13 October 2009, 16:07

We are just discovering a couple of issues about the feature where students submit their views for assessment.  Yes, the view is locked from the student to edit it until the instructor releases it but we have noticed that there is no date and time stamp on the notice in the Groups area that tells the instructor what time and date the student actually submitted it.   We are concerned about this as we have had a student submit his view after the due date and time but there doesn't seem to be a way for us to show evidence of this.

 In trying to find evidence of a submission, I did some testing and looked to see if a Notification would be posted on the instructors Notifications/Activity Log page when a view is submitted and it appears that this doesn't happen. 

 I did find that when I released the views as an assessment so the student can continue to edit it, the student was notified of this.  So, am I missing this somewhere?  Is this by design that the student is notified but the instructor is not?   

 And am I the only one missing this?  I have done some searching in the Support threads there and can't find any postings about this. 

 Rod Corbett
Mount Royal University in Canada.
Using Mahara 1.1

13 October 2009, 20:42

Hi - the date and time isn't shown, and it probably should be! I have filed a feature request for you regarding this.

Regarding the notifications - I'm not sure. I thought there was supposed to be a notification, but maybe there isn't. If there is, it's supposed to be received by people with the "tutor" role in the group. Can you confirm that tutors are not receiving a notification?

I wouldn't expect an institutional administrator to receive a notification, just because they're an admin, by the way. The notification should go to tutors in the group.

Thanks for your feedback  

15 October 2009, 1:07

Thanks, Nigel, for adding the feature request of the date/time stamp.

I have complete several tests with accounts set up as tutors and class group admins, but the notifications are not coming through.  

Although I am a system admin on the system, I am also teaching a course right now and I am getting all of the notifications from my students when they give me access to a view, change a view I have added to me watch list, posted something to the forum, placed feedback on one of my views and sent me a message.  This is all working fine. 

For my course, I elected not to use the Submit View for Assessment as I don't need to have their views frozen while I grade them. I actually want them to continue to refine them, as they are their portfolios. I do miss the feature of not being able to send them back a file as feedback though. Perhaps that is another feature request, could we have the file feedback feature without the freezing the view feature?

Actually, I have elected to make my class group a traditional group so we can all edit the groupviews. I wanted the wiki like functionality over the controlled assessment submissions and I don't like the fact that in a Class Group, only the admins and tutors can edit the group views, although I can see why most instructors would require the feature. Can we make that an option that can be toggled on or off? 

So, after that long story, I hadn't noticed the failure of those notifications in my course because I am not doing that but it was another instructor that complained about this. 

So, would this be a bug? Can you fix it? Soon?  I may have some instructors abandoning using Mahara until this is fixed.

Rod

16 October 2009, 0:17

I've added a feature request for allowing tutors to upload feedback when the view is not submitted. It seems like a reasonable change.

It seems then like notifications for views being submitted either isn't working, or was never implemented. I've made a bug about this.

Regarding class groups vs. traditional ones - I guess the only benefit of such an option would be that you could have tutors and have collaborative views. Do you really need both features at the same time? I guess if you want the feedback to have files you do .

If you know how to hack code, you could change the file grouptype/course/lib.php. If you find this method:

     public static function get_view_editing_roles() {

        return array('tutor', 'admin');

    }   

16 October 2009, 1:12

Thanks for your clarifications and the hack, Nigel. 

Rod

07 February 2012, 8:38

Hi all

I have been testing the view submission feature, but it seems that email notifications (to tutor) for views beeing submitted isn't working.

Do you know if it's supposed to work now ? or am i doing something wrong ?

Thanks a lot for your support

BR
Emilie Lenel
Using Mahara 1.4

07 February 2012, 10:08

Hello Emilie,

Did you check in your preferences (top-right on your screen) where the messages have to be sent? You can choose to keep them on the plateforme or to send them to an email address.

-dajan

08 February 2012, 3:08

Hello Dominique-Alain

Yes i double checked the tutor preferences, and all messages are configured to be sent to the "email" address. But nothing comes to his email inbox.  As mentionned in his post dated october 2009, Nigel made a "bug" about this, but i don't know if it has been fixed. 

Thanks for your help,  Emilie

08 February 2012, 7:17

Ok,

Another thing you could maybe check is the smtp configuration (in the config.php for version 1.3 and in the admin management screen from 1.4 onward).

But if you saw a bug report about this, maybe the good things to do is to return to the bug tracker and see if a patch has been provided to solve the problem (by the way, on my installation I have no apparent problems with mail notification).

HTH

-dajan

08 February 2012, 10:25

Thanks for your answer

Actually, my smtp configuration is correct. All email notifications are working, and my tutor can receive all notifications except those informing him that a new page has been submitted.  

I thought that a bug report was made about this (as mentionned in Nigel's post in 2009) but i can't find anything in the bug tracker.  I have checked with another mahara (in production at University of Caen France), it doesn't work either.   Can i post a new bug for investigation ?

Thanks

Emilie