Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Przemek Kaszubski -
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Dear All,

Moodle's Content Bank feature - enabled by default on new/upgraded sites -  comes with the User preference which - I believe without sufficient warning - subversively inclines teachers to create / add contents that automatically become "Public", thus searchable and re-usable by other teachers who peruse the site's Content bank repository.

I think that - in compliance with the other activities and resources created in Moodle courses, the default should be "Private" ownership of content, thus "Unlisted". I consider the "Public" default setting to be a privacy liability, and I think it should be changed in subsequent versions of Moodle.

I have already changed this default on the Moodle sites I administer, but that is because I identified the problem. I have also inspected our users' changed preferences in the database in order to see if anyone should be warned about their work being "discoverable" by others without their knowledge.

In addition, I think the Public vs Unlisted status of Content bank resources should be more clearly and overtly explained on the Content bank pages.

Sharing is good, of course, but should not be imposed on users.

I wonder if there are admins / teachers who think likewise  and/or protected their sites in a similar manner ? Or maybe disabled the Content bank repository feature completely...

Kind regards.

Przemek

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回复Przemek Kaszubski

Re: Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Gemma Lesterhuis -
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Well it does fit in the 'mindset' of Moodle - as in Open Content - I don't really see the problem, I just change the default setting as a site admin and ensure my teachers are aware of the possibilities. When the organization is not using H5P core feature, I just disable it fully.
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回复Gemma Lesterhuis

Re: Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Przemek Kaszubski -
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Hmm, there would be no or little problem if we could turn sharing ON when we (admins setting the default, teachers deciding their default preference) want it, without having to turn it OFF and being taken by surprise. With the current Moodle defaults, there's quite a chance for some users to just try stuff out that will then go "public".
The distinction between Public vs Unlisted is not mentioned in the docs - cf. https://docs.moodle.org/400/en/Content_bank, https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Content_bank (as well as on the Preferences page https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Preferences is silent ).

The Moodle mindset of sharing has not been so obvious or automatic - e.g. teachers have no access to question banks above the course level; on the other hand they can import activities from co-taught courses, true.

The "Unlisted" idea is very good, so good that it really should be the default - after all we normally draft stuff first before we publish it. The Content bank has the editing options that allow us to "draft" and edit, not just "publish".
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回复Przemek Kaszubski

Re: Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Amaia Anabitarte -
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Thanks Przemek and Gemma for your comments!

The main goal of the Content Bank when it was designed was to create a bank for all the teachers to share their content with other teachers in their sites. That's the reason why the default value is Public for Moodle sites. But an improvement was proposed and implemented by the community that makes the Content Bank more flexible and the possibility for teacher to save their contents to be reused, but not shared. We totally understand that could be a feature some Moodle users needs, and I think it's a great improvement. But the main goal for the Content Bank is still to share content; we still agree with this approach and think default value setting should be "Public".
You could get more information about the discussion behind that setting in MDL-69762.

But I'm also agree that the setting and the options are not well documented. We'll try to fix that issue and improve Content Bank documentation as soon as possible. Thanks for raising the problem.

Thanks for your help and support.
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回复Amaia Anabitarte

Re: Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Przemek Kaszubski -
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Dear Amaia,

Many thanks for responding and for putting the Content Bank story in a wider perspective. I did follow the "Unlisted" tracker issue in due time, and I am really happy the feature was provided., For me, it is the default setting I'm using on "my" sites.

Let me comment perhaps on this part especially - regarding CB's origins:

" create a bank for all the teachers to share their content with other teachers in their sites. That's the reason why the default value is Public for Moodle sites. But an improvement was proposed and implemented by the community that makes the Content Bank more flexible and the possibility for teacher to save their contents to be reused, but not shared."

I tend to think this: If the above was the original intention, then - I believe - Content bank(s?) should not be attached to courses but to users and their profiles? Something alongside the Private files (repo) (whose quota I think are affected by CB uploads by specific owners?).

