Archiving quiz results with attached files

Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
Number of replies: 21

Hello.

What would be a cromulent way to archive test results with the quiz plug-in if the answers given by the students are attached files?

Some of our profs like submissions to be handed in as attached files (mostly PDF) in addition to ‘normal‘ quiz questions. This is all well and good, but the university has to archive tests for 20 years. Now, I am aware of the Quiz Archive plug-in, but it appears to ignore the attached files.

Is there a way to store quizzes with all students' answers including attachments? I would very much appreciate if there would be an alternative to a database dump which could be done by the profs themself (ie the alternative could be done by them, not the database dump).

Thank you very much in advance for your kind suggestions.

Greetings from Hildesheim.

Jan

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In reply to Jan Prodöhl

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Joseph Rézeau -
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Hello Jan,
You write: "the university has to archive tests for 20 years"
That requirement seems quite "over the top".thoughtful
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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
You are right. To be honest, I haven't checked this myself. But being in Germany I was not surprised.
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In reply to Joseph Rézeau

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
I've got a little update on the time frame. I actually remembered it wrong. It was not 20 years, it was 50 years. 😱

The good news is: The person who brought this up first misunderstood the rules: We have to keep the grades for 50 years, not the tests. The tests we have to keep for three years. That seems manageable. Pew. 😌
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In reply to Jan Prodöhl

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Rick Jerz -
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Okay, your solution is now simple. Export the final grades to a csv file.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
In theory, yes. The profs (or some of them at least) still want to have their export, though. The matter just isn't as urgent as before. smile
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In reply to Jan Prodöhl

Re: Archiving the academic transcript - 50 years!

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi

In this thread we talk about two things: archiving grades (academic transcripts) and archiving tests (answer sheets of exams, submitted course work, etc.)? And this sub-thread is about the former, right?

For the academic transcript, as already pointed out by Rick the connection to Moodle is very loose. The best thing is to start with what you already have/had the past 50 years. Yes, yes, a 50 year plan need not to be finalized tomorrow.
wink

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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Archiving the academic transcript - 50 years!

by Jan Prodöhl -
Archiving the grades is not an issue. My question was about getting the tests with attached files. Maybe ‘urgent’ was a badly chosen word. :D
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Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Marcus Green -
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' It was not 20 years, it was 50 years'
Based on history that will require a maintenance plan. To take the example of computer records from the UK Doomsday project in the 1980's
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13367398
This contrasts with the original Doomsday book where no new technology is required (though a knowledge of Norman French is essential)
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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
I'm really glad we don't need to keep the tests for that long after all. Mainenance plan for the grades: hard copies. And no need for Norman French either. (Who is he anyway?)
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Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Tim Hunt -
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https://moodle.org/plugins/quiz_answersheets in combination with my hacky script https://github.com/moodleou/save-answersheets, can do it.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
Hello, Tim.

Great! We'll give it a try. Thank you. smile

Jan
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
Hi, Tim.

Sorry for the delay. I was busy with other stuff. sad I've got a question concerning your script. What would I put into the instruction-file.txt? Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't see where you describing its content and syntax.

Best regards,

Jan
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In reply to Jan Prodöhl

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
You should not have to. In the https://moodle.org/plugins/quiz_answersheets plugin, if you are logged in as admin (or another user with a role that has the quiz/answersheets:bulkdownload capability), then at the bottom of the report, there is a link to download the instruction-file.txt that you need.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
Hi, Tim.

First of all: Thank you very much for this great tool. smile

I still got a feature request, though. Could you also make this work for ‘normal’ assignments?

And for the icing on the cake: Would it be possible to include attached files into the responses.pdf? (Provided of course they are images or also PDF files.)

Best regards,

Jan
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In reply to Jan Prodöhl

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
We built this tool for our own use - then chose to share it.

If you want a different tool for a specific purpose, you probably need to make it yourself.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
Okay, that's fine. Thank you very much again.
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Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Basically, the Profs have four alternatives:
1. everything printed on paper
2. a collection of files, readable without Moodle, typically PDFs and/or office documents
3. a collection of files, readable only from Moodle
4. a "live" Moodle site, locked for non-admins

The question is how "dokumentecht" (German) the product needs to be. 1) satisfies it 2) would if all are read-only PDF. 3) and 4) do not.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
Thank you. I don't think it has to be properly dokumentenecht. In fact, written exams on paper don't have to be dokumentenecht either. Many people just confuse the terms dokumentenecht (indelible) and nicht radierbar (non-erasable). For example, you are allowed to write tests with a normal fountain pen even if the ink is not non-fading.

Regarding PDFs, there is no such thing as a read-only PDF. Unless we could make our students create signed PDF/A files, which I doubt.

We are currently looking into option 4 as an alternative to archive the tests. At the moment we create a new Moodle instance every year.
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In reply to Jan Prodöhl

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Rick Jerz -
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PDFs can be password protected. Also, yes, you can lock a PDF within the computer's OS. Both Macs and PCs have the ability to make files be read-only.

For #4, I wonder if you are regularly making a complete backup of your Moodle? Might a complete backup serve your needs? For example, I have a Moodle1.9 backup and a Moodle2.9 backup. I can still get to the data on these backups, if needed.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Jan Prodöhl -
Sorry, but read-only files are just an illusion. Sure, if you are not the admin on a system you cannot temper with the file, but if you are there is nothing stopping you. Time stamps can be faked too. Password protected files won't work either. Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that the files are properly encrypted with a strong password. The uni still needs to store the password in order to be able to read the document. If you cannot read it, you might as well delete it.

Just using the backups is our plan B.
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In reply to Jan Prodöhl

Re: Archiving quiz results with attached files

by Rick Jerz -
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Yep, your plan is fine. (Just make sure that the stored passwords to these backups are in a safe location. 😊)
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