Progress Reports

In this section we will describe how to update a list of ‘items to be completed.’ As the student completes the items, an image of a checkbox (next to the list item) could be replaced with the image of a selected checkbox. To keep our example simple, we will use text instead of images.

For our example we will use a single drop box and our report will initially show our task as 'incomplete' and then change to 'complete' once we have submitted something. A more complicated real world application might display the status of every quiz and drop box in a course.

Let's begin. Follow the steps below to create our single item progress report.

Set up our variable and action

1. Use the Environmental Variable manager to create a new entry called $ITEM_1$ and set its value to incomplete (see the previous page if you need instructions)
2. Create a new drop box by going to the Lessons tab, clicking Add Content and then clicking Add a Drop Box
3. Open the Action Editor by clicking the small Action Editor link beneath the Actions area
4. Click the New button to create a new action
5. Click Set Variable
6. For the Variable Name enter ITEM_1.
   Note that we have to leave the dollar signs off in this instance.
7. For the Variable Value enter complete (see image below)

Create our progress report page

Now that we have created a variable for the task we want to track and created a drop box with the proper action associated with it, now all we have to do is create a page to display our progress.

1. Create a new page
2. Enter the setting shown in the image below, where the Title is Progress Report and the Page text is Item 1 is $ITEM_1$
   
3. Save your page, open it and view the results. It should look like the image below if you have done everything right (assuming you haven't uploaded anything to the drop box you created for this exercise).
   
4. Upload something to the drop box you created.
5. Reload your progress report and see how it has now changed to say Item 1 is complete (see image below)
   

Obviously this is example isn't so useful due to its simplicity. However, you could easily use graphics instead of text to make it a bit more attractive. You can track as many items as you like. The more items there are to track, the more useful this sort of page is. The more important thing is that now you have the tools to achieve all sorts of interesting and potentially useful results.

A more complicated Progress Report might look like the image below:

Click here to view the Page Text used for this example.

In case you want to try using graphics instead of text, here is a checked and an unchecked graphic. Save them to your computer if you want to use them (right click >Save Picture As... or Save Image As...