Outcomes panel does not show in editing quiz settings

Are you sure about this? I don't remember the quiz ever working like this. Is it possible that your Moodle 1.9 site had been customised by someone?

No response for 1 month, so I am closing this issue. Please comment if you think it should be reopened.

Tim, I just wanted to add to this bug report, that if you switch on outcomes in Moodle 1.9 then you are given an option to add outcomes to a quiz.

This doesn't do anything within the quiz module, but does add extra columns to the grade report to allow users to assign outcomes there. Apparently, there are some organisations that were making use of it in 1.9.

For the record, if that behaviour is desired, it is a relatively small code change to enable it.

I wonder what effect making that setting had?!

I think this issue should be reopened. At the recent Ireland and UK MoodleMoot it came up that some organisations are hesitating to upgrade from 1.9 to 2.x because of lost functionality such as this in 2.x.

Hi Tim,

Sorry for the delay in responding to this one. 1.9 did allow you to do this without customisation, and we do have users of 2.x wanting the same functionality. Particularly when you're trying to track which activities contribute to learners achieving specific outcomes, this functionality is really useful. The workaround will achieve the same thing, but it's time consuming, and there's room for error in terms of selecting the wrong activity to link to without noticing it.

I think it should be reopened, I've encouraged folks on the forum and our clients to come and comment on it if they think its important.

This tracker item is now mentioned in the forums here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=197773#p877426

You still have not answered the qestion (in a way that I can understand).

1. What quiz options were present in 1.9 that are no longer present in 2.x? (Give me a screen-grab, and some step-by step instructions for what I need to do to set up the same situation on my computer, since setting up outcomes is quite complex, and I have never really used them. The testing instructions above are two short. What is the 'Outcomes panel'? )

2. What effect did setting those options have? Was anything visibly different in the quiz, or in the grade-book? If so, give me more screen-grabs.

OK, so I was just looking at 1.9. mod/quiz/mod_form.php says:

        $features = new stdClass;
        $features->groups = true;
        $features->groupings = true;
        $features->groupmembersonly = true;
        $this->standard_coursemodule_elements($features);

So, there does not appear to be any intention to add outcomes to the quiz settings form. It is just that in standard_coursemodule_elements (course/moodleform_mod.php) there is code like:

        if (!isset($this->_features->outcomes)) {
            $this->_features->outcomes = true;
        }

There is no mention of 'outcome' in the quiz code in 1.9, and I can't find any way to get any data into that outcome column, e.g. by attempting the quiz as a student.

So, I am sure that the outcomes section of the form appearing at all was a bug that has been fixed in 2.x. That you managed to find the effect of the bug useful is remarkable.

It would still be good to implement a proper (non-buggy) way to get a quiz to report scores against outcomes properly in the future, but I know of no specific plans to make that happen.

Reading this with interest as it was mentioned to me recently and I couldn't recall seeing this as an option.

A quick test later I still didn't see it. So even if it is only to satisfy my curiosity I'd welcome the steps to set this up - if it only shows me what I could have had (and didn't know it) and what I'm not going to get.

Ray, options have to be enabled at the system level. In 1.9 that is somewhere in the grades admin setting. Then you have to actually define at least one scale and outcome in the course grade settings.

If you can think of how this could usefully be implemented, then I am happy to listen and learn, even if I don't have plans to write any code for it any time soon.

Hi. So I really had to dig for a meaningful old screen shot since I no longer have access to a 1.9 system with outcomes turned on, but the attached shows some of my early experiments with using outcomes connected to quizzes; the pic file date says I took this in October 2010, so it was possible then. The upshot was this: it was possible to connect outcomes to a quiz globally but not to the questions themselves. It was useful, therefore, only when those outcomes summed up the main objectives of the whole quiz. The pop-quiz examples were short essay questions that got numeric grades with feedback via outcomes on places needed for improvement in text analysis logic, etc.

I can see how schools would have adopted it already as I didn't know it was a feature that wasn't supposed to be there, either. It didn't seem like a bug to me...

It would be really helpful to see the screen grab of the grader report that corresponds to that outcome report, but I guess it is lost in the mists of time. Oh well.

