Feature Request: Alert students if there is new written feedback

[Alex-Jordan]

This is a note to pursue a new feature at some point. When you leave written feedback to a student, as far as I know they will only ever see that if they revisit that exercise. Can we do things that make it more likely they will see the feedback? Some ideas:

• At the point the feedback is written or updated, automatically send an email to the student like the Email Isntructor messages, but of course a bit different with its content.
• If unread feedback exists, put something on the student's landing page (or maybe somewhere else) that alerts them and links them to it. This would require the database storing whether or not each item of feedback is read.

[drgrice1]

I think this is a good feature idea. You are correct in that the only way for students to see feedback in the form of instructor comments is for the student to revisit the problem.

I don't like the idea of automatically sending an email when instructor comments are added. There are several problems I see with that. The first is that if you are grading a gateway quiz and add comments to several problems, then the student will get a separate email for each problem. In addition, if you make a mistake in a comment and correct it, then the student will get yet another email. Your mistake can't really be corrected because the email is already sent.

I think that the second approach is better. On the course homepage (the homework set list page), add a section that lists the unread comments. This would need a new database column to track unread comments, but one thing that I have gleaned from the last few releases is that adding a database column is generally not that big of a deal. The infrastructure to take care of that with the webwork upgrade is all set up. Even deleting a column isn't a big deal now!

[dlglin]

For the emailing students idea, how about giving the instructor a button to send email to all students with unread feedback on one (or possibly more than one) assignment? When the instructor finishes providing feedback on an assignment, they could click the button to send notifications to all affected students.

[Alex-Jordan]

Where I was coming from with the first email idea was avoiding adding the database columns where we track if there is unread feedback. But of we have that, then Danny's idea is good; it could be a tool in the Email menu, maybe duplicated in places like Student Progress.

A variant of Danny's: some way to configure sending an email at regular times alerting students to unread feedback. Like every Friday at noon or whatever.

Would we track:

• presence of unread feedback for every single problem? (boolean)
• Presence of unread feedback within each exercise set? (boolean, or an array of exercise numbers?)
• Or just one database entry per student for presence of unread feedback anywhere? (boolean, or an array indicating exercise sets/exercise numbers?)

[somiaj]

I like this idea, and here are some thoughts.

The email option should provide a form so the instructor can add additional info to the email, instead of just sending it out automatically.

I don't think a simple boolean flag saying 'you have unread comments' would be that useful in the long run, as the student would still have to track down the comment. I suggest storing a list of sets/problems with unread comments which also allows adding links directly to the set/problem in the unread comment notification.

I also think besides just a notification on the home ProblemSets page, there should be a notification on the main ProblemSet page for the set that has the comments. Also an option which could configure showing the notification on all ProblemSet pages, which would be useful when using LTI Restricted options when students can't see the home ProblemSets page.

[drgrice1]

The simple boolean would be more useful than you think, and could be used to create the links that you are talking about. There certainly is no need to store such a list as you suggest in the database to get that. Nor would there be a logical way to do that.

[dlglin]

Off the top of my head it feels like the problem_user table is the right place to store this. Since comments are specific to a problem it seems natural to store the unread feedback flag at the problem level.

The ability to send emails periodically also leads into a discussion about scheduled tasks in WW which I've started at #1694