Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Garrett Benson -
Number of replies: 8

Hello,

My institution is holding an invigilated exam on Moodle next month. It dawned on us that students are still able to use the messenger while they take their exam. Is there any way to see in logs anywhere if a student has used the messenger? I figure that the messages are private, which is fine, but it would be really helpful for us to at least know if a student has accessed the messenger at all. 

I know that messaging can be turned off at a site level, but we have a pretty big institution and would want to avoid turning it off for everyone - there are only 150 students taking the exam. I also only have admin access to my department's section of Moodle, so I wouldn't be able to make any site level changes personally. I couldn't find any settings that would disable messenger for a module. 

We are on 3.9.13.

Thank you in advance and apologies if I missed any important information! Open to any other ideas on how to combat the issue.

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In reply to Garrett Benson

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Randy Thornton -
Have you tested this with some users and looked at what the logs generate?
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In reply to Randy Thornton

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Garrett Benson -
I've tested it on a course module, but unfortunately those logs don't seem to display whether a user has used the messenger on the module.

Are there site-wide logs where that can be found? Unfortunately, I don't have site-wide admin rights, but could get our site-admins involved if that's the case.
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In reply to Garrett Benson

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Randy Thornton -
Ah, there's your trouble.

Messaging is a system level tool, not a course level tool. So, Administrators can see the entries in the logs for messages, but a teacher can not.


Attachment screenshot_12175.jpg
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In reply to Randy Thornton

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Garrett Benson -
Ah, gotcha. That's helpful to know though - I can get our admins involved. Thanks!
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In reply to Garrett Benson

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
150 candidates is a decent number. A common solution to such situations is the Safe Exam Browser (SEB) https://safeexambrowser.org/. You might want to investigate it.

One caveat: The handling is quite different from normal browsers. You need to experiment and run a mock exam as a preparation for both parties.
wink
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Garrett Benson -
SEB looks pretty promising! Do you know if it blocks the messenger on Moodle? Having a hard time discerning an answer from the website. Never mind, looks like it does.

I'm not sure if we have enough time before the exam (May 3rd) to get this implemented (and get buy in from the invigilation group providing the laptops for the students to take the exam) , but this could be really helpful in the future.
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In reply to Garrett Benson

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Yes, for a full-scale switch to SEB the time is too short (and your laptop managers may rebel). There may be a compromise though: Look in the Quiz setting for "Browser security". Switching it to "Full-screen popup with some JavaScript security" could be a compromise. Here's the documentation: https://docs.moodle.org/en/Quiz_settings#Extra_restrictions_on_attempts.

P.S. If you follow the Quiz line, you may want to request the moderator to move this discussion to the Quiz forum. The Quiz cracks are there!
wink

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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Does messaging appear in the logs anywhere?

by Garrett Benson -
The "Browser security" option is perfect! That's exactly what we were looking for. I

Thanks a ton!
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