TOPIC:

The institution I work for now has its own Xerte server which we envisage both staff and students using for creating learning objects for course material and as a form of assessment with students creating their own learning objects.

Whilst we have previously (using the JISC sandpit) got students to download their Xerte LO and submit the .zip file to our VLE, this proved very time consuming for us to create individual folders to upzip the package in order for the tutor to see the student's work.

Option One - We would like the students to be able use the existing functionality of Xerte possibly via "give this project" to their tutor with the following conditions:

A time stamp applied to the LO (proves when the student submitted)

Students cannot edit the LO that has been submitted (this would be very nice to achieve)

A digital receipt to say their Xerte LO has been received by the tutor

Is anyone out there using Xerte as a form of assessment? If so, how are you getting round the issue of students being able to continue editing their LO.

Some of this you can already do even if it's not an exact match to what you describe. Also I've been working through similar requirements with another organisation and some of the related issues have now been fixed in the latest version a beta of which is due for release in the next day or so.

Existing solutions:
1. Teacher creates a new 'master' project and names it according to the assignment etc. The project could be empty or have pre-added content/guidance/sequence etc
2. Teacher then duplicates and renames that project so that there is an individual copy for each student e.g. assignment one Fred Bloggs
3. Teacher then shares editing access to the relevant LO with the relevant student
4. Student works on the project and notifies the teacher when finished or at the deadline teacher changes shared editing access to read only so student can still see the project in their workspace and view it's contents but can't edit or export etc. (this is the bit that has been improved in the latest code)

The simpler alternative to this is to bypass the need for teacher to student shared editing is that each student names and creates a project from scratch but then gives a copy to the teacher when complete or deadline reached. The student can no longer edit that copy which now appears in the teachers workspace but if you think about it there are a few caveats to this option.

This kind of question/request has been on the increase since the increased awareness of the benefits of allowing students to author with rather than just consume Xerte content. It's possible that we could add more specific functionality for this purpose in future but not in time for this imminent release. Of course anyone keen enough with the relevant skill set could develop and share that functionality themselves too or possibly commission those features. In the meantime if the solutions above sound viable perhaps try that and feedback.

HTH
Ron