Planet Moodle

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile – Joseph Rézeau

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:43:29 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community. Today it is Joseph Rézeau.

Name:	Joseph Rézeau
Twitter:	-
Blog:	http://rezeau.info/
Source Code:	https://github.com/rezeau/

Tell us something about yourself

I am a retired English teacher and researcher. I taught English at secondary school level and at university for the last 15 years of my career. I’ve been interested in using computers for teaching languages since 1983. At university, we used WebCT and then Moodle.

When did you first start programming?

I wrote my very first programs on a Commodore 64, in Basic. Language learning and games.

When did you first encounter Moodle?

When I was a senior lecturer at my university, and Moodle replaced WebCT.

What did you use Moodle for?

I used to use Moodle for my online language courses, of course. Now I do some programming as a hobby.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

My first Moodle plugin was the REGEXP question type. I wrote it because Moodle was missing (and still is, to this day) a shortanswer question type with student’s answer analysis based on regular expressions.

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

I think my latest Moodle plugin was the Export Glossary to Quiz Block..

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

Have a good look at how similar existing core plugins work.

Final Thoughts

When programing for Moodle (as, I expect, for any Open Source project) you can always rely on the help of the community. That is great!

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that Joseph has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the Moodle plugins database. To view all these in the Moodle.org Plugin database check this page

Export Glossary to Quiz	A block to export a Glossary’s entries to the Quiz Questions bank.
Lesson Essay Feedback	The Lesson essay feedback block will display (to the students only) their previous attempts at Lesson Essays (if any), together with the teacher’s comments and their grade (if essays have been graded).
Questionnaire	This enables a user create a custom Survey. Read the review
RegExp Adaptive mode with Help	This plugin is one of the 2 question behaviours to be used exclusively with the regexp question type.
RegExp Adaptive mode with Help (No penalties)	This plugin is one of the 2 question behaviours to be used exclusively with the regexp question type.
Regular expression short answer	This question type (for the Moodle quiz module) aims at a more advanced system of student’s response analysis, through the use of regular expresssions.

Sam Marshall: _Important note: This is ..._

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:25:27 +0000

Important note: This is just my personal opinion as a developer. Nothing in here relates in any way to the Open University's official position on any of these matters!

Internet Explorer 6. Three words that strike fear into the spine of any web developer.

As part of our move to the new Moodle 2-based system for some of our module websites, we agreed - well in advance - that we would no longer support IE 6. Google dropped support in 2010, Microsoft run a website encouraging people to stop using it... it's game over.

Why did we drop it? Well, anyone reading this who isn't a web developer might not be aware, but IE6 isn't just equivalent to any other old browser version you might encounter, like say Firefox 3.6 or something. IE6 behaves radically worse than every other browser in terms mainly of its CSS (layout) and JavaScript (interactive) support. If you want things to work in IE6, you have to do a significant amount of extra work in testing and coding workarounds to all the problems. We would rather spend our development time improving the system for 98.5% of users, not fixing problems for 1.5%.

So, we don't support IE6. That means not only do we not test with it, but if anyone reports problems we don't fix the problems, just tell them to use a different browser. And because we developed a new theme without supporting IE6 from the very start (unlikely our previous system, where we fully supported IE6 at the time our theme was originally implemented), it was likely there would in fact be problems.

Turns out that in fact, the main portion of the page doesn't display at all in IE6. It's blank. Oh well, whatever. We don't support it, right? Not a problem.

Until last week when everything hit the fan. Specifically, it turns out that certain government institutions are currently still using IE6, and preventing their staff from installing other browsers. And those staff often don't have the opportunity to simply study at home instead.

Which institutions?

The ones with guns.

Ooops.

I could wear a bullet-proof jacket, but that wouldn't solve the real problem. Which is, we don't want to support IE6, because it costs a lot of developer time. We can't very well sort of half support it; if we support it then that means we have to test everything in IE6 because it's not like any other browser (we don't test everything in Opera either, but that usually just works) - most things probably won't work and will need workarounds. We'd lose all the benefit of ditching support.

