[Building Sakai] Assignment issues when switching submission types

[Brian Baillargeon]

At Western we're going to be fixing the following issue, and we'd like 
to know if anybody is interested in the fix.

For clarity:
By "submission type" I'm refering to Inline, Inline & Attachments, 
Attachments Only, Non-Electronic, and Single Uploaded File Only

The issue:
1) Instructor posts an assignment of submission type A
2) Student submits to the assignment
3) Instructor switches the assignment to submission type B (ie. they 
overlooked the submission type / made a mistake / etc.)
4) Instructor views the student's submission, UI doesn't reflect the 
submission type when the student submitted.

This can make submissions ungradable (ie. if A is inline only and B is 
attachments only, the instructor can't see the inline content).

We think the best solution is to make the submissions aware of their own 
submission type and retain these separately from the assignment's 
submission type.

Here's the approach we're taking to fix this:
1) The assignment_submission table's xml will have a new entry 
representing the submission type of the assignment. This submission type 
will be determined from the time that the student viewed the assignment. 
When the student submits, the submission will be processed accordingly 
with this submission type. We won't be determining the submission's 
submission type at the time of submission because if an instructor 
switches the submission type while a student is working on their 
assignment, the student could lose their progress.

2) When the instructor views a student's submission, the UI will reflect 
the submission type associated with the submission (rather than the 
submission type associated with the assignment). If the submission's 
submission type defers from the assignment's current submission type, an 
information box will say ""At the time of submission, this assignment 
was set to <old submission type>, this assignment is currently set to 
<new submission type>". If there's old data such that the submission 
type is not present in the assignment_submission row's xml, then the UI 
will reflect the assignment's submission type as it currently does.

3) If an instructor switches the submission type while there are 
submissions, a warning message will appear saying "You are changing the 
submission type, but this assignment has existing submissions. These 
submissions will be displayed in the form they were originally submitted."


Just wanted to guage if anybody agrees/disagrees with this solution. Let 
me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Brian Baillargeon