Moodle in English: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Shamim Rezaie - Monday, 15 February 2021, 11:56 AM

Hi all,

As part of the UX improvement in Moodle, we are working on improving the student activity completion in Moodle 3.11. This is to provide clear information on the course page around required actions to complete activities, as well as providing clear due date information for each activity.

We encourage you to provide your feedback about the proposed changes. The project is outlined at student activity completion, and its related Epic on the tracker is MDL-70469.

Average of ratings: Useful (5)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Tim Hunt - Tuesday, 16 February 2021, 6:29 AM

I can see that the proposed new UI is a lot clearer, but I have two worries, which you have probably already thought about, but I would love to know your thinking:

1) The new UI is a lot clearer. However, it takes up about 4x as much vertical space. Is this going to be a good trade-off for everyone? (I mean, a pejorative term people often use about Moodle courses is 'scroll of death'.)

2) So far, we just have requirements, which is fair enough, but I am a developer, so I would love to see a sketch of how you propose to make the additional display of open and close date work in all cases, without causing a performance regression. The 'all cases' I am thinking about in particular are:

a) the dates can depend on the individual user and which groups they are in, in at least assign, lesson and quiz.

b) activities are a type of plugin, and different activities have different settings that may or may not be relevant here. (So, I assume these dates are coming from some sort of callback? Would be interesting to know what you are thinking here.)

Thanks.

Average of ratings: Useful (4)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Shamim Rezaie - Tuesday, 16 February 2021, 12:52 PM

Thank you, Tim, for raising 2 good points.

Let me comment on the second one. We are adding a base class in MDL-70815 (core_completion\activity_custom_completion) which activity modules can extend, so they can implement their custom logic for specifying if a specific completion criterion is met for the activity or not. This is done by core_completion\activity_custom_completion::get_state() which takes a completion rule (or criterion) and returns if that rule is met.
We cache the result in $cm->customdata['customcompletionrules'][] to minimise the risk of having performance regressions. Although it is still a work in progress, Jun has already provided a patch for MDL-70815 which you can look at to see what I described in real and with more details.

Our development epic for this project is MDL-70814. It shows how we broke this project into smaller pieces.

Average of ratings: Useful (3)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Sander Bangma - Tuesday, 16 February 2021, 2:59 PM

Hi Tim,

Re 1):

Yes, it does take up more space - but with valuable information

There also is an option to disable/enable display of this information on a course level. And an admin setting to specify a course default for disabling/enabling the display of the extra information. So there is flexibility for those who prefer to not display this.

For 4.0 we have further improvements in the pipeline such as a course index that will allow quick and easy navigation to course sections and activities, which will address the 'scroll of death' concerns.

Average of ratings: Useful (4)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by M. Degrange - Sunday, 14 March 2021, 4:24 AM

WIll there still be a checkbox if we choose to disable the extra information ?

Average of ratings: Useful (4)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Russ H - Friday, 25 June 2021, 3:31 AM

We have quite a few angry instructors at our university who were using the checkboxes. Why were they removed instead of providing the option? The new completion description option is not an improvement for all of our current use cases (e.g., no instructor uses manual completion & the value of the checkboxes is to provide a clear visual shorthand (without adding clutter) to the main course page).

If you agree, please support this ticket request to re-instate the checkboxes: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-71856

Average of ratings: Useful (4)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Dave Balch - Tuesday, 16 February 2021, 5:29 PM

I'd like to highlight that the wording used is particularly important for usability.

Maybe it's not set in stone yet, but the text for a completed Automatic completion ("Done: Make a submission") is a little concerning as it could/would be read as contradictory - I can imagine the student support calls of "It says Done, but still tells me to Make a submission!?".

Perhaps it would be helpful for it to support past-tense versions (e.g. "Done: Submitted"), so that the text is clear that the completion requirement has been completed.

Cheers.

Average of ratings: Useful (6)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by John Provasnik - Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 9:01 AM

I thought the same thing -- or put it in reverse "Make a Submission: Done"

Average of ratings: Useful (3)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Shamim Rezaie - Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 2:32 PM

Thank you, Dave and John.
Very valuable input. I draw our UX expert attention to this.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Helen Foster - Thursday, 18 February 2021, 12:05 AM

Thanks Dave and John for your comments. It's definitely not set in stone yet, and suggested improvements are most welcome!

Regarding whether to have past-tense versions, if 'To do' and 'Done' are styled sufficiently differently (as in the mock-up), then I don't think a past-tense version is necessary. If I have a to-do list, when I have done something, I just write 'Done' next to it; I don't then go and write it out again in the past tense.

I also wondered about reversing things as you suggested John, however the colon in things like "Receive a grade: Done" or "Make entries: 2: Done" doesn't seem quite right to me.

