What I want to build next

What I want to build next

by Jean-Michel Védrine -
Number of replies: 4

Back in 2011 Tim wrote an enlightening blog post.

This was a great source of inspiration for some of us.

I took the liberty to borrow his title because since a few hours I know what I want to build next.

I feel so stupid for not having this idea years ago, because in fact it has been floating in my mind for years (even before I learned about Moodle) but I didn't saw it was there.

First, let me remember you that in fact all my Moodle contributions have been to improve on other ideas, maintaining plugins when they were seeking for a new maintainer, fixing bugs, I don't think I ever created something brand new.

So maybe this idea also isn't brand new and somebody has already done that.

What I want to do is a Moodle website were teachers from all countries could exchange questions.

They could create an account on this website, try some questions, download these questions using Moodle xml format (this is the de facto format to retain all the questions details). 

But they could also upload their own questions (using GIFT, Moodel XML, Blackboard and all the import formats available in Moodle) to share them with other teachers.

Of course Moodle will run this website and it will surely require a dedicated activity module (but the question creation activity can provide some code to create this module) and I think this is quite doable.

You can object that moodle.net has already some questions to share but what I envision would be more general

  • contributed question types would be available so for instance teachers can try and download gapfill, Stack or formulas questions
  • the feature to be able to try a question before deciding to download it is important the data module used on moodle.net doesn't permit that
  • When people wrote about a question in the Quiz forum they could link to that question so that other can try it live.
Maybe there are other websites for Moodle questions sharing that I don't know and that provide all this features. In fact it seems too good for teachers that someone else had no that idea before me பெரிய அசட்டுச் சிரிப்பு

One last thing but very important to m is that it should be entirely free !

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In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: What I want to build next

by Don Hinkelman -
Particularly helpful Moodlers இன் படம் Plugin developers இன் படம்

Jean-Michel, first of all, thanks for all the support and your ever-continuing stability in maintaining so many plugins. I really benefited from that. I hope that your Question-Sharing Hub (may I call it a hub?) comes true, because it is a great idea. And maybe an idea that is being considered in the new MoodleNet plans.

In a sense, the Moodle Association of Japan Hub is trying to do what you want to do, but in a format of exchanging whole courses, which of course includes quizzes and questions. We have encountered so many problems with contributed question types in our hub, so that we now limit them. I wish we could use the Drag-and-drop Matching question type (the greatest question type in Moodle history--which you supported for many years) but had to abandon it due to database corruption, mobile display and other issues.

A deeper problem is the Question Bank itself. The oldest bug in Moodle history (in my narrow view!) is now ten plus years old--minimizing questions during backup/restore. These are the issues I want to highlight and get renewed attention on:

  • MDL-12403:  Minimize questions in Question Bank-original
  • MDL-41924:  Minimize questions in Question Bank
  • MDL-19721:  Put Sharing Cart into core.

In creating the Sharing Cart, we made a in-site way to share questions and quizzes among teachers. However, with deep structural bugs in backup/restore, we had to stop sharing and keep questions in the (my-own) Course context. Through the Question Sharing Hub, I hope you can fix these bugs, or lead us in a new direction of question banking and a new era of sharing.

Questions are more important than answers!

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: What I want to build next

by Jean-Michel Védrine -

Hello Don,

Thanks for your post because it will give me the occasion to further explain my view.

As a teacher I remember having used lessons and questions made by other teachers and downloaded as course backups. For the questions it was always somewhat painful. As you said the first obstacle is the size of some course backups.

The other thing is that teachers love to customize things made by others before using them. So restoring these courses on a production server is rarely satisfying.

I resorted to restoring these course on a local Moodle instance, made my modifications and then exporting some of the questions to my production website.

In an ideal world I imagine it would be cool to log on a website with a big bank of questions, navigate, try many questions and flag the ones I want then click on a button and download my choice of questions as an xml file (this will need some modifications to the way xml export currently work because questions could be in different categories).

I think I know the question engine code and in particular the question format import/export code enough to do that. Surely I will encounter unexpected difficulties while coding it, but it seems doable.

For the import, I am sure I will need to add some verification to the current import formats because it is quite easy to import broken questions.


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In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: What I want to build next

by Mary Cooch -
Documentation writers இன் படம் Moodle HQ இன் படம் Particularly helpful Moodlers இன் படம் Testers இன் படம் Translators இன் படம்

Hello Jean-Michel and thankyou from me too for your thoughts and desire to help Moodle. Anything you suggest or can offer will be great by me புன்முறுவல் I also repeat Don's comments that the new MoodleNet hopefully will address some of these issues. Please feel free to read and participate in the MoodleNet project blogged about here. 

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In reply to Jean-Michel Védrine

Re: What I want to build next

by Don Hinkelman -
Particularly helpful Moodlers இன் படம் Plugin developers இன் படம்

Hi Jean-Michel,

Thanks for sharing your ideas and now I can visualize what you want to create--very interesting...

"I imagine it would be cool to log on a website with a big bank of questions, navigate, try many questions and flag the ones I want then click on a button and download my choice of questions as an xml file"

Yes, that is what I would very much want to do too.  The key would be making it very easy to browse, very easy to put those questions into your course, and very easy to donate questions. I think you are right person to make this happen--as a teacher, programmer and long-time contributor to Moodle. Let me know how I can help.

I also think that MoodleNet should include this.  Not that MoodleNet should do it, but MoodleNet should include this "Questions Hub" in their collaborative teaching authoring environment. 

I wonder if there would be any problems handling or viewing video, audio, images in the questions? 

Don

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