Dear Teachers,
We would like to report some findings on Moodle service interruptions. Please read carefully on how you can set an online Quiz to avoid interruptions.
Problems:
1. We find that the server loading surges to 50-70% when a quiz starts and ends, even with 40-100 users. During the quiz, however, the loading is less than 10%.
2. Some teachers have set “Restricted Access” in the quiz setting to allow the quiz to appear at the schedule time. This is NOT necessary as we have Open and Close time already. Students reload the course page again and again in order to start the quiz immediately.
3. Some teachers use “Pagination” to divide questions into pages. The overall loading is increased. As the quiz is ending, students jumps from page to page to review the quiz, causing heavy loading near the end of a quiz.
Solutions:
1. Put all the questions in One page if possible. Otherwise at most two. This will greatly reduce the server loading and student time in visiting pages. If you really want a question per page, please allow more time and encourage students to submit early to avoid end-of-time interruptions.
2. The Timing Setting should be simple. The Open and Close time is a hard limit. See below, students will NOT be able to continue when the quiz is close. No need to use “Restricted Access” setting. Students reload the quiz waiting page is better than reloading the entire course page.
3. No need to enable the Time Limit, unless you open the quiz for a longer time (say 4 hours), and a shorter limit (say 30 minutes). If you want students to start and end together, you may add one minute earlier at the beginning and at the end (e.g., 9:29 to 10:01). All students then use the same time limit (30 min) even if they start slightly later.
Some teachers have the following good practices. See if you find them useful:
1. To set a longer time (start and end time). E.g.10:00-12:00. The time limit be 1 hour. Students can start later but still get 1 hour of working.
2. To inform students not to worry. All the answers will be auto-saved within 60 seconds. Even if they cannot submit answers, the system will automatically submit later. They may logon after an hour to take a look.
3. To inform students not to refresh the pages too frequently. Our network may treat them as hacking attacks and block their access.
4. Sometimes their browser may have cached some data. They may close the current browser and open an incognito browser to try again.
5. Use MS Teams (HSUHK Staff) to leave a message in the ITSC Support Channel.
ITSC Support Channel in MS Teams