For simplicity, I like having only the styling and the words 'To do' and 'Done' changing.

Average of ratings: Useful (2)

Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by John Provasnik - Wednesday, 17 February 2021, 9:41 AM

Will the Expected Completion dates (under the Activity completion settings) be used in this tracker? Or will the dates used be the ones that are unique to each activity module?

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 - expected completion dates

by Helen Foster - Thursday, 18 February 2021, 1:03 AM

Thanks John - good questions!

Currently the 'Expect completed on' date doesn't have any effect on activity completion. It just makes the activity appear in the Timeline block on the Dashboard.

Thus, I would suggest NOT mentioning these dates on the course or activity pages so that students can focus on the important open and close dates.

Average of ratings: Useful (2)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 - expected completion dates

by ryan lesperance - Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 5:47 AM

Apologies for being so late to the game but is there any chance that Group and user overrides can be applied to "Expect completed on" ? We use Expect completed on as a prompter for teachers to have progress conversations with students as opposed locking students into open and close dates Thanks in advance

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 - expected completion dates

by Helen Foster - Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 11:23 PM

Hi Ryan, I searched the Moodle tracker and came across MDL-65043, which I think is what you are asking for - for all activities (not just quiz)? If so, please feel free to vote, watch or comment in the issue.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Dirk Meyer - Thursday, 18 February 2021, 9:02 AM

I think horizontal stacking of information could become problematic, especially in courses with large amounts of activities and resources. Could the styled submit buttons not be placed further to the right, next to where the self completion box is located already?
Ideally, a user should be able to toggle 'show activity completion information' on or off and that information would be displayed in a 'spreadsheet manner' next to the activity. I imagine that could cause on shifting of information downwards on smaller smaller screens but maybe not so much.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by M. Degrange - Sunday, 14 March 2021, 4:23 AM

I agree, it seems to take a lots of space. It would be nice if it was displayed at the right instead of below when possible to reduce height.

(however, with moodle v4 it look very nice (still takes lots of height, but look very nice ) : https://www.figma.com/proto/A4d9WOUVxCqS93mvXVCr8P/4.0-UX-Demo?node-id=2356%3A32239&viewport=727%2C769%2C0.07944665849208832&scaling=scale-down)

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 - courses with lots of activities

by Helen Foster - Wednesday, 24 March 2021, 9:52 PM

Dirk, as you mention, having activity dates and completion conditions on the course page can be a problem for courses with lots of activities. However, the teacher can save space by choosing to not show dates and/or completion conditions on the course page.

I understand the reasoning for having items on the left is that the existing completion checkboxes on the right are easily missed, and on a large screen it is not so easy to see which activity each checkbox corresponds to.

Moodle 4.0 will have a much improved navigation which will hopefully also help with courses with lots of activities.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by M. Degrange - Sunday, 14 March 2021, 4:25 AM

Wouldn't be usefull to show student the relative date (in addition ?) like "in 3 days" or something like that ?

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Dirk Meyer - Sunday, 14 March 2021, 9:08 PM

Excellent idea. It would help students prioritize.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Helen Foster - Wednesday, 24 March 2021, 9:55 PM

I agree that showing how many days are left before a deadline would be very helpful. Hopefully this can be implemented in a future development.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by AL Rachels - Friday, 26 March 2021, 12:24 AM

I know that actual due dates for activities can be shown with a Generico filter, but not sure about relative dates for an individual. Might be something worth exploring with the guys in the Generico Showcase forum.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by M. Degrange - Sunday, 14 March 2021, 4:26 AM

Is it planned to add some styling effect on activity with a close deadline ?

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by M. Degrange - Sunday, 14 March 2021, 4:26 AM

Partially related : The activity completion report is really usefull for me as a teacher to have a global view of student progress (the progress block plugin also help but doesn't display completion date on hover so I often also go on the activity completion report). However, this page still use the old user interface, so you can't filter by group for exemple, and can't choose to display all user on the same page.

It would be nice if someone add time to update the activity completion report page.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Activity completion report improvements

by Helen Foster - Wednesday, 24 March 2021, 10:04 PM

M, please see MDL-48594 for some activity completion report improvements in development.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Helen Foster - Wednesday, 24 March 2021, 10:56 PM

Update: We now have a Moodle site - Student activity completion demo - where you can try out student activity completion as a student or teacher. Please let us know how you find it!

Average of ratings: Useful (5)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Richard Oelmann - Wednesday, 24 March 2021, 11:39 PM

Helen, Do any of these activities have restricted access criteria? It would be good to see how the 'done' or 'mark as done' box under the activity combines with the hidden activity notices, all under the activity itself having moved them from the simple tick box on the right.

