Controlling for Time

When using workbooks in Codespec, it’s possible to control how much time a learner has to work on a particular page using the timer feature. Each page can have it’s own timer. The timer can be pausable or not, and must have a given duration (defined in hours, minutes, and seconds).

When a page is timed, learners will see a countdown at the top of the screen, which begins as soon as the page starts loading. When there are 10 seconds remaining, the timer starts to flash as a warning. If the timer is pausable, learners will see a “pause” button next to the countdown. The timer will pause if they click that button, or if they navigate away from the page, either by clicking a link on the page or switching tabs. If a timer is not pausable, the timer will continue even if a learner clicks a link or changes tabs. When a timer is paused or ended, the page’s content disappears from view and learners are blocked from interacting with the problem.

At any time, researchers can also control the current state of a learner’s timer by navigating to the console detail view of the given page and switching to the “timers” tab, which displays a list of all user timers that exist for that page. For each user timer, researchers can see the name of the learner, the state of their timer, when they started, and how much time is remaining. Additionally, researchers can take action on one or more user timers. They can be reset to an “unstarted” state, paused, resumed, or ended. If a researcher pauses or ends an ongoing user timer, Codespec will automatically hide the page’s content the next time the learner takes a problem-solving action or refreshes the page.