[Feature Request] Automatically apply Quiz Extensions to New Quizzes

[christopherphillips]

Describe the Feature
The current way this tool works is for instructors to extend quiz time for specific students for all existing students and then when new quizzes are added the instructor goes back in and applies the previous extension to the new quizzes. This is much better than starting from scratch but we would prefer a workflow where those previous extensions would automatically apply to all new quizzes.

Given our process, once a student is qualified to receive time extension that accommodation applies to all quizzes for the course and we haven't come across any scenarios where doing so would be problematic. On the contrary, we have had some difficulty getting instructors to remember to go in and apply the existing extensions when new quizzes are added.

Use to Other Institutions
I don't know if this would be useful to other institutions, but I would love to hear and understand the rationale for the current workflow.

How it Would Work
I assume that if this were to be implemented it would be as an option which would require the following changes to the configuration and UI:

1. Add an option in config.py.template to enable the option, something like, "AUTOMATIC_APPLICATION = 'YES'
2. Setup a cron job at a determined amount to pick up new quizzes and apply extensions or figure out a way for new quizzes being added to trigger the extension.
3. In userselect.html change the text:

This tool will apply extra time to all existing quizzes/exams. For example, Suzy Johnson and Stephen Smith need double time. Select the students below and choose the appropriate amount of extra time e.g., double (2x).
If additional quizzes/exams are added during the semester, a message will appear below stating there are new quizzes which need extensions. Click the Apply Now button to add the same extensions.

to something like:

This tool will apply extra time to all existing and future quizzes/exams. For example, Suzy Johnson and Stephen Smith need double time. Select the students below and choose the appropriate amount of extra time e.g., double (2x).
If additional quizzes/exams are added during the semester, your extensions will automatically be applied.

Implementation
I may be able to convince one of our developers to work on this and will start having those conversations. In the meantime, if there is any interest from the developers to implement I would be more than happy to help in any way I could.

Thanks!

[Thetwam]

Hey @christopherphillips!

We had considered adding a similar feature early on in development, but decided (at the time) that the volume of courses and students at UCF was larger than we wanted a single process to handle. A lot of this concern stems from the fact that (to my knowledge) there is no way to know when a new quiz has been added except to scan each course and compare to a previous list of quizzes. There is also the issue of the delay between the time the quiz is created and the time an automated script runs - there is a possibility that a student could take the exam before the extension is applied.

The existing solution that requires instructor interaction is a bit of a compromise: better than having to manually run the tool again, but not as efficient as having the tool do it for you in the background.

That said, I definitely see the use case for something like this, and with some effort I'm sure it can even be made viable for UCF.

I'll look into it this week to see what our options are.

[christopherphillips]

Thanks so much @Thetwam, that challenge of knowing when new quiz has been published makes a lot of sense - something I hadn't thought through.

I suppose this is the kind of thing that live events could solve in theory, but that is likely out of scope and would require setting up a the live events stream of data. The potential delay between a quiz being created and the script running could definitely be problematic. I will give this some more thought as well. Thanks so much.

I am wondering if there could be something built into the quiz creation process that could potentially trigger the script or at least insert some kind of reminder to apply the extension for that quiz. I'll let you know if I come up with anything - thanks!

[kapooramanpreet]

Are there any plans to support the quiz extension tool for the new Quiz engine on Canvas? I don't think the tool currently provides support for the new quizzes.

[Thetwam]

Are there any plans to support the quiz extension tool for the new Quiz engine on Canvas? I don't think the tool currently provides support for the new quizzes.

Hi @kapooramanpreet, support for the New Quizzes engine only recently became possible (maybe). Please follow #67 for details.