But then I had an idea. I suggested it to my bosses and they were okay with it, so we went ahead.

IE6 is a disability. These students are being forced to use an ancient browser; it's kind of like they're being forced to walk down the street blindfolded.

We support blind users. Why not support IE6 the same way?

There's no problem with IE6 as a basic HTML browser. If your website has no style and no interactive features it will work fine. Coincidentally, this is roughly the same way that blind users (through screen readers) experience the internet. So we've already made our sites work if you don't 'see' the styles or the interactive features.

So if you're using IE6 and you look at our new module web sites system (not this one), you'll now see a totally plain screen - we've stripped out all the styles and interactive scripts. It's just like the experience you get with a screen reader - complete with skip links. Not exactly pretty (and we still don't officially support IE6), but you can access all, or nearly all, of the content.

Because I did this at a theme level, it should apply in general. We don't need to test in IE6 - if we build a new feature, as long as it works with JavaScript turned off and no styles (which it ought to, for accessibility) then it should be fine in IE6 too.

That's all. I thought this might be interesting for other people struggling with IE6 issues. There was an embarrassing/amusing screw-up when we deployed this change, but this post is already long enough so I think I'll leave it out. :)

PS To avoid confusion, I should make clear: there are many OU websites which still fully support IE6. This post is only about the new system for module websites, which doesn't.

Sam Marshall: Update on my previous ...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:50:01 +0000

Update on my previous post: three out of the four issues (all except media embedding MDL-29624) are now resolved and included in the relevant upcoming Moodle versions. Yay! Thanks to all Moodle HQ developers and other people who assisted with getting these approved and included.

This is a mini-post. I'm going to do a real blog post next.

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile – John Stabinger

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:29:13 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community. Today it is John Stabinger.

Name:	John Stabinger
Twitter:	-
Blog:	-
Source Code:	-

Tell us something about yourself

My day job is with a suburban school district in Pennsylvania. I also design/code for Newschool Learning, a Moodle Partner. I have B.A.s in English and Journalism, and an M.Ed. in secondary education.

When did you first start programming?

I don’t really consider myself a programmer. A designer/coder would be a better title for what I do. I started developing websites 10 years ago, but only really started working on Moodle design 3 years ago.

I mainly use CSS and javascript with minor doses of PHP (when necessary).

When did you first encounter Moodle?

I first encountered Moodle about 3-4 years ago at work.

What did you use Moodle for?

I use Moodle from all three standpoints, as a teacher, admin and as a developer.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

I created a very poor theme based on Mocha UI. I was interested in Moodle and was using the UI for another project so I attempted to mash them together. The results were not very pretty.

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

My latest plugin is the theme Fabric. I wrote it to showcase some CSS3 transitions I have been working on (see block open/close).

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

Grab a plugin that is close to what you want, and take it apart. Don’t worry about perfection…

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that John has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the Moodle plugins database. To view all these in the Moodle.org Plugin database check this page

Allcontent	Two column content-focused theme with custom menu and drop-down login/profile box. From NewSchool Learning.
Dark Blue 2.0	A three column theme with a settings page that allows the user to change theme colors, etc.
fabric	A two column theme from Newschool Learning.
fadeback	A two column theme with a settings page to change logo and link color. From Newschool Learning
MyMobile	myMobile is a theme for Moodle 2+ that is customized and optimized for smart phones and tablets. It is based on jquerymobile. For a device support grid, please visit the jquerymobile website (http://jquerymobile.com/).
newsie	A two column moodle2 theme from NewSchoolLearning. Features a horizontal submenu with the custom menu. Best used when custom menu items are only one level deep.
SimpleSpace	This is a three column flexible width theme.

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile – Dan Marsden

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:09:53 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community. Today it is Dan Marsden.

Name:	Dan Marsden
Twitter:	-
Blog:	http://danmarsden.com
Source Code:	https://github.com/danmarsden

Tell us something about yourself

My wife and I have 5 great kids; Justin, Britney, Tori, Larissa and Malea, and my work hours fit around school pick-ups/drop-offs.

