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<p>Hi Andor+everybody!</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Let's use the Javagyak list for all things Konkurens/Concurrent
related, unless it's absolutely specific to those courses --
technical details about TMS will concern everyone, so I reply to
your message below here in javagyak.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I've already reported some of these problems in the issue tracker
of TMS -- and a fix for the most important one which was a blocker
(question banks -- or in their terminology, question sets -- could
not be created by lab teachers) has already been fixed. It sure is
useful to have an "in house" development team! ... vs Canvas,
Teams, Neptun whose devs are hard-to-impossible to reach.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>That's indeed why I asked you to have a trial run of quizzes this
week: to find any bugs or issues so that they may be addressed
before going live. I, unfortunately, am not a good enough
"measuring stick": I have more permissions concerning the courses
than you, so what is possible for me might be invisible/impossible
for you. Say, the aforementioned bug did not affect me, but now
several of you have reported it and it has been squashed. Right
now I see that at least two quizzes are already successfully made
(independent of me), so we seem to be on track. If your class is
on Wed/Thu/Fri, please create a trial quiz for it. Let's talk
about our experience in this week's meeting.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>If you (meaning not just Andor but everybody) have suggestions
about the system, let's hear them: send them preferably to
javagyak or directly to me. Technically, it is possible to
immediately submit issue requests to the tracker of TMS
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://gitlab.com/tms-elte/frontend-react/-/issues">https://gitlab.com/tms-elte/frontend-react/-/issues</a>) but to avoid
duplicates and to make sure that they are as general and as comfy
as possible, let's discuss it with me (and all of you) first.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Shortly about some of these points: as I told you on the last
meeting, the question options are a bit limited, so don't expect a
great variety of question types. Single choice and multiple choice
are available, some others like true/false can be emulated that
way. Essay questions are currently not available. Many of these
(colour scheme, instructor cannot take test) are already reported,
so you can find the related issue in their system, and if you have
more details about it, add a comment there -- the devs will see it
and act on it. Some can be mitigated: give all students a long
enough time but tell them verbally to finish up a bit before then
except for the one with the extra time; as for names, I
specifically requested that you all <b>strictly follow a naming
schema in HOWTO-TMS-quizzes</b> (and with the fix, the name is
indeed editable now).</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>It is not an extremely comfortable system yet, I know, but
missing administrative features can arrive by the exam period when
we'll actually need them if we identify which ones are absolutely
a must and provide the exact specifications on what they have to
be capable of. Also, if we don't start using the system in
earnest, then how will it evolve so that it become actually
comfortable? Luckily, the lab quizzes are not meant to be tricky:
as they are meant to nudge the students to attend/rewatch theory
class, please don't make them "scary difficult" or as complex as
Rubik's cube -- and in my opinion, TMS as it is now can support
that with a modicum of compromise.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>So unless you find total deal breakers in the following days,
let's do the first round of quizzes next week in TMS, and we can
finalise the decision of sticking with it for the whole semester
or abandon it in next week's meeting.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Rob</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 09/09/2025 15:06, Menczer Andor
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAGGOwMAM0o78i4GUAA0SMX-0USdK8rEu1aPP0P_GoiPqstJABQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Dear Everyone,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Just a quick feedback on some of the problems I have
encountered while I tried to use TMS for the weekly quizzes
(concurrent programming courses). I don't expect a fix or a
reply, just spreading awareness:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>For me, TMS defaults to Hungarian with dark mode turned
on. The former is fine, the latter is buggy as in some
cases, e.g. when writing a new question, the text remains
a dark shade of grey despite being rendered atop of an
almost black background, thus making the text illegible. </li>
<li>I cannot create a new question bank.</li>
<li>I can copy an already existing question bank, but I
cannot edit its title, so it has some nonsensical name
with "copy" at the end. It already looks like a mess, I
cannot fathom how unmanageable it will eventually become
by the end of the semester</li>
<li>When creating a test I cannot set individual points for
each question.</li>
<li>When creating a test I cannot set answer type (multiple
choice, single choice, true-false etc)</li>
<li>When creating a test I cannot set special conditions for
special students (e.g. students with disabilities may need
extra time)</li>
<li>After creating a test I cannot take the test myself, as
if I was a student (canvas has such a feature, it's great
for making sure the test was created properly)</li>
<li>I do not have a summary page for students like I have in
canvas. It seems I'm supposed to click on every single
test and check individual scores of students. This is
complete nonsense as I will have hundreds of individual
scores by the end of the semester </li>
<li>There is no xml or other spreadsheet-like export option</li>
<li>There is no course wide export-import feature so next
year I will have to start from scratch</li>
<li>TMS does not support adding notes to wrong answers so
students will not know why their answer was not correct.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>I believe TMS will eventually <span class="gmail-BxUVEf gmail-ILfuVd" lang="en"><span class="gmail-hgKElc">supersede Canvas and become a better
and more robust platform, however at the time of writing I
find the platform completely unsatisfactory or even
unusable for lectures. For the above mentioned reasons I
recommend we stick to Canvas and try TMS again next
semester.</span></span> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div>Andor</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
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