This seems to be a bug, but before submitting an issue, I thought I'd bring it up here first, in case I'm missing something.
It seems that if a quiz pools some random questions from a category, the essay questions which exist in that category are ignored. I first noticed that when a teacher in my university created a quiz where he wanted to have a quiz with two random essay questions pooled from a category where he created six questions. And even though there were six questions and only two were to be selected, the quiz displayed the error message: The number of random questions required is more than are still available in the category!
I tested it in another course and also on another moodle installation, with the same results. Then I added some true/false questions to the category and then the error message was gone, but doesn't matter how many times I opened the quiz, no essay question was ever included in it. Only true/false questions.
The two moodle installations where I tested it run on Moodle 1.8.4+ (2007021540) and Moodle 1.9 Beta 2 (2007101503)
Am I missing something or is it a bug? (in which case I'll file it in the tracker)
בתגובה ל: Przemyslaw Stencel
Re: essay questions not icluded in random pool
על ידי Joseph Rézeau בתאריך
I would not see this as a bug but as sensible behavior. It seems weird to me to want to randomly select essay questions for a quiz...
Joseph
Joseph
בתגובה ל: Joseph Rézeau
Re: essay questions not icluded in random pool
על ידי Przemyslaw Stencel בתאריך
OK then, here's the real-life scenario that the teacher is trying to achieve:
He would like to give each student an essay to write (to be more precise, they should write a short analysis of a case study). There should be a time limit for the completion of the essay. The teacher has a collection of several case studies and he would like to assign those randomly for each student.
Cheers,
Przemek
He would like to give each student an essay to write (to be more precise, they should write a short analysis of a case study). There should be a time limit for the completion of the essay. The teacher has a collection of several case studies and he would like to assign those randomly for each student.
Cheers,
Przemek
I really need this and its not weird! 
My exams have questions which will ask for a 3 mark description of either the aims, procedures, findings, conclusions or criticisms of a couple of Psychological studies. They get asked for two of the above chosen randomly from two set studies, so I want to be able to give them quizzes which mimic this.
'Essay' for me really means '5 lines of text'.
'Essay' for me really means '5 lines of text'.
בתגובה ל: Przemyslaw Stencel
Re: essay questions not icluded in random pool
על ידי A. T. Wyatt בתאריך
Greetings, Przemyslaw!
I remember when Moodle had NO essay questions. That was probably our first patch to moodle, in the 1.5.x version.
I do not think that essay questions were ever available for random generation. I can't remember the reasoning behind it although I believe I read some discussion a couple of years ago. As much as I respect Joseph's opinions and answers, I must disagree this time!
I have often wished for the ability to assign random essay questions.
If you do file this in the tracker, I would search to see if the issue already exists. I would be surprised if it did not. Please come post here and we will know where to go vote!
Thank you,
atw
I remember when Moodle had NO essay questions. That was probably our first patch to moodle, in the 1.5.x version.
I do not think that essay questions were ever available for random generation. I can't remember the reasoning behind it although I believe I read some discussion a couple of years ago. As much as I respect Joseph's opinions and answers, I must disagree this time!
I have often wished for the ability to assign random essay questions.If you do file this in the tracker, I would search to see if the issue already exists. I would be surprised if it did not. Please come post here and we will know where to go vote!
Thank you,
atw
בתגובה ל: A. T. Wyatt
Re: essay questions not icluded in random pool
על ידי Przemyslaw Stencel בתאריך
I've searched the tracker and indeed the issue has already been filed: MDL-8648, and there is also a related discussion in the forum here. There are quite a lot of votes on it, both in the tracker and in the forum, so it looks like a much wanted thing.
After reading the discussion it seems to me that the reasoning behind essay questions not being pooled randomly is rather technical than pedagogical. So, let's just hope it gets fixed soon (especially that the bug has persisted for quite a long time)
Go vote
Cheers,
Przemek
After reading the discussion it seems to me that the reasoning behind essay questions not being pooled randomly is rather technical than pedagogical. So, let's just hope it gets fixed soon (especially that the bug has persisted for quite a long time)
Go vote
Cheers,
Przemek
בתגובה ל: Przemyslaw Stencel
Re: essay questions not icluded in random pool
על ידי Przemyslaw Stencel בתאריך
בתגובה ל: Przemyslaw Stencel
Re: essay questions not icluded in random pool
על ידי A. T. Wyatt בתאריך
Done!
atw
atw
Has anything been done about this issue yet?
No.
It is on my todo list, probably third or fourth:
1. I am currently working on some improvements to the Roles administration interfaces: Development:Roles_administration_improvements_for_Moodle_2.0. There is probably a week or two's further work there. It's a bit of a distraction from quiz work, but actually I think it is working out quite well, and is worthwhile work.
2. Olli has been working away at a new quiz editing interface since the start of the (northern hemisphere) summer. Olli has nearly got ready to be added to the main Moodle 2.0 development version, and before that happens, I need to give his code a final review. I don't want to hold Olli up, so this gets priority. This is probably a few days work.