No worries - added one as one of the test teachers to see it

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Luca Bösch - Thursday, 25 March 2021, 12:17 AM

Brilliant, Helen!
Do you mind adding some language packs?
So users could preview more precisely what that would look like to them.
It also probably incites some more to go to AMOS and to translate the strings.
Best,
Luca

Average of ratings: Useful (1)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Dirk Meyer - Thursday, 25 March 2021, 4:50 AM

This is great! Below are a few of my comments.

1) To help teachers, could the 'Grade' message be included just as it is in the dashboard timeline block? Teachers could then scroll up and down the course to see if they have something to grade.

2) Many of our teachers are not keen on students being able to mark something as done without having even clicked into the assignment. Can we remove this from the course page and only make it available once clicked into the assignment and at the bottom next to the 'edit submission' button? By doing so, this would hopefully encourage students to review the assignment instructions and other submission status information.

3) The green Done button seems not very useful. I can click the assignment link and without having read the assignment, the green button now tells me that I viewed it. More importantly I think its confusing because I see a grey button that tells me that I need to submit it. Also not sure about the 'To do: Receive a grade' It would make more sense to me to have something like 'waiting for grade'. Also it would be nice to have an indicator such as 'teacher left a comment'.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Luca Bösch - Monday, 19 April 2021, 5:29 PM

Dirk, I see your point.
But the good old checkboxes did provide a nice space saving mode to indicate activity completion is needed.
If you are going to require activity completion but for space saving sake decide to not show dates and to not show completion conditions (you can totally be inclined to do this), how is the Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 project going to deal with that?
(To be clear: "Show activity dates": "No"; "Enable completion tracking: "Yes"; "Show completion conditions": "No")
Showing no visual indicator some action is required then would be a loss of functionality. Moodle up to 3.10 would have shown checkboxes.
It also then would require the students to access every activity/resource and to memorize that it has completion tracked.

If desired I can absolutely open a tracker Issue "When "Show activity dates": "No"; "Enable completion tracking: "Yes"; "Show completion conditions": "No" is set, a visual indicator should show what activity needs completion".

I hope I could explain my concern.

Best,
Luca

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Helen Foster - Wednesday, 21 April 2021, 1:37 PM

Thanks Luca for your comments.

As I commented in MDL-71252, the checkboxes on the course page are easy for students to miss, especially when the page contains labels with text and images, activity descriptions, restrict access information etc.

I think a better solution for students to be able to see which activities they have completed and still need to complete would be a progress bar or similar. Hopefully this can be included in Moodle 4.0.

Average of ratings: Useful (2)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Juan Ccahuana Giraud - Thursday, 24 June 2021, 7:55 PM

It is only confusing IF you put all that information in the course page (bad practice) instead of leaving it as description inside the activity (best practice). People don't usually take UX in mind when putting information in the course page, making it overwhelmingly difficult for students to distinguish activities and resources vs descriptions and instructions.

I hate that we don't have the option to display checkboxes. For me, that's a regression.

Average of ratings: Useful (3)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 demo site

by Augusto Villa - Thursday, 13 January 2022, 5:13 AM

Hi team!
If the option to use the checkboxes is not available, I found a way to simulate it by CSS.
I leave you the code that you can use. Cheers

/*Activity Check By CUNIX . NET */
.badge .font-weight-normal{display:none;}

.badge.badge-success strong:before {
content: '\f00c';
color: #fff;
font-family: "Font Awesome 5 Free";
font-size: 15px;
position: relative;
}

.badge.badge-secondary strong:before {
content: '\f1ce';
color: #fff!important;
font-family: "Font Awesome 5 Free";
font-size: 15px;
position: relative;
}

.badge.badge-secondary{
font-size: 0;
border-radius: 50%;
width: 25px;
padding: 0;
height: 25px;
line-height: 25px;
text-align: center;
}

.badge.badge-success {
color: #fff;
background-color: #28a745;
font-size: 0;
border-radius: 50%;
width: 25px;
padding: 0;
height: 25px;
line-height: 25px;
text-align: center;
}
/*****END******/

Average of ratings: Useful (2)

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Juan Ccahuana Giraud - Saturday, 4 September 2021, 1:50 AM

Are you going to provide some method to use the old student activity completion design?
I understand that for some people the "Mark as done" is useful, but for a lot more people the current design is just too wasteful and leads to "scroll of death". You don't really need to specify the conditions of completion in the COURSE PAGE. You can and should do that when they open and read the description of the task (if that is even required).

This regression in design is just a deal breaker for me. All my Moodle installations are stuck in 3.10 because of this.

Average of ratings: -

Re: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11

by Shirley Gregorczyk - Saturday, 4 September 2021, 2:20 AM

Please see this post regarding the activity completion design.

Average of ratings: -