I have been working on building a new moodle site with 1.6. I started with a working (new) 1.5 site and tested it. I was able to import questions as I have done for the last year on my moodle 1.5 site.
When I update the new site to 1.6 everything seems to work. When I try to import questions from a blackboard bank (which worked in the 1.5 site) I get the following message:
Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /big/home/beamerhi/public_html/test/question/format/blackboard/format.php on line 124
Can anyone help me solve this problem.
Sure thing... I'll take a look!
Ok - problem solved. I have updated 1.6 in CVS. However to save time I have attached the modified format.php. You can simply overwrite the old one in the following location:
question/format/blackboard/format
question/format/blackboard/format
BTW.... what version of Blackboard are we talking about?
Hello!
Here's our issue:
We receive a blank screen on the import tab after trying to import a test pool from Blackboard. We can import other question formats, but neither of the Blackboard formats (Blackboard or Blackboard V6+) work when we import them to Moodle 1.6. If there is someone who can help with this, it would be GREATLY appreciated. We've had little success with humboldt's import tool, but that could be user error on this end. Here are our specifications:
Blackboard - 6.2.2 Build 77
Moodle - 1.6 Build from July 17th
PHP - 5.0.2
MySQL - 5
IIS - 6
Windows - Server 2003
I can post a sample file if need be.
-Chris Potter
We are also testing and implementing a better solution for the current BB6 to Moodle conversion tool, and I am having trouble with the Moodle 1.6 "Import questions from file" feature in the Quiz module too. I noticed that in Moodle 1.6 it added the option of File Format with "Blackboard V6+" (which I'm guessing it was from the Humboldt's format.php), but I'm also getting similar error message when I import a blackboard 6+ exported course zip file:
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/moodledev/question/format/blackboard_6/format.php on line 215
Here is our specifications:
Blackboard - 6.2.3 build 6
Moodle - 1.6 (2006050506)
PHP 4.4.2
MySQL: 5.0.20
By the way, I noticed that in the codes of both format.php under the /question/format/blackboard and /question/format/blackboard_6
the starting comment were both referring to Blackboard 6.0 Format, which is kind of confusing.. just a quick FYI..
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/moodledev/question/format/blackboard_6/format.php on line 215
There are no questions in the import file
An error occurred during import processing
Here is our specifications:
Blackboard - 6.2.3 build 6
Moodle - 1.6 (2006050506)
PHP 4.4.2
MySQL: 5.0.20
By the way, I noticed that in the codes of both format.php under the /question/format/blackboard and /question/format/blackboard_6
the starting comment were both referring to Blackboard 6.0 Format, which is kind of confusing.. just a quick FYI..
Sorry that I forgot to attach the Blackboard exported (backup) course file, here it is...
Ok - I've been away for a while, but I'll take another look.
I did some more testing but still can not make the Moodle 1.6 quiz importing tool for Blackboard V6+ to work. Sometimes I got this:
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/moodledev/question/format/blackboard_6/format.php on line 215
For some other Blackboard V6+ exported files, I got some rubbish characters showing on the screen (see the screenshot and the BB exported file attached). Please help! Thanks!
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/moodledev/question/format/blackboard_6/format.php on line 215
There are no questions in the import file
An error occurred during import processing
For some other Blackboard V6+ exported files, I got some rubbish characters showing on the screen (see the screenshot and the BB exported file attached). Please help! Thanks!
Here is the BB exported file
We are having the exact same issue. If u find the solution please let me know.
Rob
Okay, I've found a couple of issues here, but it's still not working as well as it should. It'll probably take someone better than I to figure it all out.
The BB quiz import routines can only handle one res_____.dat file, and it assumes that it is named 'res00001.dat'. You'll need to pull all these files out of your zip and rezip them. Rename them (one by one, so you don't overwrite them!) to res00001.dat and zip them with imsmanifest.xml to a filename that will make sense. Once you've got this where it's one test per zip, it works a lot better. I've got a PP on how to do this at http://docs.moodle.org/en/Blackboard_migration
I've included a clean imsmanifest.xml that you can use - you'd need to pull some stuff out of yours to make it work.
