What it does

The `merge mfax files' button merges one or more .mfax files into the current one. This includes students, assignments and even tasks. Clearly there is a potentential for conflicts if the same data element exists in more than one file. The tool will give warnings for these cases. The files to be merged are chosen via a file multiselector, and once a merged file is created it can be further merged with other files at a later date if required. Since this is new functionality please keep a copy of all the original files just in case anything should go wrong... and then let me know if anything does.

The following sections provide some typical use cases for the functionality.

Use Cases

Separately marking assignments

If mfax files are combined that contain different assignments, the assignment marks and all feedback and optional feedback will simply be merged. If a student does not exist for one of the assignments then s/he will appear as unmarked for that assignment in the merged file. If the same assignment exists in one of the files then a conflict will be indicated.

Separately marking groups of students

Merging multiple files containing the same assignment but different students will result in a cohort containing all the students for that assignment. This will work for multiple assignments also. If a student has marks for the same assignment and task a conflict will be indicated. (cancel, resolve the problem by removing the mark that is not required from the relevant file and try again). You can run multiple copies of the MFA if this helps do this.

Separately marking parts(tasks) of an assignment

It is possible to merge even at the level of individual tasks, provided marks and feedback do not appear in more than one file for the same task. There is no way to enforce this at the moment if a module coordinator gives out the same file to multiple markers other than remove the tasks that should not be marked from the copy of the .mfax file given to each marker.

Multiple marking

The tool does not support multiple marking currently, because of the wide range of possibly ways that the final result can be derived. One possible work around is to provide 'marker' and 'reader' versions of the .mfax files by changing either the assignment OR task names (e.g. prefix them Marker or Reader etc). These can then be combined as above and the spreadsheet used to make the required decisions perhaps by averaging the marks, and overriding the formula for individual cases or moderation outcomes, as necessary