Question Engine 2:Implementation plan

This page summarises how and when these changes will be implemented.

Previous section: Using the question engine from a module.

Time scales

The Open University has asked me to work on this now, but it is a large project.

The goal by Christmas is to have

• a working implementation of the question engine core
• all the interaction models implemented
• convert almost all the core question types to the new API
• new code working in the question preview UI
• an accurate estimate of the scope of the rest of the work (by mid December).

Code will not be considered 'done' until it has complete PHP documenter comments and unit tests.

Since this involves API changes it would be really nice to include it in Moodle 2.0. However, that may be unrealistic. When I expect this to be finished and when the Moodle 2.0 stable branch is likely to be created are currently both in early 2010, and it is still impossible to say which will come first.

Relationship with OU Moodle

One of the drivers for doing this is to reduce the differences between the OU's version of the quiz, and the standard version.

The quiz navigation improvements that are already in Moodle 2.0 were the first half of the process of putting OU quiz improvements into Moodle core.

The remaining large OU-specific quiz code is improvements we made to Adaptive mode, turning it into what I am now calling the Interactive model. We originally did that while trying to make minimal changes to the quiz code, and the pain my colleague Mahmoud experienced while doing that was one of the things that got me thinking about this new design. This new proposal is a complete rewrite of the core of the question engine, so that customisations like Interactive model become easy.

Branching strategy

Therefore, the new code is being implemented as a branch off the standard MOODLE_19_STABLE branch. I am maintaining this in a git repository http://timhunt.github.com/Moodle-Question-Engine-2/. Although this is a branch of Moodle 1.9, it is written with a view to being easy to port to Moodle 2.0 when the time comes. Also, the new code requires PHP 5.2, as Moodle 2.0 does.

The development will include a lot of the OU-Moodle improvements, but in due course there will remaining OU-specific customisations that will not be of interest to anyone else. They will be incorporated into an OU-only version of this code, but the goal will be to keep the size of this OU-specific changes as small as possible.

Separately, at some point, the new code will be re-based onto the Moodle 2.x code-base, for inclusion in a Moodle release.

Task breakdown

My current task break down lives in git with the code, since that is how I find it easiest to keep up-to-date. Note that this only shows tasks that remain to be done, so it is not helpful for estimating progress (unless you are prepared to do a lot of digging through git history).

See also

• Current work-in-progress: http://timhunt.github.com/Moodle-Question-Engine-2/
• Back to Question Engine 2