Displaying assignment information better

Displaying assignment information better

by Michael Hughes -
Number of replies: 1
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We've been going through a review process of our guidelines for assessment submission via Moodle, and one of the things we've identified is that we ask staff to clearly explain to the students what they are expected to submit (number of files, what format etc).

In doing this we've realised that we appear to be doing double-handling of this, especially where we as using the assignment activity.

The assignment module already asks for configuration information about submissions via it's submission plugins, so for the file plugin it asks:

  1. Maximum number of files to upload
  2. Acceptable file types

This is the same information (at least part of it) that we are asking the staff to ensure students know. 

This information is also *only* displayed on the edit submission page, not on the initial page where students are given the instructions about the assignment. It would be helpful for this information to be made available prominently to the student earlier.

I've put together a patch for the assignsubmission_file plugin that does this. It doesn't require any changes to Moodle API definitions, just for assignment submission plugin creators to follow a conventions of outputting a human-readable configuration statement.

Just wondering if anyone else has had thoughts /issues about reducing the amount of work to communicate assignment requirements.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Michael Hughes

Re: Displaying assignment information better

by Tim Hunt -
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As I am sure you have already thought through, there is a trade-off here:

  • If Moodle generates the 'What is required' list automatically, then it is guarantted to match the acutal settings, and teachers don't have to remeber to make this clear.
  • But then this slighly technical information is always present on-screen, and teachers have no control of how it is phrased, which they would do if we just left it to teacher to explain what they want in the activity description in language that makes sense for their class - but they might forget.
So, I don't have strong feelings one way or another. Neither option is clearly best all the time.