Test answers not saved?

Test answers not saved?

by Bianca Grin -
Number of replies: 4

Our Moodle version is 3.4.1+ (20180118)

We have tests that students must take at the end of their course (Resource type Test). We've set the tests to save/submit the answers automatically when a student runs out of time to take the test. All questions are on one page.

Sometimes a student's test answers are not saved. We can't figure out why this is. This occurs every 20 or so exams.

Does anyone else experience this issue? Is there a way to prevent this from happening?


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In reply to Bianca Grin

Re: Test answers not saved?

by Bianca Grin -
Update:
Today was a disaster. Out of the 6 people taking a test (different ones) 3 had this issue. We're not doing anything differently for the people who don't experience issues than for the people who do. What could be causing this?

I'm thinking it might be a timing issue as one of them timed out and used up the full 2 hours while the other two somehow managed to register more than 2 hours test time (2hrs and 12, 2hrs and 15 minutes respectively). Could this be caused by a student keeping two instances of a test open? Wouldn't know why anyone would do that, though.

All students are from other companies so I can't just walk up to them to see what they are doing.
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In reply to Bianca Grin

Re: Test answers not saved?

by Emma Richardson -
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If they are logged in twice with different browsers, this would definitely cause issues and is probably because they are trying to cheat the system somehow. Have you looked at the activity logs?
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In reply to Bianca Grin

Re: Test answers not saved?

by Tim Hunt -
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It seems like you are actually talkin about the Quiz module, not Assignment, so perhaps a moderator can move this thread.

Can you check the settings Admin -> Plugins -> Quiz -> Auto-save delay. That setting should be turned on, and that should make it very hard for students work to get lost.

Also, for the affected students, can you check Quiz settings -> Permissions -> Check permissions. (Look particualrly at mod/quiz:attempt and mod/quiz:preview.)

Also, I am sure that the fact that the time recorded was 2 hours 15 minutes is significant. With the on-screen timer I don't understand how it can be so late. Moodle will not accept data that is submitted that late. (However, that the time displayed may be related to MDL-54907, not a real thing.)

And, as Emma says, check all of the logs (Moodle log, Server logs, PHP error logs) get get as much hard data as possible about what happened.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Test answers not saved?

by Bianca Grin -
Hello Tim and Emma. Thanks for your input.

I'll check the Quiz settings. The logging hasn't shown too much yet but I'll dig a little deeper.
I think time outs and multiple windows are a big part of this issue.
I'll update our test instructions to mention not to open multiple screens, etc.
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