3. The random essay questions thing. This is probalby several days work, however, it is one of those things that is hard to estimate, because I have no idea how to do it. So when I get down to it, it may fall into place (even though it has not in the past) or I may end up stuck for days.
4. A whole bunch of bugs to do with creating and editing and managing course categories. There are about 25 niggly bugs here that need to be dealt with. With luck this is a week's work, but it will probably take longer than that.
5. General quiz bug fixing. Since I have been busy with other work, assorted minor quiz bugs have been accumulating for a while, and I could usefully spend at least a week fixing some of them.
6. The planned improvements to the question bank for Moodle 2.0. Development:Moodle_2.0_question_bank_improvements Probably at least a couple of days work.
7. ... well that is enough for now. There are other things I have to do, but I don't even want to think about them now. I while ago I set myself the above list as my target to get done by Christmas.
Hmm ... how may weeks are there before Christmas? And, of course, I never get 5 days of development done in a week. To start with there is testing on Tuesdays, and helping people in the forums and co-ordinating with other people doing quiz development and documenting things. I think my revised goal is going to be to get to the end of 4 by Christmas, which for me is a bit early because I am having a bit of holiday the week before.
Why am I telling you all this? I don't know. Still, it is quite useful to me to get it all clear in my mind.
It is on my todo list, probably third or fourth:
1. I am currently working on some improvements to the Roles administration interfaces: Development:Roles_administration_improvements_for_Moodle_2.0. There is probably a week or two's further work there. It's a bit of a distraction from quiz work, but actually I think it is working out quite well, and is worthwhile work.
2. Olli has been working away at a new quiz editing interface since the start of the (northern hemisphere) summer. Olli has nearly got ready to be added to the main Moodle 2.0 development version, and before that happens, I need to give his code a final review. I don't want to hold Olli up, so this gets priority. This is probably a few days work.
3. The random essay questions thing. This is probalby several days work, however, it is one of those things that is hard to estimate, because I have no idea how to do it. So when I get down to it, it may fall into place (even though it has not in the past) or I may end up stuck for days.
4. A whole bunch of bugs to do with creating and editing and managing course categories. There are about 25 niggly bugs here that need to be dealt with. With luck this is a week's work, but it will probably take longer than that.
5. General quiz bug fixing. Since I have been busy with other work, assorted minor quiz bugs have been accumulating for a while, and I could usefully spend at least a week fixing some of them.
6. The planned improvements to the question bank for Moodle 2.0. Development:Moodle_2.0_question_bank_improvements Probably at least a couple of days work.
7. ... well that is enough for now. There are other things I have to do, but I don't even want to think about them now. I while ago I set myself the above list as my target to get done by Christmas.
Hmm ... how may weeks are there before Christmas? And, of course, I never get 5 days of development done in a week. To start with there is testing on Tuesdays, and helping people in the forums and co-ordinating with other people doing quiz development and documenting things. I think my revised goal is going to be to get to the end of 4 by Christmas, which for me is a bit early because I am having a bit of holiday the week before.
Why am I telling you all this? I don't know. Still, it is quite useful to me to get it all clear in my mind.
You tell us this because sometimes "talking" it all out can help productivity... and you like productivity just as much as everyone else does!
If you need any assistance in testing, let me know. I might have a bit of time to spare.
Good luck!
If you need any assistance in testing, let me know. I might have a bit of time to spare.
Good luck!
Hi Tim, happy new year! I read through that LONG discussion of MDL-8648 (whew!), so if our main production site is running a customized 1.9.0 codebase, would it be OK for us to just patch the following 6 files:
Or should we upgrade to 1.9.3+ first then try to apply this particular patch? Thanks!
| MODIFY | admin/settings/Attic/misc.php | Rev. 1.14.2.4 | (+4 -1 lines) | ||
| MODIFY | question/type/random/questiontype.php | Rev. 1.12.2.7 | (+68 -8 lines) | ||
| MODIFY | question/type/questiontype.php | Rev. 1.74.2.14 | (+11 -2 lines) | ||
| MODIFY | lang/en_utf8/qtype_random.php | Rev. 1.1.2.2 | (+4 -0 lines) | ||
| MODIFY | mod/quiz/report/grading/report.php | Rev. 1.25.2.14 | (+4 -3 lines) | ||
| MODIFY | question/type/essay/questiontype.php | Rev. 1.20.2.8 | (+7 -2 lines) |
Or should we upgrade to 1.9.3+ first then try to apply this particular patch? Thanks!
In theory yes, unless that code of mine is relying on other changes that were done as part of bug fixes between 1.9.0 and 1.9.3+, in which case you will have to hunt those other changes down and apply them too. For instance MDL-17160 was certainly a necessary prerequisite, and that is just the one I remember.
Basically, for all the files mentioned in your post, I would look through CVS history between what you have an the latest 1.9.x, and see if any of the other changes look relevant.
Then, of course, after that kind of messy merging, you will have to test.
Basically, for all the files mentioned in your post, I would look through CVS history between what you have an the latest 1.9.x, and see if any of the other changes look relevant.
Then, of course, after that kind of messy merging, you will have to test.
Cool, thanks for the helpful tips!