That said, I had problems importing your first and second tests. Third, fourth, and fifth came over with some formatting issues.
Thanks,
Matt
The BB quiz import routines can only handle one res_____.dat file, and it assumes that it is named 'res00001.dat'. You'll need to pull all these files out of your zip and rezip them. Rename them (one by one, so you don't overwrite them!) to res00001.dat and zip them with imsmanifest.xml to a filename that will make sense. Once you've got this where it's one test per zip, it works a lot better. I've got a PP on how to do this at http://docs.moodle.org/en/Blackboard_migration
I've included a clean imsmanifest.xml that you can use - you'd need to pull some stuff out of yours to make it work.
That said, I had problems importing your first and second tests. Third, fourth, and fifth came over with some formatting issues.
Thanks,
Matt
I tried your imsmanifest file and did as you requested to build one .dat file per .zip with no luck. I just get a blank screen on the import tab... no output at all. I will continue to troubleshoot, but with IIS6, MySQL5, and PHP5, is there any reason why this shouldn't work?
Mmm...
this works for me... sort of. I loaded 140 or so questions.
However, there are no correct answers and the feedback is always 'incorrect' which seems a little unlikely.
I'm struggling to remember who wrote the original version of this file, just on the off-chance that they have done more work on it since.
this works for me... sort of. I loaded 140 or so questions.
However, there are no correct answers and the feedback is always 'incorrect' which seems a little unlikely.
I'm struggling to remember who wrote the original version of this file, just on the off-chance that they have done more work on it since.
You might start with Michael Penney et al from Humboldt State - the 1.5 code I've got from over a year ago has a readme that Jeff Graham wrote. I'm not sure if he's there anymore or not.
I wrote some stuff about six months ago that partly worked and posted it at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=44693 - and from what I see in the code, it looks like it's mostly Humboldt's code with a little of mine thrown in.
Unfortunately, I posted my code as a desperate plea for help and don't know how much help I'll be. I've got my hands full right now - we're rolling out our main installation next week, training after that, and a quality visit in the middle of it all. I'll see if I can spend a little time on it to help with the questions and answers, but you've got me on how to make it read more than one .dat file at a time.
I wrote some stuff about six months ago that partly worked and posted it at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=44693 - and from what I see in the code, it looks like it's mostly Humboldt's code with a little of mine thrown in.
Unfortunately, I posted my code as a desperate plea for help and don't know how much help I'll be. I've got my hands full right now - we're rolling out our main installation next week, training after that, and a quality visit in the middle of it all. I'll see if I can spend a little time on it to help with the questions and answers, but you've got me on how to make it read more than one .dat file at a time.
Ok... I'm going to spend a couple of hours on this and see if I can make it work a bit better.... or break it completely 
We also get this result when it imports 'correctly'.
I've been struggling to get this thing to work. I've come up with no correct answers also, and the feedback is always incorrect as well. I have been contemplating writing a program that will structure the file more like an examview file as those come in much easier (outside of the HTML formatting), but I don't see a high demand for it all over, so I don't think it will happen. What will probably end up happening is I'll try to (not) break the blackboard 6 importer, seeing if there's any way to get this all sorted.
I'm not very familiar with PHP (getting there with all the code I've been looking through), I'm trying to work through the logic. Is there anything that can find the assigned score of a question and just give it a value of 1 if in the case of a partial value, and based upon the number of questions, use a count of the number of questions to calculate a score? I'm just not sure why the score values are coming up as zero.
Thanks for the great support the forums have always been.
