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Taxonomy error when browsing local problems as admin

Taxonomy error when browsing local problems as admin

by Sean Fitzpatrick -
Number of replies: 2

Lately I've started seeing errors like the one in the attached image, saying that a problem is using a value that is not in my chapter taxonomy.

It seems to only happen for local problems, and only when using the admin account. The same page viewed with a professor account doesn't produce the error.

(I have a couple of colleagues working on problems this summer as we prepare to go online, and as sever admin, I get the troubleshooting calls.)

This is slightly annoying, because with 20 problems per page as the default, I have to click away 20 such warning messages before I can proceed. I this something that's set up incorrectly in the admin account?Screenshot showing taxonomy error message

In reply to Sean Fitzpatrick

Re: Taxonomy error when browsing local problems as admin

by Danny Glin -

So it looks like the following is set in localOverrides.conf.dist:

$permissionLevels{modify_tags} = "admin";

This enables the tagging tool for anyone with permission level of admin or greater, which is evidenced by the fact that you see the "Edit tags" line above each problem.  This is intended as an easy way to assign tags to a problem that match the WeBWorK taxonomy.

Based on what you're describing, the problems you're viewing have been manually tagged with tags that don't appear in the standard WeBWorK taxonomy.  This leads to the warnings because problems with unrecognized tags will not be indexed by the Library Browser.

There are several choices on how to make the errors go away:

  1. Change the tags in your problems so that they agree with the existing taxonomy.  The "Edit tags" tool makes this easy, as all you have to do is select the correct Subject, Chapter and Section from the drop-downs then click "Save".
  2. If you want to maintain the tags that have been coded into the problem, they can be added to the taxonomy on your server by editing the appropriate taxonomy file(s) (I'd have to look up where these are).  If these problems represent a topic that is not yet covered by the existing taxonomy, then I recommend submitting a pull request to expand the taxonomy.
  3. Turn of the tagging tool by setting $permissionLevels{modify_tags} = "nobody"; at either the course level or the server level.
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: Taxonomy error when browsing local problems as admin

by Sean Fitzpatrick -
Thanks Danny. I'll try updating the tags. The odd thing is that there is a chapter tag for "Experimental Design" under Statistics. It seems like our tag is the same. Maybe different encoding?
I think (but would have to double check) that I'm also seeing this with local problems that are modified versions of OPL problems, where there are no changes to original tags.

In any case, as long as this only affects the admin account, I'm not too concerned. If instructor accounts were affected I'd probably have angry customers on my hands...