If you are feeling brave, try this: Open mod/quiz/lib.php in a plain text editor, and change the line

        case FEATURE_GRADE_OUTCOMES:          return false;

so that it returns true instead of false, and see what happens.

Hi Tim,

I've updated the testing instructions above, and hope that it helps clarify. I've added screenshots of what quiz settings look like with Outcomes enabled, and what the Grader report looks like.

You're quite right, there is no way of auto-marking the Outcomes. Instead, this allowed teachers to track which Outcomes were being demonstrated by which Assessment pieces. As far as I am aware, it is the same functionality with any other assessment piece - the Outcomes need to be manually graded in the Grader report using the scale attached to them.

The benefit lies in being able to see what learning outcomes are actually being assessed in the course, and how often. A creative teacher may never actually grade against the outcomes, but use them instead to ensure course compliace with institutional learning objectives.

Alternatively, one of our clients uses quiz to give several essay questions to students, in a case study style of assessment. She has to manually grade the answers anyway, but attaching the learning outcomes provides her with more information on how the students are progressing through the content.

I hope this helps explain. Thanks for continuing the conversation, I appreciate it!

I see, so what we had before was only a partial solution, but it still had its use.

Are you able to try editing the code, as in my previous comment?

Hi, Tim. This particular functionality isn't yet crucial to the project I'm working on, but it will be. I can't edit the code myself, but the developers I'm working with could probably do it--if it doesn't impact core. Before I go to developers on this project with this fix, could you clarify for me if this will impact core? (Sorry. I can sometimes tell based on what I know regarding how things work together in Moodle if something will impact core, but this time I'm not sure what this means...)

I don't quite know what you mean by 'impact core'. Of course it will change things, the whole point is that you don't like the current functionality, and want to change it!

But, if you mean, are there likely to be bad side-effects, then the answer is almost certainly not - but we need to test it for real, which is why I am asking you to make the changes and confirm that it works the way you want.

Basically, it is a very safe change to try, and if there are any problems at all, then you should just be able to change things back, and the problems will go away again.

Yes, I'm asking about the bad side effects and/or if it is a major change to fundamental Moodle quiz code (I guess that's what I meant to say--sorry about the core reference when it probably isn't accurate since quiz IS core. It is more about how I have things divied up in my head in terms of what is safe and what isn't. A peek into my layman's understanding. )

Alright, I'll ask the developers to try it. Thanks!

Thanks. If you can confirm that this change does what you want, we can get in included in the official releases quite easily, I think.

Hi, Tim. So far I can confirm that I'm seeing what I remember seeing before in the Quiz settings window in terms of being able to check off outcomes that apply to that particular quiz. I haven't yet gotten into seeing what happens in the grade book, but I will post back here again with screen shots to confirm after I've been able to test all the check points (grade book, reports, settings). Thanks!

Great thanks. I am about to disappear on holiday for 2 weeks, so don't worry if you don't get an immediate reply, but hopefully I will be able to attend to this as soon as I get back.

I just noticed that I had never got around to re-opening this. Done now.

Lesli, did you ever find time to do some more testing?

I have made pull branches for this change. Leslie, if you can confirm that this changes does actually resolve the problem, I can submit this for integration.

Hi, Tim. We've upgraded through 2.1 to 2.2 to 2.3 and changed site locations since I was last able to look at this. We are just getting back into looking at outcomes again, so this is good timing for me. I'll let you know when I can confirm again if it works for 2.3 and then I'll also show what happens in the grade book.

Hi, Tim. I can now confirm that this works as expected for 2.3, which is to say the following:

1. The teacher can choose course outcomes in the edit settings options for the quiz. For the teacher's part, he/she either must choose outcomes that make sense for the entire quiz or reference the quiz question answer report to know how to assess outcome levels in the grade book.

2. In the grade book, the quiz grade will show as expected next to the outcomes. The teacher must turn editing on to assess outcomes.

Great. Thanks for the quick response. Submitting for integration now.

Integrated, thanks everyone.

It passes. Tested in 2.2 and master

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