Chris Potter
It seems if we use the 'Blackboard' option to import them (not 'Blackboard V6+'), then we get scrambled text like that. I've tried using just the .dat file and got a different error message, but it doesn't seems to matter whether or not you use the .zip or .dat. It doesn't work either way. Your error is more than I get, so I'll investigate the error more and look for the 'invalid argument' when I get to work today.
Is there any new update about this?? If no, I will pull one of our student assistants to take a look at this problem at the code level, thanks!
I have had some success with Blackboard (not importer) and using the raw dat file not in a zip using the file at the beginning of this thread. However there is a bit of scrambling of the quiz as attached.
I will try the other example files above.
I will try the other example files above.
I've tried the Bible questions zip file. it seemed to import just one question but no answers for this question. I only got the first question from the first dat file.
Using Moodle 1.6 via CVS MOODLE_16_STABLE
Attached picture of import screen.
Using Moodle 1.6 via CVS MOODLE_16_STABLE
Attached picture of import screen.
Using the updated format.php file from above I get
Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: qformat_blackboard_6 in c:\program files\easyphp1-8\www\moodle1-6\question\import.php on line 156
with the same zip file and the same error even if I have just one dat file in a zip.
Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: qformat_blackboard_6 in c:\program files\easyphp1-8\www\moodle1-6\question\import.php on line 156
with the same zip file and the same error even if I have just one dat file in a zip.
Did you select Blackboard or Blackboard V6+ when you imported your questions? Which folder did you put the above format.php in? It looks like it's for Blackboard, not Blackboard V6+, which could explain your issue.
Thanks,
Matt
Thanks,
Matt
I made changes to the format.php awhile ago that seem to work for me all the time. Also, I have imported all the exports from this thread without a problem.....i do believe however that when you use the blackboard question importer that the .dat file needs to be named res00001.dat otherwise you're not going to get any questions.
According to whoever wrote the file to begin with:
"// assuming that the information is in res00001.dat
// after looking at 6 examples this was always the case"
So this is the only file that the importer will load from...fixing this alone might help some of you. If not, send me an email of some of your question pools and i can test to see if they will import.
NOTE: this importer also does n ot work with PHP5, so if you ever get teh fatal error: cannot use string as offset, try switchin to php4.
Also i have created a blackboard class converter, so if any of you have any full shells i could test, since i have successfully imported over 40 local shells, that would be appreciated.
According to whoever wrote the file to begin with:
"// assuming that the information is in res00001.dat
// after looking at 6 examples this was always the case"
So this is the only file that the importer will load from...fixing this alone might help some of you. If not, send me an email of some of your question pools and i can test to see if they will import.
NOTE: this importer also does n ot work with PHP5, so if you ever get teh fatal error: cannot use string as offset, try switchin to php4.
Also i have created a blackboard class converter, so if any of you have any full shells i could test, since i have successfully imported over 40 local shells, that would be appreciated.
Please, please, please get in touch with Howard who looks after the import and export code. If your modifications make the imports work better, we want them.
Vote +10 for that. If anybody has a solution for this let's have it. Blackboard import/export is currently, shall we say, less than ideal and I would *really* like to get it fixed.
Hello all,
If anyone is interested, we (San Francisco State University) started looking at the Blackboard 6 Question Importing functionality and think we may have gotten it to work for Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, True / False, Fill in the Blank, and Essay questions.
So far, it works pretty well for us. We're still testing it. We have Blackboard 6.2.3 build 6.
If anyone is interested in trying it out, here's the file.
Its a zip file with a version for Moodle 1.5.x and a version for 1.6.1. In the zip file there is a readme file.
Let us know if there are any problems or if the readme is incomprehensible.
If anyone is interested, we (San Francisco State University) started looking at the Blackboard 6 Question Importing functionality and think we may have gotten it to work for Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, True / False, Fill in the Blank, and Essay questions.
So far, it works pretty well for us. We're still testing it. We have Blackboard 6.2.3 build 6.
If anyone is interested in trying it out, here's the file.
