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- Tell users that there are evaluations to take
- Tell users where to go to take active evaluations
- Increase response rates to evaluations
Current functionality
Currently emails are generated under the following conditions:
1. Created: This email, using the Created template, is sent to all instructors after an evaluation is created when the Instructors may add this number of questions to evaluations from above in the hierarchy before the release date is greater than 0. This notifies instructors that they have until the evaluation start date to add questions to the template for their courses. This setting is found on the Administrate page under Instructor Settings.
2. Available: This email, using the Available template, is sent to everyone after an evaluation becomes Active. This occurs when the status is changed when the scheduler recognizes the current time is greater then the start date and time.
Recent modifications, allow this email to be skipped. By selecting Allow users to choose whether to send an initial email notification when creating an evaluation (otherwise an email notification will always be sent when the evaluation opens) on the Administrate -> Control Email Notification -> Email Options. This allow an evaluation to control whether or not to send available email.
By selecting Send notification email the day the evaluation goes live. then the Available email will be set, do not check and no available email is sent.
The current system sends out an available notification when an evaluation becomes available to take. This email is based on a template and goes out 5 minutes after an evaluation was created. This allows the user to remove that evaluation in case they made a mistake without having sent out a large number of emails with now invalid links. It also allows them to effectively notify the takers of the evaluation rapidly that there is an evaluation available. This email would normally include a direct link to the evaluation but the evaluation owner can control this via the template.
One email is sent to each user in each group associated with the evaluation. This means that a student user would probably get one email for each course in an evaluation that is available.
After the available email has been processed (note that the Sakai email service does not indicate if the email was sent or not, we can only know that it was processed without failure) succcessfully, the system queues up reminder emails if they are enabled for an evaluation. If they are disabled then nothing happens until the evaluation ends.
3. Reminders:
If reminders are turned on then the scheduler will send a reminder in the same fashion as the available email using either the default template which includes a direct link to the evaluation or a custom template if one is set up for the evaluation. One email is sent to each user in each group associated with the evaluation who has not yet responded to the evaluation. This means that if a student has responded for 3 out of 5 group evaluations then they will receive 2 email reminders.
This process repeats as long as the evaluation is active. Once the due date is reached then the reminder email processing stops for an evaluation.
4. Results:
After an evaluation is over and the view date is reached an email is sent to the owner indicating that results are now available. This email uses a system template and includes a direct link to the results of the evaluation.
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