16 January 2015, 11:23

Hi All, 

Hoping I am in the right forum!

Firstly the background - my institution's versions of the software:

• Mahara - 1.6.2 (unfortunate  and yes unsupported)
• Moodle 2.4.11 (as above) - with single signon
• MahMoodle Plugin - not sure which plugin version (atm)

Problem - trying to submit a collections using the "Maraha portfolio" assignment activity in Moodle

I have created pages and added them to the collection but unfortunately can not see them  at all when I try to submit as a student. Guessing our plugin does not have the feature!

Questions:

1. Can the current combined plugin created in Sept 2014, be backported into our version of Moodle/Mahara (per wiki page on the integration and submission)?
2. Are there any known issues with any third party plugins and what are these?
3. Is there any other way in which a collection can be 'submitted' as part of a two staged assignment which needs to be graded and feedback provided to the student?

Many thanks in advance

Ingrid 

16 January 2015, 13:27

If the student generates a secret URL for the collection and submits that, it should work.

From memory your versions are to early to have grades pushed back.

Take the bull by the horns and upgrade, there have been a lot of additional features and general improvements, in both Mahara and Moodle..

John

16 January 2015, 15:04

Thanks John for the quick response!

I have now tested out the secret URL for collections and it works! so may have to go with this option if I don't hear back re the backporting of the plugin

Our team who looks after Moodle and Mahara are reluctant to upgrade at this stage...and my hands as the educational designer are handcuffed behind my back! will keep trying from my end.

Many thanks again.

cheers

Ingrid

16 January 2015, 18:54

Hi Ingrid,

Be subtle, a hair slide for the handcuffs, and a good old fashioned dummy spit for the rest.

:) John

19 January 2015, 11:01

The dummy spit is gaining momentum!

In testing the secret URL for a collection, it appears that you can not 'lock' the pages at all and this does have consequences...

Any (other) ideas? or am I missing something!

19 January 2015, 12:54

Sorry should have mentioned that. You can't lock the pages with your current tool set.

Most of the extras, like page locking did not happen until Mahara 1.9 and Moodle 2.6 >>.

Just to pre warn you and it's nice to have ammunition on hand. Moodle and Mahara need to be upgrades one sequential version at a time.

Mahara 1.6 > 1.7 > 1.8 > 1.9 > 1.10* Latest the packages are here https://launchpad.net/mahara/+download?memo=10&start=10

Moodle the same 2.6 > 2.7 > 2.8.2 Latest the link is https://download.moodle.org/releases/supported/

Usual caveats back up everything before and during upgrades.

In Moodle it is the DB and assignments that get the extra treatment along with look and feel plus the usual fixes and new features.  In Mahara it;s the DB and extras. The whole exercise should take 4 hours tops. A loaded banana helps, if dummy spits and bribery fail. If you need to use logic then, we are falling behind and risk being in the land of unsupported software and plugins.

John :) 

19 January 2015, 19:21

Hello Ingrid,

Locking of pages is not possible via a secret URL. That can only be achieved when submitting a page to a group (already possible in Mahara 1.6). The Mahara assignment submission plugins from 2014 require functionality to be available in Mahara that was added in Mahara 1.10. I don't know of the top of my head if backporting so far back were possible. As John said, Moodle and Mahara have moved along quite a bit and the upgraded Mahara assignment submission plugin was developed after Moodle 2.4. Thus, you might also be missing some vital components on the Moodle site.

I think an upgrade is unavoidable. Going from 1.6 to 1.10 is a big move esp. in regards to the interface as we've changed buttons and other elements of the look, but may not be so bad if you don't have many customizations. Were it possible to ask your IT team to perform an upgrade on the testing server and see how it goes?

Cheers

Kristina

20 January 2015, 10:39

Thanks Kristina,

Much appreciated :)

Is anyone else able to confirm that backporting so far back is not viable as I am having no luck what so ever getting an upgrade! 

Another question - is Mahara 1.10 compatible with Moodle 2.4.11 as this was suggested by the people who control the instances?

Looks like its back to the drawing board and keeping thing separated - frustrating for the teaching staff who have to use the system.

Cheers

Ingrid

20 January 2015, 13:19

Ingrid,

Can you tell a little about your situation? Please.

Is your Mahoodle hosted on a outside site? If yes, who?

Re reading your posts if seems that you have a provider that has to much "old stuff," hanging around that depends on a older version of PHP.

If you upgrade to Mahara 1.10* then it is most likely that the OS and version of PHP need to be done as well.  The minimum PHP version for current Mahara, Moodle is 5.4.4 .

You can check versions from the command line by issuing the command  php -v or php --v  . Anything below 5.4.4 "mission control we have a problem."

John

20 January 2015, 14:36

Hi John, 

Situation is: internally hosted  

I completely understand about the PHP versions, from a previous life! :)

Will leave it at that for now.

Many, many thanks for all your help and support...

cheers

Ingrid