Moodle plugins directory: Course dedication

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, so students aren't going to see it and their dedication time. However, 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 views:

• Dedication time of the course: calculates total dedication time, mean dedication time and connections per day for each student.
• Dedication time of a group: the same but only for choosed group members.
• Dedication of a student: detailed sessions for a student with start date & time, duration and ip.

The tools have a link to download all data in spreadsheet format. The use is restricted by a capability to teachers and admins only. The table presentation is improved with Twitter Bootstrap styles if current theme inherits from bootstrapbase theme.

This block cannot be used in the site page, only in courses pages.

All texts in English and Spanish (AMOS).

Important bug with course group mode

Please review group mode of the course. You won't be able to view students dedication when groups are enabled and students aren't assigned to a group.

Moodle automatic updates

If Moodle notifies you about updating this block and offer you two versions, always use the latest version which is tagged as "reset". That is the new Moodle 2 version as seen in the screenshots and have all the features.

Note for Moodle 2.7

Moodle 2.7 changed its internal logging system, so you need to enable "legacy login" to do this plugin compatible.

Go to Plugins -> Logging -> Manage log stores and ensure that "Legacy log" its enabled.

This change will enable logging only after enabling it, so if your course already started, course dedication calculations won't be accurate.

Alternatively you can download new 2.7 / 2.8 beta version from this link. This version uses new Moodle logging system and doesn't need to enable legacy logging, but hasn't been tested properly.

Support

Support is offered in English and Spanish in these forum discussions:

• English discussion: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=109487
• Spanish discussion: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=109489

Code repository: https://bitbucket.org/ciceidev/moodle_block_dedication

Issues: https://bitbucket.org/ciceidev/moodle_block_dedication/issues

Credits

This block was developed by CICEI at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University.

First version for Moodle 1.9 by Borja Rubio Reyes.

Updated and improved version for Moodle 2 by Aday Talavera Hierro.