Any suggestions for using Drupal to do this?
Hi, this is just a question seeking for suggestions. For classroom teaching receiving students' submission on an essay assignment, grading the essay with comments, and then returning the comments back to students is something very time consuming. I am thinking to ask students to post their essays as a (book page, story, blog...?) to course Drupal site, and I will use Adding Comment to write feedback so that there will be no email, download, attach, etc tasks.
My questions: 1) how to make a node to be seen only by its creator and me, administrator? (2) what will other ways to do receive and grade the essay assignment(s)?
Thank you!
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user_reference and other cck fields?
One of the ways you could do this is by using user reference. (http://drupal.org/project/nodeaccess_userreference) once you add this cck field to the content type (e.g. assignment) you can choose to set the node to be seen only by the desired user by selecting him/her from a drop down menu or auto complete field.
The first part of this process... (allowing students to submit and you to view the submissions) can be handled by exposing a menu item which routes them to 'Add an assignment' node. On submission using the 'Rules module' you can redirect them to any page you want. Then you can go to a views page which lists all the assignment nodes submitted and access them to assign them to a particular student. You should also make a cck compulsory field 'Student name' which will tell you whose assignment it is. If this seems too complicated, lemme know and I can give you a link to a part of my test site. As for grading you can make a cck field e.g. field_grade and set permissions such that you can edit the field and the student roles only view them. You can effectively use views to create a list with the student names, their submissions and respective grades.
Hope this helps.
Aniruddha
Thank you aniruddhay. That
Thank you aniruddhay. That should be the method I will give a try. Actually if Drupal has, at its core, a permission option that let users view their own posts (just like the option to allow users edit their own posts), that will solve my problem. Do not have to be so complicated.
Thanks again.
Ture but....
I came across almost the same problem of access control. Unfortunately form my experience, drupal's core access management cdoes not go beyond the Role level. The only thing I found to let the user see his/her own authored nodes is by using a 'current user' filter in a Views output. That still makes the node open to access by everybody if they have the URL. The only way I found was to limit the access by user filter.
You could also use Private module which can give the user an option if the node goes to a public list or is shared only between the user and the administrator. (http://drupal.org/project/private) This approach may help you. Unfortunately the limitation of Private module (as far I remember...things may have changed) you cannot pull it in the Views. Let me know if you have another approach to this.
Aniruddha
aniruddhay, thanks again.
aniruddhay, thanks again. before talking about drupal's function, may I bring up a discussion? I was thinking that if students will post their assignments (essays) to a drupal site, and only see their own posts. I will then read them and write comments as my grading process, why not use emails? outlook, google, yahoo emails can do this if the key is only being seen by the two parties?
Back to Drupal, will use a taxonomy vocabulary who's each term is a student's name work for restricting access purpose, in addition to the methods you have mentioned: user reference module, 'current user' filter, 'Rules module', Private module..
Thanks again for your time.
Other possibilities
I have used node privacy by role (http://drupal.org/project/node_privacy_byrole) to keep student submissions private by granting view permissions only to members of the teacher role. Coherent access (http://drupal.org/project/coherent_access) is another good module to investigate. This can be used to allow students to choose who can view their content on a per user basis. You may or may not want this, but I've found it to be effective for some types of assignments.
For grading, I use (and am actively developing) the Gradebook suite of modules (http://drupal.org/project/gradebook). This module provides what you would expect from a typical class gradebook. It uses taxonomy to assign gradebook categories (such as tests, essays, quizzes ...), organizes assignments on a gradebook page, and lets teachers to grade assignments by assigning points (and/or non-numeric marks in 6.x.2.x). When grading, there is a comment box that the teacher can use to comment on the student's work. Students can access these (private) comments when they view their grades. In 6.x.2.x, students can also respond to assignments by creating specific content types (now also via links on the assignment page), and these student responses are collected on the teacher's gradebook page. Like everything else Drupal, Gradebook is still under development. But it is intended to be a complete yet modular solution. You can enable the parts you want to use and forget the rest.
I am sure there are many other approaches that will work - that's one of the great thing about Drupal - but these modules have worked well for me.
As for your question "why not use email or ... ", it probably depends on the number of students you are dealing with, and the degree to which you want to allow them to interact with each other. If its just a few students, email could work fine. But it doesn't scale or promote community. I shudder at the thought of receiving hundreds of emails per assignment over the course of a semester! I like gradebook because it keeps everything organized for both students and teachers. Why use Drupal? Drupal excels at building community and increasing collaboration between students and faculty - you can do so much more than deliver content....
MGN@drupal.org, thank you
MGN@drupal.org, thank you for your input and expertise. It seems like your Gradebook is a long-term solution. I will give a try.
I agree with you about the limit of email. In my class I also have discussions for students to participate. i don't mean to hijack the topic but would like to ask (1)do you think Drupal's forum or advanced forum can work well for such purpose, its capacity I mean? (2)is there a way to know who has read which discussion topic? Students will be required to make a certain number of posts/comments. But they are also expected to read what others have written. That is why.
Thanks again.
Also
I really think MGN@drupal.org has hit the head on the nail when he talks about scaling issues and the tremendous potential of drupal of building a true online learning community.
While researching for something, I came across this demo site by lullabot which displays a project management site. Mybe you have already looked at it but if you haven't its great use of Drupal power! Some, if not all, of the functionalities can be used very effectively on a learning platform. You can go to the demo site at www.rockclimbr.com and use 'demo' as both the username and password. Also you can checkout the very informative video at http://www.doitwithdrupal.com/free-videos uder the title 'Basecamp cloned in Drupal' Thanks Lullabot! :)
Aniruddha
ContentAccess Module
Thhis also seems to have worked for me for similar purposes:
http://drupal.org/project/content_access
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http://www.elteto.net
Re-opening discussion of node/comment access
I realize this discussion stopped a while ago, but it's an interesting one to which I add a new point and a new question...
First the original question asked whether it would be possible to isolate a student's submission so the teacher could then assess it and leave comments -- all of which only the teacher and student can see. That's cool and certainly has its applications. HOWEVER, wouldn't it be useful to have the other students in the class be able to see each other's work AND to comment, offer suggestions, etc. Great peer-to-peer learning opportunities.
So then the question becomes, is there a way for the teacher to put his or her comments on the student's piece but to have those COMMENTS visible only to the teacher and student author of the original piece. Now that would be a very interesting feature that many of the teachers we work with would love ...
So, not to hijack this, but to steer it in a slightly different direction for the same potential use: Is it possible to leave a comment on a node that only the comment author and the node author can view?
Thanks so much,
geoff gevalt
ywpschools.net
youngwritersproject.org
ggevalt
www.youngwritersproject.org