I maintain the Choice and SCORM Modules in Moodle, Developer of the Plagiarism API in 2.0. I have worked extensively on a range of other areas in Moodle including various 3rd party plugins.

I now work as the “Christchurch office” of Catalyst (a Moodle Partner) from a home office which allows my time to flex around the needs of a large family!

When did you first start programming?

I started with quickbasic as a 14yr old hacking on various programs including one that replicated the school login screen (dos based) (which I didn’t use for malicious purposes – honest!)

My first paid gig was a bit later developing an ASP based website connected to some data from a filemaker db.

When did you first encounter Moodle?

My first introduction to Moodle was in a position at Lincoln University after being hired as the “educational developer” to look after their in-house LMS based around Microsoft FrontPage and a back-end Microsoft Access Database….. I quickly spent time looking for ‘something better’ and started playing with Moodle 1.3/1.4 – I then got on board with a Government funded project that collaborated with a range of higher ed institutions in NZ looking at the range of open source LMS that were available at the time and recommend one to be adopted by the institutions involved in the project. (Moodle was selected)

My first bits of Moodle development were to add the “limit” function to the choice module (the Lincoln LMS had a lab booking app written in perl that needed to be replaced by functionality in Moodle) I then created the ntlm auth plugin (which has since been merged into the standard ldap auth plugin in core) to allow SSO.

What did you use Moodle for?

In my first job it was both Moodle admin and dev, but now it is 100% as developer.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

My first “plugin” was the NTLM Auth plugin – when I first started at Lincoln the in-house LMS used a separate username/password to access each course which was given to students at the start of the year and they would have 6 or 7 different passwords to access the different courses so they were always forgetting them, having difficulty accessing the courses, so before we moved to Moodle I implemented NTLM Auth across all course sites allowing them to use their “main” user login to access their courses – at this time we also implemented a process to pull user enrolments out of the SMS (PeopleSoft) and store them as groups in Active Directory so we could set group level permissions on the server. When we moved to Moodle we wanted to keep the SSO that NTLM provided for on-campus users.

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

My latest plugin is a generic courseformat called “singlemod” based on the SCORM course format that allows other modules to be loaded as soon as someone enters a course.

The SCORM course format allows a single SCORM to be loaded as the only item in the Moodle course – I saw a request from a user asking for another module to be loaded in a similar way so I wondered how quick it would be to develop a course format that would support something similar.

I’d be interested in replacing the SCORM course format in Moodle with this new code – it needs a little bit of work before this can be done and the only module that currently supports it is the SCORM mod.

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

Find a recently developed core plugin to base your code on – DON’T look at SCORM!!!.

Final Thoughts

Google, Google, Google.

The community forums are a massive knowledge base – use Google to search through moodle.org for keywords of a problem you have – then if you still can’t find anything, don’t be afraid to ask questions in the forums – try to find the most appropriate forum first – don’t cross-post the same question in multiple forums – then wait patiently for a response!

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that Dan has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the Moodle plugins database. To view all these in the Moodle.org Plugin database check this page

Turnitin plagiarism plugin	Turnitin is a commercial plagiarism detection system which requires a paid subscription to use – This Plugin integrates with the existing Moodle Assignment module.
URKUND plagiarism plugin	URKUND is a commercial Plagiarism Prevention product owned by PrioInfo AB – you must have a paid subscription to be able to use this plugin.
My courses	An alternative to the Course Overview block used on “My” Homepage.
Course Contents	Course contents block produces a table of contents for the course – that is a list of all visible sections (topics or weeks) in the course. Clicking at one of these links will display that particular section. Read the review

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile – Michael de Raadt

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:40:52 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community. Today it is Michael de Raadt.

Name:	Michael de Raadt
Twitter:	@salvetore
Blog:	http://salvetore.wordpress.com
Source Code:	-

Tell us something about yourself

I’m a regular guy. I have a wife and two kids and live in Perth. My background is in the academic sphere where I taught software development for many years and conducted research around novice programmers. I have been working for Moodle HQ for almost a year now.

