General developer forum

Don-I know there were some complaints about spotty behavior in IE using the html editor, perhaps six months ago. But I don't recall reading about data loss, just that the html editor wouldn't load.

I use essay questions almost exclusively. For my students, I put 3 per page, but when correcting them I may have 50-60 loading on one page. But I and my students need to use Firefox (for other technical reasons) so I have never had this problem. I know from time to time my students complain that their answers disappeared from a page but it is so infrequent that I think it might just be a temporary internet connection problem.

However, 1.6 was released with a lot of bugs in quiz. I spent the first two weeks using 1.6 reporting bugs in quiz left and right. Part of the problem is it was handed over to Tim at a crucial time, right before release, and Tim just didn't have the time yet to get up to speed on how it worked, and that isn't his fault at all, but still it was a big problem. When 1.6 was first released, clicking on regrade could destroy an entire quiz results, and also until recently I believe, teachers' manual comments on essays and other quiz question types were not getting backed up.

Hi Don -

There are a number of questions/issues here.

From a purely developmental standpoint, I believe the essay question was first added as a standard feature for quizzes in 1.6. I think prior to that it was a 'hack', so it didn't have a long testing period.

And therein lies the problem. The developers can only test these elements so far. A lot of these problems don't surface until they're used in the wild (this is true of commercial products too, by the way). The good news is that they are usually fixed quickly.

I don't think leaving it in beta would have helped. Institutions like yours would not likely install a beta version and thus we would not get the real-world testing.

The community really needs organizations to test these systems in the real world, doing things the way they need to. And, its probably best that institutions run their courses/activities through a rigorous test before counting on them in a real situation.

For the specific problem, if it was indeed caused by the bug you quoted, that would mean that you must have had both essay questions available on the screen at one time. Its likely you would have caught this problem ahead of time yourselves had you done a run through with a couple of "test" students (but maybe not).

By the way, I have seen quiz submissions get "lost", although its usually caused by use of the browser "back" button. Quite often they're in the database, just disconnected. I think these issues have been fixed over time.

As to your update schedule, not upgrading your system until the end of a semester means that you're stuck with whatever bugs there are. Its probably best to keep an eye on releases to see if they fix bugs that affect you.

Lastly, as a general rule, if I'm entering a lot of text (like this post for example), its always a good practice to have an off-line copy. Many things can go wrong when you press that "submit" button, including connection drops. You may want to get students to type their essays in another editor and paste them into the essay form when they are done.

mike (hitting ctrl-a, ctrl-c before posting)

Nicole: But I don't recall reading about data loss, just that the html editor wouldn't load.

If indeed I am the only one who lost student data, then this is a rare case and we don't need to spend time worrying much about it. It might also point to something odd in our system setup--but I think we are fairly standard.

Nicole: I spent the first two weeks using 1.6 reporting bugs in quiz left and right.

This is probably the most important lesson I have learned. Developers depend on users/teachers to test out new releases. Thanks, Nicole.

Mike: I believe the essay question was first added as a standard feature for quizzes in 1.6. I think prior to that it was a 'hack', so it didn't have a long testing period.And therein lies the problem. The developers can only test these elements so far. A lot of these problems don't surface until they're used in the wild (this is true of commercial products too, by the way).

It had a long testing period "in the wild" as a hack--well tested with lots of classes at California State. When added to 1.6, it was changed and thus a new bug introduced.

Mike: The good news is that they are usually fixed quickly.

Yes, it was fixed within two weeks--after some insistance. Curiously, it was not discovered for many months--going through three stable releases. That is what puzzles me.

Mike: Its likely you would have caught this problem ahead of time yourselves had you done a run through with a couple of "test" students.

Possibly in some cases, yes. However, it is usually not possible for me to have students test things because when we install a new release, we do not know what activities will be used in the coming semester. Courses are made on the fly. Exams are finalized minutes before class. Teachers trust the software to work and they do not know what is new and what is not. Frankly, there is so much changed or added, I as an admin often do not know what is new. I can read the release notes and start there, but still have a hard time guessing what things to suspect.

Mike: as a general rule, if I'm entering a lot of text (like this post for example), its always a good practice to have an off-line copy...

Really? I had hoped browser-based applications had come along farther. How do new browser-based word-processing apps by Google manage? Yes, I can recommend an off-line Word window, but for testing, we have generally wanted students *not* to have any other windows open. Yet, next time I could have them do that (and make them spell-check as well).

I still think it would be prudent to have multiple beta releases (beta1, beta2,...beta5) and let the good wine age a little. Also since when a release goes "stable", it will get put into Fantastico, perhaps too soon, and then disappointing the less-technical users there. I used to be one that clammored for faster releases, and grew impatient with delayed schedules. Not any more. Let's take time, and even run our production servers on not one, but two prior versions ago (long live 1.6!). I believe MySQL and PHP take this approach of multiple stable releases.