What we are having now is the situation that a Content Bank is a component of a course, which can be backed up and restored as other course contents - but which it cannot fully be because any links deployed in the copied / restored activities continue to point back to the original locations (unless the teacher decides to change them and to use the current course's CB, painfully clicking her way through). I have been describing these "agonies" here and in the parent posts especially.

Is there a plan for further evolution of the Content bank ? i think I would (perhaps?) find it more understandable if the link "Content Bank" in courses actually showed me all the (course) locations where I am storing my content, or at least linked to those?  Also, the "Places linked" would need improving, so I can see which other courses are using this content? Maybe the Repo search could be integrated here, somehow more directly. I suppose the Moodle UX experts would require a say here.

One other idea that sprang to mind recently would be for the Moodle File Picker to be equipped with an extra option for converting linked files to copies of files - on demand. This way I would still have to "update" linked instances of H5P contents to those in the currently restored course's CB if I wanted that - but I would be able to do so with just a couple of clicks in the H5P activity settings. Such a feature of the File Picker could be useful also outside of the H5P and Content Bank contexts..

Well, some extra thoughts here, triggered by your response. Thanks, again. Frankly, I've been thinking of proposing some improvement trackers for the Content Bank - where I would put some of my ideas up for the developers to consider..

Kind regards,

Przemek
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回复Przemek Kaszubski

Re: Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Emma Richardson -
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As an admin at an educational institution, I think the content belongs at the course level and is owned by the institution and not the individual so I would not want it to be user based.
Also, file picker already has the option to make a copy of a file and always has...
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回复Emma Richardson

Re: Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Przemek Kaszubski -
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I see the point about institutional ownership of content.

And yet, the way the Content Bank works now, the materials uploaded or created belong to the creator / the uploader, anyway.
Once I click on the CB link in course A , I can then - while inside Course A - choose course B's content bank from the drop-down and land in that course entirely. Why would that be, why am I being taken away from Course A if all I want is - perhaps - add a new H5P in course A's CB, or else maybe import / copy another H5p file from another course.. Hmm.

The Content Bank page (not the CB repo - here I see how one can search all the stuff available, and this works well from within the File Picker) - proves to be a supra-course tool, not an in-course tool. It’s too easy to navigate away from the course I'm currently in.




Thus, Content Bank - to me - is the teacher's tool , far closer to their Profile, their Dashboard, their My Courses page, and their "Grades overview" > "Courses I'm teaching" pages. Maybe there should be / could be a central Content Bank(s) overview page for a user (with an overview of all the courses taught, and a summary of all the CB contents in them – cf. what CB Repo provides) , and then simply links to individual Content Banks in the specific courses - where one would not be encouraged to switch away by mistake - but see the contents of that one Content Bank plus the link to the central CB Overview from all the courses – somewhat like the way “course profiles” and “full profile” work.

I'm thinking aloud here, trying to visualise teacher navigation and usage scenarios.. - if only for myself and my sites, where I have now blocked a lot of Content Bank access and links, and am trying to find logical ways of bringing them back. (And I’m skipping here entirely this overall strange behaviour of backup and restore / course copy with H5P activities using linked contents, which quite powerfully undermines the in-course status of content banks..)


As for the File picker - yes you can make a copy when creating an activity, but I'm talking about the situation where we already have in the activity a link and we are editing and wanting to change that into a copy:



Thanks for all those comments and feedbacks. I only hope my views are making some sense..
We've veered off significantly from the original topic of Public vs Unlisted defaults..., sorry.. But then, IF a CB is a user's tool, the Private (Unlisted) vs Public distinction is not too far away..

(BTW - the screens are from my MoodleCloud course, not the most recent Moodle 4.0.4 version.)

Kind regards,

Przemek


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回复Przemek Kaszubski

Re: Should users' Content bank "Default content visibility" preference be Public - by default - in Moodle?

Przemek Kaszubski -
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PS. An afterthought:

In a course's Content Bank the teacher can also see (if made "Public") those contents that have been contributed by other teachers of this course (or managers / admins). That's an asset, of course, bearing similarity to the Question Bank.

A "personal" CB page could be useful as the hub for reviewing all "my" contents across the various courses I've had editing permissions in.
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