Course dedication

Blocks ::: block_dedication
Maintained by Dan Marsden, Catalyst IT
This block allows to calculate estimated dedication time of participants within a course.
Latest release:
6624 sites
1k downloads
213 fans
Current versions available: 6

NOTE: This plugin has a new maintainer.

Thanks to the University of Canterbury for sponsoring the upgrade work to support Moodle 4.0 and the new report builder API.

Introduction

This block allows to see the estimated dedication time to a Moodle course by the participants of the course.

How dedication time is estimated?

Time is estimated based in the concepts of Session and Session duration applied to Moodle's log entries:

  • Click: every time that a user access to a page in Moodle a log entry is stored.
  • Session: set of two or more consecutive clicks in which the elapsed time between every pair of consecutive clicks does not overcome an established maximum time.
  • Session duration: elapsed time between the first and the last click of the session.

Features

This block is intended to be used only by teachers, however the block can be configured to show dedication time to students too.

Teachers can use a tool to analyse dedication time within a course. The tool provides three reporting methods:

  • Dedication time of the course: calculates total dedication time, mean dedication time and connections per day for each student, which you can filter by course group if required.
  • Dedication of a student: detailed sessions for a student with start date & time, duration and ip.
  • Report builder source: The plugin includes a custom report builder source to allow for site-level reporting to be generated.

Credits
Original developed by Aday Talavera, CICEI at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University
Updated to support Moodle 1.9 - Moodle 3.X 
by Borja Rubio Reyes.
Support for Moodle 4.0 was sponsored by the University of Canterbury.

Screenshots

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Contributors

Dan Marsden (Lead maintainer)
Borja Rubio Reyes: previous author
Aday Talavera: previous maintainer
Please login to view contributors details and/or to contact them

Comments RSS

Comments

  • Daniel
    Thu, 4 July 2013, 2:23 PM
    Hello,
    Are you considering porting this very useful module to Moodle 2.5?
    Thank you in advance.
    Daniel
  • CICEI ULPGC
    Thu, 4 July 2013, 5:36 PM
    We are currently moving our Moodle server to Moodle 2.5. The block works well with standard theme but doesn't work with new clean theme. Probably from here to September we will launch a new version fully compatible with Moodle 2.5.
  • Daniel
    Sat, 6 July 2013, 5:18 AM
    Merci... Thank you
    Daniel
  • Daniel
    Sat, 6 July 2013, 5:19 AM
    Thank you...
    Daniel
  • Huseyn Hoca
    Fri, 2 Aug 2013, 4:09 PM
    i set it but when i click teh "Calculate" the message is the File not found. What is the problem help please. Urgently...
  • CICEI ULPGC
    Sun, 4 Aug 2013, 4:14 AM
    I don't know why that messages its appearing to you. Can you tell us what version of the plugin and Moodle are you using? Also review your install because that could be the cause.
  • Daniel Torres
    Wed, 7 Aug 2013, 12:58 AM
    Hi, I have moodle 2.4 and this module does not work, What can I do?
  • CICEI ULPGC
    Thu, 19 Sept 2013, 5:35 PM
    Please accept our apologies. We uploaded a wrong version of the block to Moodle that didn't work. All errors should be fixed in current uploaded version.
  • Daniel
    Fri, 7 Feb 2014, 5:38 AM
    Hello,
    Do you propose we quickly your block for Moodle 2.6?
    Thank you in advance.
    Daniel
  • Aday Talavera
    Fri, 7 Feb 2014, 5:32 PM
    I updated the latest version to reflect that it still works in Moodle 2.6.

    We are working in a major update of this block along with users suggestions posted in the forums and here.
    We hope to release it soon.
  • Aday Talavera
    Tue, 18 Feb 2014, 12:35 AM
    We have published a major update of this block with great new features. You can see the new plugin description and screenshots for more information.

    Note: as a side effect translation changed a lot and we needed to delete all of them except English and Spanish, as these are the only languages we can translate.
  • Germán and Temudgin
    Tue, 18 Feb 2014, 10:02 AM
    Hi Aday,

    Please look at http://lang.moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=2485 :

    "From now on, whenever a maintainer publishes a new version of their contributed plugin, strings are automatically sent via a web service to the AMOS. This process respects the supported Moodle version setting so the strings appear at the correct Moodle branch in AMOS.

    This works for new plugins that will be uploaded into Plugins in the future, too. With the exception that the strings appear in AMOS only after when the plugin is approved as a part of its validation.

    This new mechanism works for all plugins that were uploaded into the Plugins directory and are written for Moodle 2.0 and higher. Contributed plugin maintainers are now encouraged to transfer all their current code to this new scheme:

    The plugin code itself should now contain just the English strings in the /lang/en folder.
    All other translations are to be maintained via AMOS and you as the plugin maintainer do not need to look after them any more! Translated strings for contributed plugins are part of the standard language packs generated by AMOS.
    If your plugin code currently contains some translation, you (as the plugin maintainer) should submit it as a contribution into AMOS prior to dropping it from your plugin's source code. AMOS stage page provides a form to upload strings from an existing PHP file. You are supposed to import all non-English string files you currently have shipped with your plugin (eg. /lang/cs/yourmodule.php) into the AMOS stage and then submit them language pack maintainers.

    We believe that this new procedure will make translation of contributed plugins much easier than it ever been - for both the plugin maintainer and translators, too.

    Should you have any questions regarding this new feature, do not hesitate to ask in AMOS support forum at this site."

    That means that you should not include the Spanish translation within the lang folder of your plugin. You can send it to the language pack maintainer (Benito Arias).

    Thanks.
  • Aday Talavera
    Tue, 4 Mar 2014, 8:40 PM
    I updated the plugins fixing some bugs for older version of Moodle 2 and deleting spanish strings because now they are included in AMOS.
    If you use spanish translations, you should go to languages admin panel and use reload local translations option.
  • Aday Talavera
    Thu, 6 Mar 2014, 12:00 AM
    Please accept our apologies, last version still had unresolved errors with oldest Moodle 2 versions. In this version we tested more the code to ensure that all issues have been corrected.
  • avatar
    Thu, 3 Apr 2014, 8:22 PM
    Hello,
    I have Moodle 2.4 and course dedication 2012020105 currently installed.
    It notifies me to install :
    - 2014021400 for Moodle 2.x : https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversion.php?id=5409
    or
    - 2014030401 for moodle "reset" : https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversion.php?id=5537

    Which of them should I use and why ? I didn't understood the difference, only in translation ?
    Will the times computed be the same ?

    Thank you, and thanks for your work.
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