Import and export courses, or parts of courses, to Configuration files.

[jeffaschwarz]

I would like to import and export courses, or parts of courses, to a Configuration File (e.g. XML, but maybe easier for people to read)?

Then, for example, we could write a whole bunch of quizzes offline, then just import them.

As it stands, we have to write a quiz, click around to find things, know what they mean and how they affect other things. When I'm on my fifth quiz, we remember something that needed to be added to all of them (say, some instructions), then we need to click around to each one, make the changes with little to no visual feedback about which ones I've changed and which we haven't.

If we could export a quiz to a Config file, we can use the features of Excel or a text editing tool to make bulk changes, and import.

If done for a whole course, we could basically program the entire course offline in a Configuration File. Then make copies of it and make bulk changes, then import them without having to click around and find things and do everything individually.

[Stef_retired]

@jeffaschwarz 

Thanks for sharing this idea. As it moves forward for broader discussion, since your example focuses on quizzes, have you experimented with the package that results from exporting the quiz as a QTI ZIP file? (How do I export quiz content from a course?) I wonder if there is a conversion tool that would allow an instructor to work with the data in that file.

[jeffaschwarz]

No, I have not. 

[ProductPanda]

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