When did you first start programming?

Ah, the good old days. I remember writing programs in BASIC as a young fellow. In those days you couldn’t just download games. Through high school I enjoyed programming in competitions and went on to teach programming and run such competitions. I enjoy writing Moodle plugins as it is a great way to share my code and teaching ideas.

When did you first encounter Moodle?

My department ran a trial and I ended up chairing the trial.

What did you use Moodle for?

I grew from a teacher to a developer over time as I saw the potential to create plugins to improve student learning.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

I wrote a clock block as a learning exercise, but the first plugin I shared was the Progress Bar block.

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

I wrote the Peer Review assignment type as a better way to conduct peer assessment. I still need to update that one.

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

First see if there is not something similar to your idea already available. As far as development goes, it’s getting easier. Decide what type of plugin would suit you best and look for an example to work from.

There are lots of good examples out there. Don’t be afraid to ask questions on the forums; there is plenty of experience out there.

Documentation is improving, as is the consistency of the codebase.

Final Thoughts

Please share your work on the Plugins repository. In the end, your efforts will be appreciated and will help teachers and students around the world.

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that Michael has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the Moodle plugins database. To view all these in the Moodle.org Plugin database check this page

Progress Bar	A time management tool for you and your students. Read the Review
Simple Clock	A simple JavaScript clock that highlights the time difference between a student and the Moodle server. Read the Review.
Unanswered Questions	Allows users to see forum discussions that have gone unanswered, Read the review

Integration, exposed: Integration round 2012-02-02 Summary - delicious weekly wrap

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:08:06 +0000

by Aparup Banerjee.

Cold numbers:

25 issues have been successfully integrated and 5 have been rejected / delayed. That is 83% success, thats great considering scorching summers/freezing winters atm!

Notes:

This week has been a normal and paced integration week, just calm enough for me to do my first round up here today. There are still Documentation Sprint issues in the integration queue which are being integrated slowly but surely. Integration is taking a turn for the better as we try out some automated quality checks to keep regressions low and quality high. Soon an interesting file will attached to MDL issues containing some feedback from these evolving checks but rest assured humans will always be involved.

Hot topics:

MDL-29615 - A new setting, 'messagingallowemailoverride', has been added to turn off the additonal email address in case its not needed.
MDL-30484 - Question engine changes and fixes when regrading essays.
MDL-31000 - Filepicker now lists the various repository instances in the sort order as specifed in repository management.
General fixes/improvements were made in the quiz, forum, choice, feedback and scorm modules, the file & url resources, some themes and the navigation block too.

Warm thanks (with cozy fires):

To all moodlers in the cold northern hemisphere.
and of course to the rest of us in the south hemisphere soaking up the sun.

cheers,

Aparup

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile – Jenny Gray

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:03:31 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community. Today it is Jenny Gray.

Name:	Jenny Gray
Twitter:	@jennymgray
Blog:	http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?user=60
Source Code:	https://github.com/jennymgray/

Tell us something about yourself

I am a leading technical developer for the Open University, UK. I’ve been working mostly on OpenLearn http://openlearn.open.ac.uk over the past 5 years, and recently transferred some of our plug-ins to Moodle 2 and built a separate web annotation system.

When did you first start programming?

I started programming in 1990 in Fortran. I worked for the Bank of England and was responsible for maintaining and extending their macro model of the UK economy under the guidance of a team of economists. I had no programming training at that time and was totally self-taught. The Bank kindly paid for me to get an undergrad degree (from the OU!!) in computing. Over time I moved into their web team and was responsible for creating their first Intranet site.

When did you first encounter Moodle?

In 2005 when I was told to use it as a platform to set up our Open CourseWare initiative, OpenLearn.

What did you use Moodle for?

