Timed assignment option

Timed assignment option

by Erica Steppat -
Number of replies: 4

Hi, I have joined this community and have been looking around for info: are there any options to set up an assignment for only one hour access, for example, but at the student's choice of time to commence, rather than us dictating, eg. assignment opens at 9am on Monday and closes 2 hours later?

I would like to offer my students a word doc assignment that they do not have prior/ open access to: they see it, they do it and upload it within a time limit, so it is a mostly closed book- tyle assessment.

Thanks so much in advance, for anyone who can assist me with this.

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In reply to Erica Steppat

Re: Timed assignment option

by Howard Miller -
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I've heard this request a number of times recently and I don't think there is.

The only alternative is to use Quiz instead (e.g. the essay question type) which does have a timed activity.
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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Timed assignment option

by Erica Steppat -

Yes, it would be a great feature to include, especially in recent times with lockdowns. Thank you so much for clarifying for me. 

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In reply to Erica Steppat

Re: Timed assignment option

by Rick Jerz -
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I have gone back and forth about your idea to have timed assignments. At this point, I think that I would have to agree with Howard that if something is "timed" that it takes on more of a "quiz" perspective, and using an essay question would be more appropriate. I typically think about assignments as something more significant, such as "Write your ideas about whether schools should go 'online' due to COVID, and submit it by Friday evening." If you want to surprise the students with this topic and give them only 1 hour to reply, then this seems more like an essay question.

Essay questions can allow students to upload Word docs.

But I do see some advantages to using an Assignment for uploads, especially since all uploaded documents can be downloaded and graded off-line. So maybe one can get the best of both worlds by creating a quiz that has the surprise essay question, and then letting students either upload their file to the quiz, or creating an open Assignment for the uploads. Yep, a little more cumbersome to verify that the upload happened within 1 hour of when the student opened the quiz.

I am providing these thoughts to stimulate more suggestions about your idea, Erica.
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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Timed assignment option

by Kieran Briggs -
We have been working with a Moodle developer to create a submission type for the assignment which allows for timed essays. We needed this because we use a rubric and can't attach one to a quiz which required us to look at modifying the assessment activity. its working in the main, although there are a few bugs which are coming up. But once it working we're planning on getting it released to the public
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