Its a zip file with a version for Moodle 1.5.x and a version for 1.6.1. In the zip file there is a readme file.
Let us know if there are any problems or if the readme is incomprehensible.
I'm certainly interested.
It would be great if as many real BB users (ie, not me) as possible could install this, try it out and give me some feedback.
It would be great if as many real BB users (ie, not me) as possible could install this, try it out and give me some feedback.
Blackboard 1.61 - format.php should be placed in /question/format/blackboard_6 folder. Zip file structure is incorrect, putting format.php in /quiz/format/blackboard_6 (could lead to confusion on the install).
Line 15 needs to be changed to:
class qformat_blackboard_6 extends qformat_default {
Currently throwing tons of BB test zips at it and will let you know. Initial impressions are good.
I don't have a 1.5 install anymore to test this out on. I've got all out sites on 1.6.1 and killed it to start testing 1.7, sorry.
Thanks,
Matt
Line 15 needs to be changed to:
class qformat_blackboard_6 extends qformat_default {
Currently throwing tons of BB test zips at it and will let you know. Initial impressions are good.
I don't have a 1.5 install anymore to test this out on. I've got all out sites on 1.6.1 and killed it to start testing 1.7, sorry.
Thanks,
Matt
Fantastic - keep me up to date 
Sorry. My bad.
The 1.5 version should work properly. The 1.6.1 version is on my computer at home. I'll try and upload it later tonight. Sorry for the confusion.
And the structure for the 1.6.1 version is wrong, but I think the readme is accurate. I'll fix that when I reupload the 1.6.1 version.
The 1.5 version should work properly. The 1.6.1 version is on my computer at home. I'll try and upload it later tonight. Sorry for the confusion.
And the structure for the 1.6.1 version is wrong, but I think the readme is accurate. I'll fix that when I reupload the 1.6.1 version.
This doesn't work any other suggestions. It is flustrating
Hi Paula,
I just installed this into a Moodle 1.5.4+ build and imported some questions and it seemed to work.
I guess I should include a caveat that this fix is only for the "Import questions from file" link found on the Edit Quiz page and it works best when you export each pool from Blackboard individually from the Pool Manager.
Exporting the entire course or archiving the all the quiz questions at once from many pools will likely cause the tool to throw an error. As the original developer noted in the code, he/she is expecting all the data to be in one file, res00001.dat which it may not if you export the entire course or all the pools together.
I hope this clarifies things. There are details in the readme.txt file included with the zip file. If you have further difficulties, you can email us at
ilearn dot dev at gmail dot com
I just installed this into a Moodle 1.5.4+ build and imported some questions and it seemed to work.
I guess I should include a caveat that this fix is only for the "Import questions from file" link found on the Edit Quiz page and it works best when you export each pool from Blackboard individually from the Pool Manager.
Exporting the entire course or archiving the all the quiz questions at once from many pools will likely cause the tool to throw an error. As the original developer noted in the code, he/she is expecting all the data to be in one file, res00001.dat which it may not if you export the entire course or all the pools together.
I hope this clarifies things. There are details in the readme.txt file included with the zip file. If you have further difficulties, you can email us at
ilearn dot dev at gmail dot com
I have attached a BB quiz that i can NOT get to upload in V 1.6 can you help. Let me know if you can upload it.
Clifford, I am using V 1.6 version. Did you try to upload the file that I attached.
Hello all,
Here's the updated zip file for the Importing Quiz questions from Blackboard using the "Import questions from file" functionality.
There are now 3 folders:
1) Blackboard 6.2.3 to Moodle 1.5.x
2) Blackboard 6.2.3 to Moodle 1.6.1
3) Blackboard 7 to Moodle 1.6.1
Of course we only have Blackboard 6.2.3, so that's the only one we can verify. If anyone has any other version of Blackboard 6, please test it out and let us know if there are any issues.
