Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by M Horn -
Number of replies: 10

Hi all

We have a case where a student is adamant that he completed a peer-assessment of a Workshop activity, though no review is shown on his name and the report logs for the course and activity indicated that he did not complete the peer-assessment or even viewed all the submissions made by his peers.

However, he has now send us a screenshot of the submission documents of his peers on his computer, with the time and date stamp of when he downloaded the documents to his computer. On Moodle we can see that he accessed the course and the Workshop activity a minute before the first file was saved on this computer, but the report does not contain any logs indicating that he opened the submissions of his peers.

(The report below is for the course, for the specific student and for the whole of the day in question and all activities and actions; these two entries below are the only actions/activities done (and logged) by the student on the specific day).

log


files


This now opens a whole can of worms, because if he was able to download the documents without Moodle having a log for it, then he can argue that he did in fact do the peer-assessments for each student, even though Moodle has no log or activity history/grade of this.


Can the report logs be wrong? It is possible that the student did in fact perform an action that is not in Moodle's logs?

Could the data be stored elsewhere as well? (I.e. can I do an ad-hoc database query and locate more detailed logging details of the student's activities, and if so, what is the SQLquery to do this?)


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In reply to M Horn

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by David Mudrák -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

if he was able to download the documents without Moodle having a log for it

I just checked the code and it can easily happen actually. There is an event logged for every time when a particular submission is displayed via the submission.php script (that is clicking the submission title). Such an event is then logged as "Submission viewed":

The user with id 'X' viewed the submission with id 'Y' for the workshop with course module id 'Z'.

But, during the assessment phase, students typically end on the assessment.php page where the very same submission is displayed as well - together with the attachments - without leaving the event logged. That is a bug and it will help if you can report it in the Moodle Tracker.

So yes, the student could read the submission and download the attachment.

However, if the student provided the assessment via the workshop interface (that is, if he actually filled and submitted the assessment form), there would be another event "Submission assessed" logged:

The user with id 'X' assessed the submission with id 'Y' for the user with id 'Z' in the workshop with course module id 'W'.

So maybe the student just did not understand that he was supposed to actually fill the assessment form via the web and submit it? (assuming the Workshop was really used like this).

Generally, let me discourage you from making any decision based on the absence of the event in Moodle logs (not only in Workshop).

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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by M Horn -
Thank you, David.


I understand what you mean with the difference between submission.php and assessment.php. Will report this as a bug.


The student knew he had to complete the Workshop assessment form (it was not the first time that they had to do this for the same course and he completed it for previous workshops), but there is no assessment made by the student (i.e. it shows the students name in red next to each peer's submission, indicating that grade was not given), That is why we turned to the logs to see if the student maybe opened the assessment form for each peer and then maybe just forgot to click on "submit", but there was nothing in the logs indicating that they even opened the assessment form for any peers.


We can see the "Submission assessed" log for all other students in the course, so assumed it not being logged for this student meant that they did not complete it. (It would however worry me if they really did complete it, because Moodle has no record of this, i.e. there are no grade logged in the Workshop activity for any of his peers that he had to access)

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In reply to M Horn

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by David Mudrák -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

It would however worry me if they really did complete it

I am quite confident that the user did not submit the form. But yes, he could have the form filled and just forgot to press the submit button, or so.

You know, in more and more web and mobile applications (like google docs), changes are saved instantly and implicitly so submitting may be unnatural to many users these days mixed

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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by Annette Knobloch -

Does this mean if the student did assess an example  submission, that I will see 
"the status of the submission has been viewed"  and that means the student did assess the example submission??? The next column, Description, has this wording "The user with id '995' has viewed the submission status page for the assignment with course module id '12092'."



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In reply to Annette Knobloch

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by Annette Knobloch -

Correction to above post. The only wording I see in the Log, set to Workshop, all activities, for a particular, reliable student who emailed a description of what she sees for two example asssesments, are Course Module Viewed. There are no "viewed submission' words.

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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by Annette Knobloch -

For assessment of example submissions, I do not see the ...assessed the submission... (under the Description column in Logs).

Copy/paste from above.

However, if the student provided the assessment via the workshop interface (that is, if he actually filled and submitted the assessment form), there would be another event "Submission assessed" logged:

The user with id 'X' assessed the submission with id 'Y' for the user with id 'Z' in the workshop with course module id 'W'
I see this: The user with id x viewed the 'workshop' activity with course module id x', for all reported Workshop  activity.
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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by Annette Knobloch -

There is no easy way to leave the event. There is no link at the bottom of the page, after assessment, to move out. One must to navigation links along the side, or top! I Have worked for several more hours in the Sandbox, logging in as several hypothetical students.  The problem with Example submissions is as I have reported in several posts and replies. However, the wording in Logs does indicate submission, and also assessment, for real (not example) submissions.

In the process of being a hypothetical student, doing assessments, I kept looking for a link at the bottom of the page, to leave the event. I would not have known to use that wording. I simply wanted to move on. In summary, after assessing the work, I click on save and close. That gets me to the page with the assessment that I just did. And then, I expected to see a button, Done, or Go back to the course, or something like that. Not there!  Pure trial and error!

Now, back to the assessment of example submissions: Why can't the programmers program the same wording for the event for assessments of both  the example and real submissions?!?

In addition, when I download the logs, the header words surprised me. I can see that Event context is the label for the learning activity. The Component is what? The key work or type of learning activity? The Event name makes a little sense for the assessment of real submissions, but no sense at all for the example submissions. After seeing your wording in the blue box, the words  under the Description make sense for assessment of the real submissions, not for the assessment of examples.

After submitting work as two hypothetical students, the logging out,  then back in as me, switching the phase, allocating submissions, logging out, logging in, in turn, as each hypothetical student, assessing each other's and own poster, logging out respectively as them, back in as me,


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In reply to M Horn

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by Annette Knobloch -

Absolutely, it can happen. I have just discovered that. I am seeing Viewed in the log, and not the wording Added, or submitted, or updated as in the pre 3.0 version. I am the only faculty using the Workshop, in our college, so there is no one to go to for help. I may try tech support, but the advice will be to cone to this forum.

In addition to the inconvenience, this glitch can lead to student perceiving faculty as muddling through. In this case, this case, the Moodle glitch has put us in a muddling position.

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In reply to Annette Knobloch

Re: Reporting/logs on Workshop activity missing for student action

by Annette Knobloch -

I have just now logged into the Sandbox, course, Workshop, as a hypothetical students. I assessed the example poster. I clicked on Save and Close. I saw the resulting page of my assessment, as a hypothetical student. I logged out. I  logged back in as me, faculty. In Reports, Log, Workshop (as Activity), for the hypothetical student,  I see, "Course module viewed.'


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