Currently you can set "lessons" to become available at a certain date. However, it would be great to make each of the "discussions" become available on certain dates too. ALSO, it would be good to be able to make it so that students can not longer add to discussions (that the discussions are 'removed' in this sense, but still available to be viewed) at a certain date, so that we can force students to contribute following a particular timeline.
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16 comments
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Raul Lozada JMJT
We have a number of requests for a similar feature in which faculty may set up discussions to appear on certain dates in the term. I attempted a test by creating a lesson to appear on a certain date, then I added a discussion within that test lesson container in which I assigned a specific date, but the discussion appeared regardless of the date given for that lesson to appear.
If the Populi development team cannot develop the feature of separate reveal dates for the discussions, I think it would be great if the Populi development team could somehow configure the discussions created within a certain lesson (with a certain reveal date) to show only when that lesson is due to appear.
Thank you for all you do, Populi Support :0)
Raul
#hacsdl
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Adam Sentz @Raul - We made it so that discussions that are tied to a particular lesson will not be available to students until that lesson is available. Hope that helps.
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Raul Lozada JMJT
Adam,
This is fantastic news! I have just tested the new feature, and it works perfectly.
Thank you so much, Populi Developers!!!
Raul
#hacsdl
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Adam Sentz You can now set discussions tied to a lesson to close as of a certain date and time. Enjoy!
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Brad Cowie How do you set the open and close dates for a discussion within a lesson? I see where you set the activation date of a lesson - does that also activate that lesson's discussions? How do you close a lesson/discussion? I tried typing in a range of dated (i.e. Sep 4 - Sept 6) but it didn't seem to save.
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Brad Cowie Okay, never mind, I found the "set discussions to close" link. Question answered. Thanks.
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Adam Sentz Just in case anybody has the same questions:
The "open date" for lesson discussions is the lesson's available date. At that time students can see, post, and comment on discussions.
A "close date" for lesson discussion can be set in the "Discussion" panel on the lesson page. The field uses Populi's standard Date-Time parser, so you can enter any date time format you like so long as the box doesn't turn red. You can even write things like "now", "tomorrow", or "next week" if you like.
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Andrew Gabriel Thanks for this!
I would still find it more helpful if I could set a "close date" for each individual discussion because sometimes I have more than one discussion which are tied to a lesson and those discussions don't always have the same due date.
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Adam Sentz @Andrew - We didn't set it up on a per-discussion basis because a lot of courses require students to actually start discussions. So there really needs to be a control at the lesson level that dictates not only when discussions can no longer be posted to, but also when new discussions can no longer be created. This also keeps you from having to manage a close date on each of potentially dozens of student created discussions.
Perhaps you could break the lesson into "Part A" and "Part B" or something like that?
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Raul Student JMJT
@Adam, I am setting up some of the courses for this coming Fall term, and as you mentioned, we have students who must add individual discussions with their responses to discussion prompts structured in the lesson container. However, I noticed that we really cannot add a closing date to discussions of a particular container until some student actually adds a new discussion within the designated container, during the designated time of reveal. So what we have here is dilemma of our professors having to wait each week for a student to add that first discussion within the container before actually setting the closing date for the discussion of that particular container. Is it possible for Populi Developers to add the closing date option even though a discussion hasn't been made yet? This will allow our professors, and course builders like myself, to set up the closing dates in advance, rather than having to wait on that first student.
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Adam Sentz That's a good point, Raul. We'll check it out.
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Raul Lozada JMJT
Hello again, @Adam. As Andrew is requesting, we, too, at Holy Apostles have a number of faculty that would like to have a closing date for numerous discussions within a particular container. We set up our Lesson structure within weeks. Some of our faculty have 2-3 discussions within a given week in which they would like them to be revealed on different dates of that week. Perhaps if Populi Developers were to add the closing date option to a particular discussion container (see attachment), namely those added by faculty members, this could help set closing dates for individual discussions. This will have the added advantage of sifting through discussions within particular weeks from the Show drop-down menu in the Discussions tab... KEEPING the closing date option within the lesson container, too!
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Adam Sentz @Raul - If you have 2-3 discussions that you want to become available within a given week, adding a close date per-disussion won't really help.
Since lesson discussions become available when the lesson that owns them does, why not split the lesson into multiple parts? That way you could have, if desired, different available and close dates for each part within a given week.
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Raul Lozada JMJT
I see what you mean, Adam. Multiple parts is the way to go.
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Adam Sentz You can now set a close discussions date in a lesson before any discussions have been added.
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Raul Lozada JMJT This is great, Adam! Thanks for all the hard work!
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