Allow editing of question after test has started

1 Initial Problem

Institutions running formative tests over a longer period of time often have the problem that they identify an error in a test short after the first user has started it. The current policy in ILIAS does not allow to edit this wrong question to fix the error. The test with the wrong question will be presented to users for weeks or even month until the test period has finally ended. This happens in learning objective oriented courses as well as in diagnostic tests that can be used over a longer period of time.

This feature request suggests to allow editing of questions for such tests - if a related setting is activated. We are aware that this setting prevents comparability of tests which is why this option never should be used for summative tests (e-exams). But comparability of test runs between test participants is not important for formative tests. Therefore, we would like to allow this change of policy

2 Conceptual Summary

We suggest to make the following changes to the T&A component:

• A general setting "Allow editing of started tests" should be introduced. Only if this setting is activated, test authors have even the possibility to modify a test after it has been started. Default setting should be 'not activated'.
• A new setting 'Edit test after having been started' should be introduced to 'Settings » General : General Settings'. If activated, it allows still to edit a question even if the test has already been started.
• If the setting is activated,
  • a log file is created as soon as the test has been started by the first user. As soon as a test question is edited, ILIAS adds question ID and user ID to the log file. "Editing" is considered as every saving action in one of the sub-tabs of Questions.
  • a pop-up is presented to every user that clicks on the Questions tab and warns the user that every editing activity will be logged and that comparability of test results is no longer given.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

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3.2 User Interface Details

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3.3 New User Interface Concepts

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4 Technical Information

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5 Contact

• Author of the Request: Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]
• Maintainer: {Please add your name before applying for an initial workshop or a Jour Fixe meeting.}
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• …

7 Discussion

This sounds good! Instead of removing, you might consider "deactivating". The question would still be visible to the teacher/admin, but would no longer appear in test runs.

Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt] 2018-06-13: We have submitted a somewhat related feature request Updating Questions in running Random Tests. Please check whether or not this approach would satisfy your requirements. Please consider co-ordinating these requests. 

optes AG-Usability, 13 JUN 2018: We prefer to edit a question after a test has been started and to save this change of question in a log. Deleting the question is no longer our preferred solution. Merging this request with the request for Updating questions in running Random Tests would be highly appreciated. Funding by DHBW is possible.

Jackisch, Ingo [jackisch] 2018-09-10 This feature would solve the problems which arise in our setting and some topics mentioned at the ILIAS-conference last week.
A minimum solution would be to allow Questions to be activated/deactivated/added to a test. This should work with static and random tests in a similar manner.
We can discuss, if an option to delete makes sense, but this would complete the usual operations in such lists.

Editing the contents of questions wuold be a further enhancement, but we could omit that in a first step. Maybe this is even not possible wirt resonable efforts.

Showing users that actions will be logged and logging of test-changes is IMHO essential, too.

I think a platform-wide setting to allow this feature and an object-specific setting (only shown if platform-wide enabled) is nessecary as described above.

8 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.