POAS Assignment development

Moodle 2.0

This is a proposition of Assignment module development from Volgograd State Technical University. I see no reason in keeping it as a separate module thanks to the trouble of backporting any fixes/improvments done in assignment. There is no reason to make it an assignment plugin too, as it will need a separate copy of each of the current plugins (online, offline etc).

Assignment 1.9 improvments

Just several simple, but useful improvments that can be done in stable version too:

Usability improvment: on submission.php add a cobmo box to filter the content of the table: Show all/with submissions/await grading. That speed up grading much.
New capability: viewownsubmission. Setting it to Deny makes assignment module useful in exam context - collect student's work without their further access to it.

Refactoring

Some areas of assignment can be reworked for greater flexibility and reducing code duplication.

New Features

Teams

One main assumption in the assignment module is need to be eliminated is "one user=one submission=one grade". The quite common practice is grouped assignments, where students can work in small groups on a task. So we need a teams support there. (Well, quite big work as many functions use this assumption).

Team is a group of students whose work will results in one submission. Teams features:

submission is one per team, but a grade can be given on per-team or per-student basis
teacher can define a minimum and maximum number of students in the team
self-organisation (with possibility of confirmation by teacher) or forced by teacher teams
maximum date of team membership editing
teacher can add themselve to teamas a mentor, then he only will be notified of events in this team
'roles' (or workroles to avoid confusion with Moodle Roles) of people in team (either teacher or student defined) - this is a way to explain who in group will do what
- teacher-defined roles is a list, from which one or several roles can be selected for students
- if teacher doesn't want do define specific roles, students can enter text, explaining their role in the group

Individual tasks

Individual tasks is another quite common situation in the educational process. The module can handle tasks selection and completion.

Individual tasks features:

adding/editing/deleting of tasks by the teacher
standart fields: name, description, grade factor (1 by default), min/max teamnumber (if teams activated)
custom fields, which can be added in any given assignment, of several types: string, text, number, date, menu
student's selection (with optional teacher approval), teacher-forced selection or random selection based on a student's selection of subset of tasks fields (number or menu mainly, i.e. some sort of 'complexity' field for example)
maximum dates of selection (and approval if necessary)
column with task name (link to the task) when grading
random filling of some task fields (number or menu mainly) on selection or approval
- there is some problem of misuse of random generator; they are mainly dealed with fact that student's can change task and select new without teacher

User interface - tabs

Currently assignment have only two main pages: intro/submit (view.php) and grading (submission.php), so it can go away with the link in upper right corner.

New features will require more pages, so it's better to use tabs for them. Tabs visibility will be based on user's capabilities.

Urgent reminders will be places on top (or bottom?) of every tab with color highliting;

for students
- if he is late to select a task/become a member of team
- if he is late to submit work
for teachers
- if student from his/her group asks to delete him from team (or task change)
- if there are students without task/team after date of last approval

Plugins capabilities enhancement

plugins can define their own tabs
1. tabs can be implemented as classes
maybe plugins can add a columns to the grading table

Grading plugins

Sometimes assignments allow for automatic, or semi-automatic grading. It's nice to have options to have a plugin system for this.

maybe One user can get several tasks

That needs further discussion. It's something not very uncommon in real word teaching, but somewhat difficult to cope with "one course module=one grade" thing.

Tasks workflow

Let's see a task workflow in most complicated case (maximum features will be used). States names are somewhat awkward and is subject to change (can anyone propose better names?)

initially task is free (1)
(1) student or teacher can create a team -> creating team (2)
(2) student(s) can add themselves to the team, teacher can add students to the team (in last case student notified that he/she was added)
(2) students can plead to free them from team/task, teacher can disapprove (if allowed) members or task (students is notified if they are disapproved)
(2) after the team will have at least minumum number of participants -> have enought people (3)
(3) all (2) operatoins still available
(3) students can confirm his will to work with team(now that he knows all it's memebers), teacher can approve a team - approvment automatically cleared if team membership changes (people that have approves is notified)
(3) after the date of last approval, no more changes in teams available for students, (for teachers it's depends on capabilities), if there is an unapproved team the teacher will be shown (and sent) urgent reminder
(3) after the students (if allowed) approved a team and task -> ready (4) (if teacher approvment needed) or working (5) (students and teacher notified)
(4) after teacher approval -> working (5) (students notified)
(4) in case of teacher disapproval -> have enought people (3) (students notified)
(5) any student in the team can submit work with flag 'please check our progress' (if allowed), then teacher is notified and able to give comment but not grade (teacher notified, student's notified of comment)
(5) any student in team can make a normal submit, but it (optionally) may need an approval from other memebers for grading -> await grading (6) (teacher notified)
(6) the teacher can only grade a team in await grading status
(6) teacher grades, but grade isn't final -> reworking (5) (students notified)
(6) teacher gives final grade -> graded (7) (students notified)
(7) person of higher authority will be able to override grade and add something to comment (but maybe not freely edit it, the name of the first grader and regrader will be saved in comment). (students and teacher notified)

