[LON-CAPA-users] Managing Time Slots - setting "Problem Opening Date" and "Content Opening Date"

[Amos Lee]

Hi,

OK, I see.  I'll try the following parameters to see how the time slots 
would work out:

POD = TSCSR < STofS1
COD unset
CCD unset


LEGEND
POD   : Problem Opening Date
COD   : Content Opening Date
CCD   : Content Close Date
TSCSR : Time students can start reserving
STofS1: Start Time of Slot 1 (earliest slot)



There is one potentially confusing system's message when a student logs in

(a) after POD but before TSCSR under the setting where POD < TSCSR,
or
(b) before TSCSR under the setting where POD = TSCSR.

Either way, the system would say:

"The problem will be available at such-and-such time"

(or something to that effect), which may be a bit misleading in the context 
of using student-selectable time slots. I think a more appropriate message 
would be something like

"This resource or booking a time slot to use this resource
will be open at such-and-such time".


Thanks,

Amos

Amos Lee
Math & Stats
Univ of Sask


On 11/07/2012 9:56 AM, Stuart Raeburn wrote:
> Hi,
>
> If you are using student-scheduled slots to control access to a
> resource in LON-CAPA then you need to ensure that the open date is
> before the date when you would like students to begin making
> reservations.
>
> For resources with slot-based access, students will not actually be
> able to view the content of the resource until the slot they reserved
> opens (and they are checked in).
>
> Problem Opening Date (opendate) is used for resources which are either
> LON-CAPA .problem or .task files, whereas Content Opening Date
> (contentopen) is for other types of resource.  Given that LON-CAPA's
> cascading parameter scheme allows parameters to be set on a folder
> level for folders which may contain both .problems and other
> resources, you may decide to set both a Problem Opening Date and a
> Content Opening Date for a folder.
>
> Note, however, that the behavior of .problem files and other resources
> is different in the case where no opening dates have been set.
>
> The default for .problem (and .task) files is to *not* be shown to the
> student, if no opendate is set, whereas the default for other
> resources is to be shown, if no contentopen is set.
>
> So in your case (when using slots) you should ensure that a problem
> opening date, on or before the start reservation date has been set
> (e.g., for the folder containing the items with slot-based access).
> The content opening date can be left unset (as long as a course-level
> content opening date has not been set, which is later than the start
> reservation date).
>
>
> Stuart Raeburn
> LON-CAPA Academic Consortium
>
> Quoting Amos Lee <lee at math.usask.ca>:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have some more questions on how the following time parameters should
>> be set in the context of using time slots:
>>
>>   Problem Opening Date (written here as POD for short)
>>   Content Opening Date (written here as COD for short)
>>   Time students can start reserving (written here TSCSR for short)
>>   Start Time of Slot 1 (written here as STofS1 for short)
>>
>> Specifically, I'm not sure how POD should be set in the context of
>> using time slots.
>>
>>    First I tried setting
>>
>>    COD = TSCSR < STofS1, and POD = STofS1
>>
>> (where "<" means "earlier than").  But I found out that this had the
>> effect of making reservation unavailable.
>>
>>    Then I tried setting
>>
>>    COD = POD <= TSCSR < STofS1,
>>
>> and reservation of time slots was then made available.  Am I correct to
>> understand that I should set these parameters as follows?
>>
>>    COD <= POD <= TSCSR < STofS1
>>
>>
>>    I'm confused by the phrase "Problem Opening Date/Time" in the
>> presence of using time slots.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Amos
>>
>> Amos Lee
>> Math & Stats
>> Univ of Sask
>>
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>