The Blackboard 7 version I can't say for sure works well because the file I had only had Multiple Choice questions. But the Blackboard 7 version is just the Blackboard 6 version with a slight modification to make it work.
Let me know if you encounter any issue installing or using this. You can email us at ilearn dot dev at gmail dot com if your question doesn't seem appropriate for the forum or general public.
Here's the updated zip file for the Importing Quiz questions from Blackboard using the "Import questions from file" functionality.
There are now 3 folders:
1) Blackboard 6.2.3 to Moodle 1.5.x
2) Blackboard 6.2.3 to Moodle 1.6.1
3) Blackboard 7 to Moodle 1.6.1
Of course we only have Blackboard 6.2.3, so that's the only one we can verify. If anyone has any other version of Blackboard 6, please test it out and let us know if there are any issues.
The Blackboard 7 version I can't say for sure works well because the file I had only had Multiple Choice questions. But the Blackboard 7 version is just the Blackboard 6 version with a slight modification to make it work.
Let me know if you encounter any issue installing or using this. You can email us at ilearn dot dev at gmail dot com if your question doesn't seem appropriate for the forum or general public.
Hello,
I am working with Paula on this problem. I am using Moodle Version 1.6 and was attempting to upload Blackboard 7 files which I hoped would work with the Import function of Blackboard 6+.
The first time I uploaded the proper Blackboard_7 file provided in this forum my Import screen went blank and I though I lost all functionality. I then deleted the Blackboard_7 folder and the Import screen was still blank so I uploaded the original format.php and still had no functionality.
I reset the server, uploaded the appropriate Blackboard 7 format.php and it is now functioning great. At this point myself and Paula have only uploaded Multiple Choice questions but it is a lifesaver.
THANK YOU!!
Strange. My first bunch of Blackboard 7 files uploaded with no problem. Then I tried to upload some to a different class and with no luck. Please try. i have included the file. When downloaded from the original Blackboad environment you will see it only included Q1 Chapter 10.dat and ismanifest.xml. It did not include the other files as in the past which were bb-package-info and bb-package-sig.
Yes, I have tried to add those 2 files to the original I posted and create a new zip file with no luck. I even renamed the file so it had a lower case .zip instead if .ZIP.
Can anyone help? File has been atatched.
Thanks - Darren
Hi Darren,
I looked at your file and the first thing I noticed is that the question data file is not named res00001.dat, which the importing tool is looking for. That's how it was originally written.
The other thing is that the formatting of the question pool file (Q1 Chapter 10.dat) is unlike the other ones that I've seen from Blackboard (For one, it is neat and indented and devoid of blackboard xml tags). How did you export this question pool?
So far what I've experienced is that the blackboard files exported via the Pool Manager work best because there is only one .dat file and it is then named res00001.dat (at least in my experience with blackboard so far).
If you have access to those courses still, you may want to try and go to Control Panel > Pool Manager and export the questions again.
I looked at your file and the first thing I noticed is that the question data file is not named res00001.dat, which the importing tool is looking for. That's how it was originally written.
The other thing is that the formatting of the question pool file (Q1 Chapter 10.dat) is unlike the other ones that I've seen from Blackboard (For one, it is neat and indented and devoid of blackboard xml tags). How did you export this question pool?
So far what I've experienced is that the blackboard files exported via the Pool Manager work best because there is only one .dat file and it is then named res00001.dat (at least in my experience with blackboard so far).
If you have access to those courses still, you may want to try and go to Control Panel > Pool Manager and export the questions again.
If the BB6 to BB7 modification is only slight - is there any possibility of combining this into one file and detecting the different type automatically? I am trying to keep the number of formats down as maintenance is bad enough - especially if two are very similar.
Thanks for all your efforts so far - it's going to make a lot of people very happy
Thanks for all your efforts so far - it's going to make a lot of people very happy
I have had a look at this and it is *much* better than the original - everything seems to work quite nicely.
