Proposals/Scheduled Bulk Feedback

Description

We (University of Brighton) have commissioned scoping work from Catalyst for the following proposed plugin to enhance the features for assessment management in Mahara. The details below are taken from that scoping report to indicate the intend work. It is hoped this feature can be coded to become part of core for future releases of Mahara. The University of Brighton is seeking co-funding to develop this plugin. If you are interested in contributing to the development of this plugin please contact [email protected]

Essentially the admin or tutor in a group will be able to:

• Set up multiple submissions in a single Group.
• Set a start and end date for students to be able to submit to the assessment.
• Hold feedback to be released on a set date for work submitted to an assessment.
• Manually release all feedback across assessment submissions in one go.
• Release feedback on submissions without unlocking the submitted assessment pages.
• Admins and tutors in a group to be able to see a record of the pages and collections submitted as a record of assessment submissions, and see when feedback was placed and by whom.

Feature outline specification

• The new feature will allow group administrators to create multiple assessments and to optionally set a scheduled automatic bulk release date/time for feedback, the open and closed dates for accepting new submissions and to set the types of submission accepted (page and/or collection).
• All submissions within a group assessment will be able to be manually released in bulk via a button on the assessment overview page; overriding any configured automatic release date. This feature will be available to group administrators and tutors.
• Individual submissions will still be able to be released either from the page/collection itself, as per the existing group submission functionality, or from a button on the assessment overview page; overriding any configured automatic release date for the assessment. This feature will be available to group administrators and tutors.
• All submissions that haven't otherwise been released by the time of any scheduled bulk release date will be automatically unlocked for the submitting user at that date/time.

• Submitting members will be able to choose from the page/collection itself which available assessment they wish to submit to. This is as per the current functionality but instead of submitting directly to the group, the assessment will be chosen.
• Alternatively submitting members will also be able to choose one of their pages or collections while on an assessment overview page. This will replace the current functionality of selecting a page/collection from the groups overview page.
• Feedback given by group administrators or tutors who reviewed the submission during it's locked phase will be highlighted with the date feedback was given as well as the assessment it was given for. This feedback will not be visible to the submitting member until the page is released manually or by the automatic release functionality.
• Pages/collections will only be able to be submitted to a single assessment at a time.
• On installation the new interaction plugin will be set as available by default and the global configuration setting 'Default for groups' will be enabled.
• All existing groups with the current 'allow submissions' setting configured to true will also have a default assessment created with no date restrictions and all types (pages and collections) available for submission. Any existing member submissions will be added to this set.

Technical

• An additional change to the current 'Submit to...' button on the page/collection view will be required in order to facilitate users to submit to any available group assessment instance.
• In order to not show feedback from the tutor as part of the assessment process until the submission has been released some additional logic and control fields may need to be added to the core feedback component and database schema in order to hide it until released.
• When feedback is released but the submission still locked as part of the assessment this value will also need to be amended to reflect this.
• Additionally, changes will be required to the feedback database schema and logic in order to associate specific group administrator or tutor feedback with the assessment for which it was given.
• The database should store the dates feedback or the entire submission was released to the submitting member. This information will be used to retain previous submission information and display in the overview table for submissions that have been unlocked.

Useful links

Community forum post Bulk Scheduled feedback - Pedagogy

Feature request to hold feedback until tutor is ready to release it