Miscellaneous

WebworkSoap handler

WebworkSoap handler

by Jonathan Desaulniers -
Number of replies: 4

Hi,

i just upgraded webwork to 2.18 and i noticed the many changes in the webwork2.apache2.4.conf file. One in particular is the webworksoap handler that is not there anymore!

Is version 2.18 not functional with soap anymore? Is the code for soap handler elsewhere?

Thanks!

Jonathan Desaulniers

In reply to Jonathan Desaulniers

Re: WebworkSoap handler

by Jonathan Desaulniers -
Hi,
maybe to add more precision to my question, i'm using the webwork opaque server and it seem that in WeBWorK 2.18 the possibility to use the opaque server has been removed!

Am i correct?

Thx
Jonathan Desaulniers
In reply to Jonathan Desaulniers

Re: WebworkSoap handler

by Danny Glin -
The opaque server has not been maintained for a long time, so there are no guarantees that it will continue to work with new versions of WeBWorK. The recommended method to integrate WeBWorK with Moodle (or any other LMS) is LTI. WeBWorK 2.18 supports LTI 1.3 (in addition to 1.1), which opens the door for deeper integrations with your LMS that may appear in future versions of WW.

WW 2.18 no longer uses apache/mod_perl to serve pages, so the only settings that remain in the apache config files are used to set up apache as a proxy, which is one option for configuring your server (see the installation instructions on the wiki).

The webworksoap handler can still be enabled from the webwork.mojolicious.yml configuration file. Note that webworksoap is also not being maintained, and likely presents security vulnerabilities when enabled, which is why it is disabled by default.
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: WebworkSoap handler

by Jonathan Desaulniers -
Thx for the reply!

In fact, we have been using the opaque_server all the way to version 2.17! We modified it so it could use an exam mode, a show solution and hint after x attempt, lock mode after x attemps, etc.

The advantage of using it through opaque is that the questions are directly in the Moodle question bank and can be use with other type of Moodle question in the "quiz" activity and all the options of the Moodle quiz. In other word, everything is gather on only one platform for the student.

Il try to make the changes and see if i can make it work!

Jonathan Desaulniers
In reply to Jonathan Desaulniers

Re: WebworkSoap handler

by Danny Glin -

The opaque server does offer better integration with Moodle.  The issue is that this can not be translated to other Learning Management Systems (especially closed-source ones).

WeBWorK has a small developer community, so the focus of development activity is on features that can be used by everyone, though contributions that improve the ecosystem are always welcome.

The webworksoap service will probably be completely removed from WeBWorK at some point in the future since there are now better ways to interact with WeBWorK.  One idea for replacing the opaque server would be to create a Moodle question type that uses the WeBWorK standalone renderer, though for this to happen someone would have to commit to building it.