Our department is using webwork for conducting exams in addition to assignments this term. I was wondering if it would be possible to disable webwork quiz access for one or more students while the final exam is going on if any malpractices are discovered? Students use brightspace and access webwork via LTI. Thanks a lot.
I don't know if it is possible to allow a user to login but not to access a set assigned to them which is open. It might be possible to change the dates for a student in such circumstances so that their deadline is passed or the release date is in the future. I'm not sure how that would effect an open quiz.
Another possibility would be to try to lock such students out of the system. You can set LTI to no longer update student account data - using
Another possibility would be to try to lock such students out of the system. You can set LTI to no longer update student account data - using
$LMSManageUserData = 0. Then you could change problematic students to guest accounts, and
$permissionLevels{login} = 'student'; which should disallow logins by guests. You would probably need to invalidate the active session key manually in the database to break any open login session.A couple of thoughts:
You can set try setting the student's status to "dropped". I can think of two possible reasons why this might not work:
You can set try setting the student's status to "dropped". I can think of two possible reasons why this might not work:
- I don't know if the LTI link automatically reactivates accounts when clicked.
- As Tani says, this may not invalidate an existing session.
If you don't want to mess with guest accounts, you could create a new permission level below student but above guest, and set the permission to this level.
Thanks Danny and Nathan. So looks like it would be hard to terminate an existing exam session. Since webwork sessions come through brightspace, may be something in brightspace to cut the student off webwork?
I don't think something on the LMS side would make any difference.
I supposed that is would not be that hard to add a feature to WW to terminate a user's current session by deleting the user's active session key from the database. You would still need to first take some action to prevent an additional login from allowing a new connection to be established.
Supposing such a feature was implemented - would you really use it? Do you have the time to test such a feature?
I supposed that is would not be that hard to add a feature to WW to terminate a user's current session by deleting the user's active session key from the database. You would still need to first take some action to prevent an additional login from allowing a new connection to be established.
Supposing such a feature was implemented - would you really use it? Do you have the time to test such a feature?
Sure. I think this feature would be very useful when webwork gets used for final and midterm exams. I have another webwork vm that is not used for classes at the moment. I could test it there. Thanks.
One additional consideration is that there is no currently no way to inform the student through WeBWorK that their session has been terminated. Until a student clicks on a link on the exam page they will have no idea that they have been kicked out, so they may continue to work until the deadline despite their session being invalidated.
Also, once they do click on something they will be sent to the login page with no explanation as to why they have been logged out.
Also, once they do click on something they will be sent to the login page with no explanation as to why they have been logged out.
The instructor has tested and reported that changing the user role to guest has an immediate effect and the account can't proceed with continuing the quiz. So a potential solution it looks like, would be to create a new role below guest level and assign to that student to prevent login. This has to be tested though to see if the student would get logged out immediately with a role below that of guest. The reason for this is, by default guest could still see the questions it seems. But would anything happen to the progress data of the student for assignments, quizzes etc before any role change happens? That is the main worry. Thanks.