Moodle in English: Upload courses with question subcategories

Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Tuesday, February 4, 2020, 7:58 PM

Hello everyone. I have a problem, kinda complicated to explain in writing but I will try to keep it simple.

I have the following categories structure:

Course Template->Course AB->Course A, CourseB

I have 'X' questions on categorie "Course AB" that are used in both "Course A" and "Course B".

When I make a new course, by Moodle's "upload course" option and upload a csv file where I give Course A as a template, the course is not created.

If I move the question to the Course A categorie, the course duplicates OK.

What I want with the question in Course AB is to have only one place, and only one version of the questions.

What am I doing wrong? Any ideias?

Thank you

P.S.: Using Moodle version 3.7.

Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Emma Richardson - Tuesday, February 4, 2020, 8:45 PM

Ok, you appear to be talking about two separate things here and I am confused. Are you talking about course categories or question categories? When you say that the course is not created, what do you mean? There is no course at all? Or it just does not restore the questions? Can you explain a little more please....?

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Tuesday, February 4, 2020, 8:59 PM

Hello. Yes, it's not simple to explain in words. Try to be more clear.
In truth, It's both types of categories. That structure I described is Course categories but that translates to questions categories also wright? In my questions database I have that structure too correct?

What happens is that when I have the questions that are shared by Course A and Course B inside the categorie (I'm talking questions categorie here) Course AB, the created course is empty, it creates the course, with the correct number of topics BUT totally empty in terms of SCORM packages and Quiz activity even titles are not created.
If i move the questions from that Course AB categorie to the course categorie, to both courses, the course is created correctly, with the SCORM packages and the Quiz activity. The problem here is that I'm duplicating the questions which is not an option.

Hope it's more clear. Thank you in advance!

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Thursday, February 6, 2020, 2:36 AM

I think this might be a problem with the upload courses code.

Anyone has ideas on how to overcome this question? I can not duplicate the question database, that a requirement.

Thank you.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Dominique Bauer - Thursday, February 6, 2020, 8:29 AM

Hello Helder,

I did the following with a manager role:

Create course x is in course category XY.
In course x, create quizzes with questions that are placed in course category XY.
Create new course y in course category XY.
Import course x into course y.

Quizzes from course x duplicated correctly into course y with questions in course category XY. In other words, it seems to work fine.

You could try the same thing with an ordinary teacher role, for example on Moodle Sandbox demo site.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Thursday, February 6, 2020, 5:56 PM

Hello, that can't be my workflow. I need to create dozens of courses simultaneously.
My workflow has to be create a csv with the new courses and add the "template course" column to get them duplicated.
I cant do export/import, one by one, by hand.
Another difference is when I create the new courses they are in different course categories from the "template" ones.

Trying to clarify, my workflow is more like this:

- Have a "template" course categorie AB. Inside there are course A and course B.
- In the question database, there are also the AB categorie and each course has it's own categorie. Common questions to course A and B are on categorie AB, then each course has it's specific question on course level categorie. This is all default, I do not create any extra new question categorie.
- I build a csv file with the new courses to get them by Moodle's upload courses feature, and give course "A" or course "B" as a template to this new created course AND the categorie to this new created course is NOT course AB, let's cal it course "XA" to the course "A" templates and course "XB" to course "B" templates.

On this situation, the new courses get created BUT nothing is filled. Only the bare structure of the courses are created, the correct number of topics and nothing else, no SCORM packages, no Quizes, not even the titles.
If I move the question from question categorie Course AB inside each course A or B, everything works, everything is created correctly. Problem here is that I am duplicating the questions and that is not a possibility.

If it helps here are an example of the csv I use:
shortname fullname category startdate enddate format numsections templatecourse
courseXA Course XA 552 30-01-2020 31-01-2020 topics 6 CourseA

Categorie 552 is NOT the template categorie "Course AB", it's a different one.

But your workflow raises a question, if it works like you say, with import/export why the Moodle's upload courses procedure doesn't?

Hope I was able to clarify a little more my problem.

Thank you very much.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Thursday, February 6, 2020, 6:31 PM

I can change the workflow if there is another way to achieve this.

Thank you.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Dominique Bauer - Friday, February 7, 2020, 1:35 PM

Hello Helder,

I recreated your workflow on my test site and found the same behavior as you. As you say, this could be a bug with the "upload courses" functionality.

Would the following workflow work for you?

Create new courses in the "template" course category AB. Everything will be copied correctly.
Then simply move the new courses to the desired categories.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Friday, February 7, 2020, 9:51 PM

Hi! Well, thank very much for your effort to reproduce this problem.

I will certainly try and test your approach, but I am sceptic on one thing. Following the terminology of the explanation I gave before, you are saying I could create the courses in course categorie "Course AB" and then move them to course categorie "XA" and "XB" correct? Since "XA" and "XB" don't have access to "Course AB" what will happen to the question that are in "Course AB"? Will Moodle keep the pointer to them?

This is rhetoric questions because I will try it to see what happens.

I'm afraid Moodle duplicates them, hope not. Maybe Tim or Emma could shed some light in to this situation?

Again Dominique, thank you very much, and I will post the results of the workflow you suggested.

P.S.: I think I will open a tracker with this situation, do you think it's valid to do so? I mean, I'm not "asking" Moodle to do something that it's not correct, right? If it is, then at least a error message should be given.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Dominique Bauer - Saturday, February 8, 2020, 12:41 AM

Hello Helder,

I think opening a tracker is appropriate.

Please keep us informed.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Dominique Bauer - Saturday, February 8, 2020, 6:04 AM

Hello Helder,

For the record, here are more details on the workflow that I proposed:

Template course A has questions in course A context and in course category AB context.
Create course XA in course category AB from template course A.
Questions in course A context are duplicated in course XA context.
Questions in course category AB are not duplicated.
Questions in course XA point correctly to course XA context and to course category AB context.
Move course XA to course category XA.
Questions in course XA point to course XA context and to course category AB context.
A teacher with default settings has access to questions in course XA context but not in course category AB context.
However, students can attempt quizzes in course XA with questions from course XA context and course category AB context.

In other words, this way it seems to work.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Monday, February 10, 2020, 7:54 PM

Hello. Thank you very much for all your help.

I confirm this workflow works. In spite there are no question associated to the course when we move it, the quiz works fine, at least until what I've managed to test.
There are one strange behaviour. If I change the course categorie in Moodle, no questions get passed. If I simply update the table M_Course in the database, the course duplicates questions.

Now my next move will be a controlled production run. And open the tracker.

Dominique, thank you very much, your help was fundamental. The workflow you gave, doesn't solve the problem but is a viable alternative, I only have to change the categorie of the created courses in the website.
Perfect would be to have the "upload courses" work flawlessly

.

I will keep this thread updated with development.

P.S.: If ever in Lisbon, Portugal let me pay you a drink.

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Dominique Bauer - Monday, February 10, 2020, 11:51 PM

Saúde!

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Re: Upload courses with question subcategories

by Helder Pereira - Friday, February 28, 2020, 6:50 PM

Just to update that the workflow given by Dominique is working fine. Takes extra work than if upload course worked ok but it works.

I did not had the opportunity to open the tracker on this subject but it's not forgotten. The workload has been a little to much so it has fallen in the line.

But not forgotten.

Thank you

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