I only looked at the V6 version in Moodle 1.6.1+. It was throwing quite a lot of notices which I have fixed and the updated version of that is attached.
I have updated this in CVS.
I only looked at the V6 version in Moodle 1.6.1+. It was throwing quite a lot of notices which I have fixed and the updated version of that is attached.
I have updated this in CVS.
Howard, I'd like to make just a couple of changes - out of about 450 - 500 BB6 tests that we've imported, we had about a dozen that had a 'Short Answer' question type. I've added the script to handle this - I just identify the Short Answer case and then have it handle it with the Fill in the Blank process.
Also, the import puts an asterisk as the first incorrect answer as a catchall and it confused me (which isn't hard to do!), but I imagine it will confuse a lot of teachers. You can't put a valid answer after the asterisk, you have to put it before the asterisk. To resolve this, I just commented the command out so the asterisk is never inserted as an incorrect answer - invalid answers are incorrect anyway.
Thanks,
Matt
Also, the import puts an asterisk as the first incorrect answer as a catchall and it confused me (which isn't hard to do!), but I imagine it will confuse a lot of teachers. You can't put a valid answer after the asterisk, you have to put it before the asterisk. To resolve this, I just commented the command out so the asterisk is never inserted as an incorrect answer - invalid answers are incorrect anyway.
Thanks,
Matt
Howard, I know that you're going to cringe when you hear this, but True/False appears to be broken again. I was importing a bunch of tests again today and saw that they were all coming in as True, so I dumped them on my 1.7 build and they're doing it also. I'd last checked this a couple of weeks ago and it was working fine then.
I'm attaching a blackboard6 export file if you want to check it out.
Thanks,
Matt
I'm attaching a blackboard6 export file if you want to check it out.
Thanks,
Matt
Hi,
I've been struggling with importing questions into Moodle 1.8.4 from Blackboard 6. No matter what I do, I get "Could not find question data file in zip".
I've reviewed the forum postings and the format.php and I can see it is looking for the res00001.dat file but my zip does not contains that. It contains only xml files. I even tried renaming one of the XML files as res00001.dat but that didn't help.
I also tested it on an install of Moodle 1.9 that I have and got the same error.
Is there something wrong with how the quiz is coming out of Blackboard or do I need to do some renaming before I can get it into Moodle? If so, what files need to be renamed.
Any help would be appreciated. It seems like most of the postings on this topic are from version 1.6, but I seem to be getting the same error.
I am attaching a sample quiz below from Blackboard.
Thanks in advance,
Janet
I've been struggling with importing questions into Moodle 1.8.4 from Blackboard 6. No matter what I do, I get "Could not find question data file in zip".
I've reviewed the forum postings and the format.php and I can see it is looking for the res00001.dat file but my zip does not contains that. It contains only xml files. I even tried renaming one of the XML files as res00001.dat but that didn't help.
I also tested it on an install of Moodle 1.9 that I have and got the same error.
Is there something wrong with how the quiz is coming out of Blackboard or do I need to do some renaming before I can get it into Moodle? If so, what files need to be renamed.
Any help would be appreciated. It seems like most of the postings on this topic are from version 1.6, but I seem to be getting the same error.
I am attaching a sample quiz below from Blackboard.
Thanks in advance,
Janet
Janet,
I would suggest that you attempt to download the course cartridge in another format (blackboard 5 perhaps), because as it stands now, each question is in it's own XML file. All the files in the folder "X-WEBCT-VISTA-V0" that end with an "_R" are individual questions. I have no idea why they try to make all of this stuff so extremely complicated...
В ответ на Clifford Tham
Re: Moodle 1.6 Error in Blackboard Question Import
Hey boys and tested the tool Blackboard to Moodle Conversion Tool?:
http://moodleconverter.lsu.edu/index.html
I hope they will be useful, Best Regards!
I am with you on this. Ihave the same problem. What can I can I do Not want to retype all these questions please HELP!!!!!!!!!!!