Moodle plugins directory: Checklist | Moodle.org
Checklist
This is a Moodle activity module for Moodle 1.9 and Moodle 2.0+ that allows a teacher to create a checklist / todo list / task list for their students to work through. The teacher can monitor all the students' progress, as they tick off each of the items
in the list. Items can be indented and marked as optional. Students are presented with a simple bar showing how far they have progressed through the required/optional items and can add their own, private, items to the list.
Features include:
- Choose whether students or teachers can check-off items
- Students can add their own notes to their checklist
- Dates can be added to items (and exported to the calendar)
- Teachers can comment on an individual student's items
- Progress is exported to the gradebook
- Choice of colours for each checklist item
- Heading items (without checkboxes)
- (Optional) Import list of current course activities and automatically check-off as activities completed
There are two other plugins that further enhance this activity:
Video overview of this plugin:
The latest version (and the Moodle 1.9 version) can always be found here: https://github.com/davosmith/moodle-checklist (the version on Moodle.org will be updated from time to time)
Screenshots
1345: $fields = '`' . implode('`,`', array_keys($params)) . '`';
1573: $sets[] = "`" . $field . "` = ?";
The versions of the plugin for Moodle 3.4 (and above) and Moodle 3.9 (and above) both use "groupingid" - it is only the versions for Moodle 3.3 (or below) that have the issue (and those versions of Moodle are long out of support, so you should probably be upgrading, rather than trying to workaround issues).
Please open a ticket in github (see the 'Source control URL' link above) and I may consider undertaking this at some point.
If you have some funding available to cover the cost of my time to implement this, then I could put you in touch with my employers to get a quote to implement this (which would include the cost of our QA team testing it to make sure it works reliably). Alternatively, I'd be happy to review a submitted patch that does this.
We use the checklist to assign one of three predefined tasks (A,B,C) after each lesson in our course. We have created an item for each lesson and we note A, B, C for each student in the comment section which works fine.
Currently, we are using a link to a page in which the tasks are described shortly. We would prefer the task descriptions to occur below each lesson as some students could get loose the overview. That’s why we have tried to add one item per task (A,B,C) as indented “headlines”. Now we have the following questions: Would it possible to have text that is not written in bold or is there any other possibility to add text that can be formatted in an item in the checklist? As we have three tasks the headlines would also occupy quite a lot of space in the progress of each student. Is there any work around for that?
i.e. At the moment, it seems that they can only see the progress bar by clicking once on the name of the checklist that appears on their course, then they will see the progress bar in the next view. It could be more motivating for them to see it at the top of the page as soon as they log in. (Related to this, the current icon could be slightly misleading, as it seems to indicate a state of progress but is in fact static.)
Thanks,
Julian
Alternatively, it should be possible to extend the code to display checklist progress within the course, but I don't have any spare time to take this on in the evenings, so would need someone to pay for me to undertake this during my working day (or I'll accept a well-written patch, with behat test coverage, from another developer).
As for the icon, graphic design is not my strong point - I'm more than happy to accept an alternative icon from someone who can create something better.
I have been experimenting with the way Checklist can auto-create its list, including adapting to hidden activities and hidden topics. I notice is that Checklist does not seem to honor "groups," meaning that if the activity is not available to a student who is not in a group and thereby not visible, the activity still shows in Checklist. Is this true, or is there something that I am missing?
Incidentally, maybe you saw my Tracker item, MDL-71856, and discussion posts about Moodle 3.11 removing checkboxes. I have used your Checklist plugin for many years, and if Moodle continues not to show checkboxes, your Checklist plugin becomes even more valuable. Of course, thanks.
As far as I am aware, Moodle stopped supporting linking activities to groups (or, more accurately "groupings") many years ago. Instead it supports arbitrarily-complex combinations of rules to hide activities under certain conditions. This is easy to manage for a single user (there are cached + efficient functions to cover that case), but impractical to handle across potentially thousands of users enrolled on a courses (e.g. when the checklist needs to update everyone simultaneously when a checklist's settings change, or when a new activity is detected or when the teacher is viewing a report of all student's progress).
I can think of no way to efficiently support Moodle's availability rules within the checklist, but if someone out there wants to submit a patch that demonstrably scales to courses with large numbers of enrolments, then I'm very happy to review it.
Yes, I've seen the complaints about the improvements to the display of activity completion within a course. I'm glad that the checklist is helpful to some people who happen to not like this new layout.
Another question that I have for you is about the various ways an activity can be checked off. 1) By meeting the course completion events, 2) Manually, and 3) Both. From what I notice, your Checklist plugin supports 1, 2, and then also 3. Have you ever thought about using different color "checks" to designate how a checkbox is checked? For example, use Blue when a student checks off a task, Green for when the system checks off a task, and Black when both the student and the system has checked off a task? (Colors are just examples and I am not sure what is best.)
As an example, the student takes a quiz that contains an essay question. The student is "done" and checks the box, it turns Blue. After the instructor grades the essay question and a grade is provided, Checklist changes the color to Black. Of course, the presence of any check in the checkbox means that "the student is done."
* Checked by student (or not) - controlled by automatic completion rules as well, if checklist is configured that way - available for student / student + teacher checklists
* Teacher marks the item as yes / no / not marked (the default) - available for teacher / student + teacher checklists
There is nothing recorded about the reason why the checklist item was updated, there is absolutely no distinction in the code between an item that was checked-off automatically and one which was checked off by the student (indeed, I cannot figure out how an item could be checked off automatically and then be still available for a student to be able to manually check it off).
If you want to develop some new features for the checklist, then feel free to submit a well-written patch, with good automated test coverage (and making sure it isn't going to break the plugin for anyone who doesn't want the new features). I have no current plans to add new features in my spare time (over and above that which is needed for Moodle release compatibility).
I just thought about another example. Consider a quiz that might have essay questions that require manual grading by the instructor. The student completes the quiz and wants to check off that they have finished. So they go to Checklist and clicks a check (let's say it gets a BLUE check.) But this quiz is really not done because it still requires grading by the instructor. After the instructor grades the essay question, the system wants to provide a check. With only BLUE, the student doesn't know that this item is really complete. This is where the "check" might change to a BLACK, meaning that the student said they were done, and the system also thinks they are done.
Incidentally, right now, in Moodle3.11, this kind of situation exists in the Activity Completion Report. You will see me mention this on Tracker. The AC Report does use two different colors, BLUE and GREEN. (This issue was brought to attention by Leon's Moodle.org post.) I think BLUE means that the quiz still requires manual grading; GREEN means that grading has been completed.
Yep, this "Activity Completion" is getting a bit messy.
I hope that you understand what I have portrayed. At this point, I am still planning to continue my use of your Checklist plugins because I believe they do a better job at allowing my students to mark activities that they have completed manually.
Moodle 3.11.2.
Plugin version 3.9.0.2 (2021063000)
I have create the checklist, all seems ok, the students mark their ticks and the plugin reports 0% no matter how many ticks they mark.
I go to the "View progress" tab and all ticks are unmarked for all users, but if I enter the profile of a user and go to "complete reports" and there I find the checklist report of the user, the ticks are there..... but greyed and the bar displays 0% even for a user with all the ticks of all activities marked.