Well it's probably looked worse than is. The actual user will see only part of options, and all forms of approval can be disabled.

Implementation

New options

Let's see an assignment creation/editing screen. Assigment module will keep all existing options.

New options that will be added:

use individual tasks
use teams
last date of approval - active if tasks or teams used, time to which all considerations about group memebrship and tasks selections must be done
team options (active only if teams selected)
- min and max count of members of team
- the grade will be individual or one per team
- if students must confirm it will to work with team (first student, who create a team, may not be happy with someone who add youself to it later)
- if teacher must confirm team membership
- if all team memebers must confirm a submission before grading
individual task options (active only if tasks is selected)
- allow using same tasks - can several students do one task or all tasks must be different?
- allow using same tasks in one group
- individual date - allow individual due dates to the task
- individual team memebers count - if teams used, can particular task override min/max number of students in team
- teacher must confirm task selection
- random task assignment

 Dmitry, can you please place appropriate screenshot there --Oleg Sychev 08:53, 3 December 2008 (CST)

DB structure

File:db shema.jpg

The new db structure have such tables:

assignment - main table which have new options:
1. maxmembersontask - maximum count of members which must to do the task
2. minmembersontask - minimum count of members which must to do the task
3. mintaskonmember - minimum count of tasks for one member(needs discussion)
4. maxtaskonmember - maximum count of tasks for one member(needs discussion)
5. timedistrib - initial time for task distribution
6. timeconfirmation - the date after that a student not may create/come into new working group
7. timereception - start time for tasks reception
8. flags - all binary options
assignment_tasks - table for task list of instance of activity:
1. name - the name of task
2. descripiton - task "body"
3. deadline - individual date for task reception
4. factor - factor for grade
5. maxmembers - maximum workgroup members on task
6. minmembers - minimum workgroup members on task
assignment_fields - define list of custom fields:
1. ftype - type of the field
2. name - name of the field
3. showintable - additional column in table of tasks
4. maxvalue - maximum value for the field(only numbers)
5. minvalue - minimum value for the field(only numbers)
6. optional - optional field?
7. rndparam - if this field used to define filter for random selection of task
8. rndshow - if this field will get random value on task selection (number or menu fields only)
assignment_field_consts - define consts for the fields type of list
assignment_values - values for particular task/workgroup
assignment_workgroups - table for working groups, also submissions stuff go there
assignment_workgroup_members - members of working group, grade stuff go there:
1. userid -
2. grade - this is the grade for submission
3. submissioncomment -
4. format,teacher,timemarked,mailed - old fields of assignment_submissions
5. ownrole - role which student want implement during task execution
6. finalgrade - final grade(yes/no)?
7. deletefrom - please kick me from this working group (or task)
8. deletecomment - explanation why student needs to delete from this working group
assignment_role - roles for the task:
1. one task have many roles
2. one student perform many roles

Tabs

Info/submit

This is an initial tab, that will work basically the same as before.

New abilities:

show additional dates (i.e. dates of last approval and so on)
student: show individual task (?tasks?) when the individual tasks is selected
student: show task status (see workflow of the task above)
student: show team members (when teams used)
student: can approve team and submission, select or type his roles
teacher: the number of submissions will be shown JFI as there is a tab for grading now (maybe as a link, just as in quiz now - maybe it must be moved to down center area)
teacher: the number of submissions will be showed as <need grading>/<all submissions>

Custom tasks fields

This tab is for managing custom fields for the tasks. The author can add/edit/delete fields there.

Tasks

New tab, accessible when individual task feature activated.

Abilities:

teacher: adding, editing, deleting a task (editing and deleting assigned tasks may be prohibited)
student: browsing task list, viewing task details
student (without teams): selecting a task
student (in team mode): see current teams(at least uncomplete), create team for a task, apply for team membership

Grading

This is an evolved grading page (submission.php), for teachers use.