upload feedback files without student file submissions

upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Scott Watkins -
Number of replies: 9

Is it possible to upload feedback files for multiple students (compressed into a zip file), if there are no files submitted by the students? I'm using Moodle 3.0.

Thanks for any suggestions!

--scott

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In reply to Scott Watkins

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Phil Blyth -

Hi Scott

I replied to previous forum https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=216391&parent=1372398 with this answer.

Yes, it is possible to upload a zip file with feedback for multiple students. The key is to be sure you have the naming convention sorted. Or risk giving the wrong student the wrong feedback! So most likely you will be using a word-merge or other means of generating the feedback automatically.

  1. Make sure your assignment has Feedback types of both Offline grading Sheet and Feedback files 
  2. 'View All Submissions' and then Grading Action - Download Grading Worksheet.
  3. This csv file will have Column A - Participant Number. This number is unique to the student AND the assignment, e.g. Participant 401,  And Column B - Full name, e.g. Joe Bloggs.
  4. Use this spreadsheet file to create the following naming convention for your feedback files. e.g. "Joe Bloggs_401_assignsubmission_file_.pdf". As far as I can tell the underscores are important!
  5. Zip your renamed feedback files.
  6. 'Grading Action - Upload multiple feedback files in a zip', drag and drop your zip file in.
  7. Sit back and enjoy a well earned break.

On trialling I think you may be better off putting each feedback file in its own folder per student e.g. A folder called ' Joe Bloggs_401_assignsubmission_file_' with a feedback file such as 'JoesFeedback.pdf', but I have not tested this enough to be sure.

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In reply to Phil Blyth

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Sarah Ricketts -

Hi Phil,

Thanks for your detailed instructions.  I've followed these but getting the message 'no changes' on upload of the zip of feedback.  We're currently on Moodle 2.8.

I've got a test course, test assignment, test learner,.  In the grading worksheet I have the following data:

  • Full Name column is 'Test Student'
  • Identifier column is 'Participant 646333'

I have created a folder called 'Test Student_646333_assignsubmission_file_' and inside it there is a feedback file called 'Test Student_646333_assignsubmission_file_testfeedback.pdf'.  I've zipped the folder up and tried to upload but getting the 'no changes' error.  Does the assignsubmision_file part need to be replaced with anything specific for each learner?

Kind regards,
Sarah

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In reply to Sarah Ricketts

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Phil Blyth -

Hi,

Sorry I've been away. I can't see any issues with what you have donesad . From Moodle 3.1 (I think that is when it was introduced), you can also upload a zip with folders containing documents.

So if you have folders in the following type of structure, using the same naming convention provided in my earlier post, you can zip it up and upload via the same mechanism, and then it is the naming of the folders which is important (e.g. a folder called 'Dolores McLaughlin_42_assignsubmission_file_') rather than the individual PDFs. The benefit of this is that you can create a folder structure, and then dump in the various files from markers as they come.

  • AllMyFeedbackFiles
    • Dolores McLaughlin_42_assignsubmission_file_
      • FeedbackStudent1.pdf
    • Elsie Hamilton_30_assignsubmission_file_
      • FeedbackStudent4.pdf
    • Hazel Bender_48_assignsubmission_file_
      • FeedbackStudent3.pdf
    • Malcolm Wagner_50_assignsubmission_file_
      • FeedbackStudent2.pdf
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In reply to Phil Blyth

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Claudio Delpino -

First off, thanks Phil for your instructions.

I've created a small google apps script for this task, if anyone is interested ?

I will upload it to this post once I finish some extra fuzzy name matching. 


Thanks again!

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In reply to Claudio Delpino

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Sarah Ricketts -

Hi Claudio,

I'd be very interested in this google apps script if you have got it working successfully?

Thanks
Sarah

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In reply to Sarah Ricketts

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Claudio Delpino -

Yes, it actually has been through two iterations now succesfully... 

Now, it takes scores and written feedback from a google sheet, and files structured in a folder per student and tries to match them to the names in the google sheet.  It then assembles the folder structure required with the files and a pdf made via gdocs with the written feedback. Of course it also fills the csv with the scores (and the csv is used in the first place to learn the student codes). 

I will see in the next week how can we go about publishing it / making it available for public development. 

If you (or anyone  else) want to let me know some more about your intended workflow, please do so, so I can have it in mind when polishing the I/O. 

Best!

Claudio

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In reply to Claudio Delpino

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Ryan Cool -

Hi all - 

I just created an account to let you know that I was able to upload manually created feedback files using the directions in this thread! Thank you!

I had an assignment that had multiple submissions, but I only wanted to mark-up the assignment expectation sheet that I had saved as a PDF file (I didn't want to mark-up, and upload, multiple files for each student). When I downloaded the assignments, they were named by Moodle as Firstname Lastname_1234567_assignsubmission_file_Filename.docx. I simply saved a version of my assignment expectation sheet for each student and named it Firstname Lastname_1234567_assignsubmission_file_.pdf where Firstname, Lastname, and 1234567 corresponded to the values from the submissions that I downloaded from the students.

I DID NOT have to create a folder for each student.

When I do this again, I will actually name the file by entering the name of the assignment after the assignsubmission_file_ portion of the name as Moodle is showing that each student has a file named ".pdf" as a feedback file. 

.pdf




For this project I should have named it Firstname Lastname_assignsubmission_file_WordProject.pdf. Then the students would see a file named WordProject.pdf as their feedback file, not .pdf as mentioned before.

Hopefully, this makes at least a little bit of sense???

Thanks again!

Ryan

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In reply to Ryan Cool

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Claudio Delpino -

Thanks Ryan, 

Interesting news!

It would be interesting if anyone can confirm if the folder structure is necessary or not, even in the multiple uploaded files per student case.  I will try to test it before I begin to finish off the script discussed with Sarah, but I am a bit busy now. 

Best

Claudio

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In reply to Claudio Delpino

Re: upload feedback files without student file submissions

by Ryan Cool -

That is a good point Claudio. I only submitted one file per student. I have never tried to submit multiple files per student.

It does seem like properly named folders might be the way to go, especially if you can script the creation and naming of them. I started with the same blank grading template for each student, and then I made a copy of it and named it so that Moodle would know what to do with it. It was a very tedious process...

Ryan

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