Details
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Type:
Improvement
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Status: Open
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Priority:
Minor
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Resolution: Unresolved
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Affects Version/s: 2.2.7, 2.3.4, 2.4.1, 2.5
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Fix Version/s: DEV backlog
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Component/s: Forum
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Labels:
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Affected Branches:MOODLE_22_STABLE, MOODLE_23_STABLE, MOODLE_24_STABLE, MOODLE_25_STABLE
Description
MDL-9376 changed the way the Q&A forum works by preventing students seeing other people posts until the maxediting time had elapsed (i.e. a typical 30 minute delay before students could see other peoples posts).
This was to prevent "cheating" where a student writes a quick nonsense post to peek at other peoples replies.
This reduces the functionality of the Q&A forum in the classroom context where they benefit from seeing the answers immediately.
I propose a new field in the forum settings form with a name such as Delay Display that controls if students can see others post immediately after they post a reply or after the system delay time.
I have experimented with the following modifications but have done minimal testing
It has been discussed at
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=219417
Add a new column to the forum table called delaydisplay of type tinyint(4) or equivalent.
Within the function definition() code in the forum mod_form.php file around line 59
(immediately after
$this->add_intro_editor(true, get_string('forumintro', 'forum'));
)
add the following code
$mform->addElement('advcheckbox', 'delaydisplay', get_string('delaydisplay','forum'));
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$mform->addHelpButton('delaydisplay', 'delay', 'forum');
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The en language file would contain
$string['delaydisplay'] = 'Delay Display';
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$string['delay']="Delay Display";
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$string['delay_help']='Delay Display yadda yadda';
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To match the help button.
Modify the end of the forum_user_can_see_post method in
forum/lib.php code to read as follows
...
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if ($forum->type == 'qanda') {
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$firstpost = forum_get_firstpost_from_discussion($discussion->id);
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$userfirstpost = forum_get_user_posted_time($discussion->id, $user->id);
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$display=1;
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if($forum->delaydisplay==1){
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if((time() - $userfirstpost >= $CFG->maxeditingtime)){
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$display=0;
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}
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}
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return (($userfirstpost !== false && $display==1) ||
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$firstpost->id == $post->id || $post->userid == $user->id || $firstpost->userid == $user->id ||
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has_capability('mod/forum:viewqandawithoutposting', $modcontext, $user->id));
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}
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return true;
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}
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I would recommend if this is implemented that some enhancements be made.
1. Add a global setting that says whether this is enabled or disabled at the site level for admins
2. Add the time of delay to the right of the disable or as a new field. This way not only can the teacher say yes I want a delay but they can also specify how long that delay is.
I think the delay time is key to allow users to edit the post if they make a mistake. For your use case you need no editing and instant posting. Others might allow 5 minutes of editing (near instant) and others are ok with the 30 minute rule.
I would also make $CFG->maxeditingtime a site configuration setting for forums.
Thanks for your comment Jason. It has occurred to me since that rather than toggling the delay with a true/false boolean value it might make more sense to have a numeric value for this field so that the default is to use the maxeditingtime but if you change the DelayDisplay it would change it for that forum. Sometimes I think it might be handy to have a few seconds of delay, even in the classroom.
Thanks for suggesting that and providing code to achieve it.