"Download all assignments" - How to approach filtering and selections in mod_assign

There are a few overlapping tickets around this issue - I've tried to summarise them, so we can figure out the best way to proceed.

MDL-36150: Download only ungraded Assignment submissions

• "It would be nice to have the option to do a batch download of only the ungraded submissions. (For example, to get files that have been submitted late, or possibly revisions -- although it's not clear to me when revisions show up as ungraded and when they don't so maybe that would be harder.)"
• No code.

MDL-36151: Download selected Assignment submissions

• "It would be nice if the "With selection" drop-down menu included an option to download files from the selected submissions in a batch. For example, you could use this to get only the files submitted before (or after) a certain date."
• Adds download option to the "With selected.." batch operations menu.
• Patch for 2.6: https://github.com/tlock/moodle/compare/moodle:MOODLE_26_STABLE...mdl36857-moodle26
• Patch for master as of 2014-03-14: https://github.com/tlock/moodle/compare/moodle:master...mdl36857-master

MDL-36857: Implement download feedback files/templates in a zip

• Filtering download is conflated with a new download feedback template feature
• Patch for 2.6: https://github.com/simba909/moodle/tree/MDL-36151-add_option_to_download_selected_assign_submissions
• Damyon Wiese comments:
  • '"downloading submissions should respect the filters" - this would seem a good idea to some, but would be horribly confusing to others. The intent of downloading the submissions, is to get all the submissions at once, mark them, and upload them all at once. The reason you might want to split it into multiple files is technical (I'm guessing it takes a long time to create the zip for large classes).'
    • I disagree, it's not technical for my group - see MDL-46176 and user stories, below.
      

•    At the very least, we have a problem of ambiguous/incorrect terminology in "Download all submissions", as drafts by definition are not submissions, IMHO.
• Greg comments:
  • 'With some of our larger topics containing around 800 students, downloading all submission files is inconvenient when multiple markers are involved. Generally a group mode is applied to the assignment and a marker will select their group of students to mark when using the 'Download all submission files' option. [Using this solution] The generated .zip file contains only the files for the cohort of students they are required to mark. Downloading an entire class worth of submission files in one go makes managing files a nightmare for the markers'
    

MDL-38063: Assignement activity : bulk download only new submissions. [sic]

• 'When some of my students submit their work on the assignement activity after I have already corrected and given feedback to the other students I have to download the whole bulk of assignement and cannot only download the newer ones.'
• Duplicate of MDL-36150.

MDL-39989: Download submissions and feedback files should respect filters

• No code.
• Minh-Tam Nguyen notes a usability issue of recognising whether the filters are being applied, when the UI components are separated on the page.

MDL-42052: Download assignment submissions that require grading for all assignments in course

• Filtering download is conflated with a new download all assignments in the course feature.
• 'Assignments in my course do not have a specific due-date, so on any given day I may have 1 or 2 submissions each in as many as 10 different assignments to grade. Each submission could have several files attached. I would like the ability to download all files for ungraded submissions for all students in all assignments. The unzipped download would constitute my work-list of assignments to be graded.'
• Will be paritally resolved by MDL-36150.

MDL-46176: "Download all submissions" includes drafts

• My version. (My search-foo is evidently not strong in Jira, otherwise I would have found the others before creating this one.)
• Some of our courses have very particular regulations relating to submission of work, with penalties for lateness. The final "Submit" is regarded as the online equivalent of handing in a paper to the exams office. Assuming that draft submissions are final could end up with the wrong piece of work being marked. This also applies in some of our courses where tutors may begin marking submitted assignments before the due date - having draft submissions in the zip download risks marking incomplete work.
• I have some code, but it's not a good solution, so won't bother adding it.
• Greg comments:
  • 'Our academics would find it incredibly time consuming to have to download draft submissions separately. In some of our larger classes of ~800 students, around 5% of students fail to correctly submit their submissions (forgetfulness, technical difficulties, bad time management etc). Once the cut off date has elapsed, the student cannot alter their submission and markers are generally happy to mark these drafts. Making this proposed change would mean the 20 - something files would need to be manually downloaded.'

That's 7 tickets requesting some form of filter on the assignment zip download - confirmation that this feature is farily widely wanted.

From this, I see these user stories:

1. Marker Alice wants to download just submissions that require grading, so she can grade assignments submitted after she started grading, without already graded assignments confusing her workflow.
2. Marker Bob wants to selected and download specific submissions, as he has informally agreed with another marker that they will split grading of the group between them.
3. Marker Claire wants to download submissions for just the students in her group, so so she can grade them without the assignments by Harry's group confusing her workflow.
4. Marker Darren wants to download the officially submitted submissions, as drafts do not qualify in his institution's regulations and should not be graded.

Out of scope are:

• Download feedback template.
• Download all assignments in the course.

Key points:

1. Should there a) be a download option in the "With selection" drop-down as well as "Grading action", or b) only have one download option? [I think b), but possibly with changing/moving the "Grading action" drop-down.]
2. How do we indicate that the filter/ selection applies to the download?

What thoughts do you all have on this?