then?  e.g.  Less than 30 minutes, last minute...over an hour but less than 2, five minutes...that could work too but wouldn't that entail more complexity in the coding?  Maybe not enough to deter? 

Back to the endless conversation of simplicity vs. flexibility and control...

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Tim Hunt -
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I am thinking that we should do some complex coding once, so that no-one else ever has to worry about this again in future.

(Acutally, first some careful thinking to work out how we want the code to work, then some coding.)

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Emma Richardson -
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Excellent plan then!!  Thanks for all you do for the quiz Tim!  (I am actually doing a workshop on the quiz at Mountain Moot this year - slightly scary prospect with all the changes that you have been up to!!)

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In reply to Emma Richardson

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Tim Hunt -
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If you try to introduce users to the new quiz features, please let us know anything they find difficult. I find that training sessions work well as usability tests.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Emma Richardson -
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Will do.  Not totally sure what areas I am going to get into yet but know I will be covering the main settings, feedback, using quiz for learning as well as assessment, cloze question type, etc.  Will be a good training exercise for me too!!

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Joshua Bragg -

I like this idea.

I tend to use very short quizzes (5-10 minutes) in Moodle so I would  suggest that the warning be set to a percent of the total time rather than a hard number.  Say something like when 80% of the time is used then change to the warning display.  In my face-to-face time at school I tend to give a 10 minute warning on a 45 minute test (77.7%) and a 15 minute warning on a 90 minute test (83%) so 80% seems about right to me.

My students have complained before that the ticking seconds do distract them.  I would suggest that you don't display the number of seconds until there is less than 10 minutes left on a quiz.  This could be a hard coded number in my mind.  The number of seconds really don't matter until you're very close to the time limit.

I'd agree with Emma not to use the same format for two different time styles (don't do both HH:MM and MM:SS).  Since I've already suggested not adding seconds until after there is 10 minutes left then that is a logical place to switch from "10 minutes" to 09:59.

A related thought, what is the point at which the timer starts to display for a quiz that is about to close but has no time limit?

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In reply to Joshua Bragg

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Tim Hunt -
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Is the change from "10 minutes" to 09:59. enough of a warning in itself?

At the moment, my feeling is that we would be best with a set schedule like:

  • 30 mins
  • 10 mins
  • 5 mins
  • 1 mins
  • last n seconds.

And then, for a given quiz, skip any warnings that fall in the first 50% of the time, and show the rest.

So, in a 90 minute quiz, show all the warnings I listed. For a 45 minute quiz, the first warning would be 10 mins.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Mathew Gancarz -
Picture of Core developers

That sounds like a good solution that doesn't overcomplicate things also.

For the actual display, I may also suggest something more prominent than just the current colour change. I think when doing a quiz the attention is focused on the question window, rather than on the left side. Possibly something that appears in that area that can be dismissed?

Talking in general about the quiz timer I would also like to note https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-27570 . We've put up big instructions for our learners to not hit back/forward in their browser, but I still expect people will tend to do out of habit to review questions anyways.

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In reply to Mathew Gancarz

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Tim Hunt -
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Yes, but we don't want to distract students with this when they are concentrating on a question. Perhaps, as well as the display in the question navigation block, we should put something beside the 'Next' button, so students see it then. Or perhaps just something across the top of the browser window. Hmm. I will consider. It seems like a good idea.

Thanks for the reminder about MDL-27570. Yes, it would be nice to get that fixed.

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by dawn alderson -

Hi Tim et al.,

Bit late coming here, but I got stuck-not unusual, on a detail.  Been thinking about it. Now, when you say warning...I understand there are many ways this can be done....if I am honest, I think fiddling anymore with the digits might appear confusing.

I like the intervals-they make sense.

So, i thought-well what about including a progress bar and making your warning signal with that...just a thought really.

I know Bb have this hideous bar that shifts....across the quiz as you complete the questions....for goodness sake nothing like that eh! wink 

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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Could we make the quiz timer better?

by Dominique Bauer -
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ISO distinguishes between time of the day and duration:

  • hh:mm:ss represents the time of the day.
  • [n]H[n]M[n]S represents duration. Letters H, M, S are used in all languages.

'1:23:45' means one o'clock 23 minutes 45 seconds in the morning.

'1H23M45S' means a duration of 1 hour 23 minutes 45 seconds.

'P3Y6M4DT12H30M5S' represents a duration of three years, six months, four days, twelve hours, thirty minutes, and five seconds. The initial 'P' stands for 'period', 'T' for 'time duration'. Again letters P, Y, M, etc. are used in all languages.

Examples of time left in exams, based on ISO, could be:

  • '1D 2H'  one day and two hours left
  • '1H 2M 3S'  1 hour 2 minutes 3 seconds left
  • '10M'  10 minutes left
  • '2.5W'  two and a half weeks left
 Other variations and alternatives are possible. More details are available in:


ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats - Information interchange - Representation of dates and times
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

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