I’m admin for OpenLearn (and a couple of other smaller special projects sites which are less public), and developer for all those platforms and occasionally for our student-facing servers.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

Too long ago to remember! Probably the “download this unit” block, which just prints links to everything in a folder called “downloads” where we put the alternative format versions of OpenLearn units.

I get asked for this block a lot, because people think it’s doing the conversion as well. Sadly it isn’t!

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

My latest plugin is A recommender block.

Admins customise which recommendation services they want displayed (so our OpenLearn and Student platforms can have different ones through the same block), and the block queries the database and offers links to things that might be useful.

For example there’s an “other open educational resources like this” service, a “people on this course looked at this activity recently” service… Services can be added without rewriting the entire block.

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

Start simple, read the documentation, use the forums for help, think about adapting something that already exists.

The important thing is to know what your users want – who is the plugin for, how can you make things easy for them. If you get this right, probably with paper prototypes first, you’re more likely to be successful.

Final Thoughts

I’m a pragmatic programmer with a strong customer focus. It doesn’t matter to me if the standard is perfect – if it is difficult to implement and/or not useful to your audience then there’s no point in adhering to it.

I also think it is better to release early and get feedback so you can iterate towards the best solution, adding bells & whistles as you go.

So I guess I’m advocating an agile/rapid application development style of programming.

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that Jenny has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the new Moodle plugins database. To view all these in the Moodle.org Plugin database check this page

Rate a course	This block provides an Amazon-style 5 star rating system for courses. Users each give a rating and the total is displayed in the block.
Recommender	This block offers four different recommendation services: popular activities on this course; popular courses on this site; open educational resources; shared bookmarks. Each can be enabled and configured separately.

Tim Hunt: 1 - 2 - 12, testing, testing

noreply@blogger.com (Tim Hunt) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:49:42 +0000

Apologies for the title, but it was irresistible today, and provides a good opportunity to talk about one of the fields in the Moodle issue tracker. If you go and look at any issue there, for example MDL-30854, you can see it along side all the more common fields that most bug tracking systems have to describe issues. It is a good field, so I hope it will also become common in other bug-tracking systems. Allow me to explain why.

I don't think it is a good field all the time. When I just want to do a simple quick bug-fix, it is irritating to have another field to fill in before submitting the patch for integration. You have to think things like

How can someone else verify that my patch fixes what was wrong?
What else might this change have broken? How can someone quickly check that there are no obvious regressions?

and that is the whole point! Anything that makes you stop and thing about the important questions is good. Having to write it down in a few words, while taking a bit of time, forces you to think clearly. After all "We learn particularly well from the act of creating or expressing something for others to see."

The testing instructions can also help us think about other important questions. You have to describe how to test things through the Moodle interface, so

How does this feature look in the user-interface?
How do users interact with it?

These are important questions it is easy to forget when worrying about the technicalities of the code.

Writing the testing instructions is also a salutary reminder that you might want to actually test the code yourself before submitting it for review. I encountered that phenomenon today, writing the testing instructions for MDL-31445. I was thinking about what might go wrong, and realised that the HTML might be invalid as a result of the change. So I went and validated, and found not only that there was a problem with the first version of the patch, which I fixed, but I also found and fixed MDL-31469.

So: The Testing instructions field. Easily worth the hassle of filling it in. Consider adding it to you own bug-tracking systems - assuming you have a process where someone independent tests every bug fix. If you don't have that ...

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile: Juan Leyva

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:35:20 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community. Today it is Juan Leyva.

Name:	Juan Leyva
Twitter:	@jleyvadelgado
Blog:	http://openlearningtech.blogspot.com/
Source Code:	https://github.com/jleyva

Tell us something about yourself

I have a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. I have always worked in projects related with technology and education.

My first job was in a small elearning company. After that I worked for portal educaMadrid, Consejería de Educación de Madrid (that is like the local Madrid ministry of education).

Currently I work for the Moodle spanish partner CV&A Consulting.

When did you first start programming?

I started programming at the age of 17, the language was MSDOS BASIC. It was just for fun, my first program asked for the user name and age.

When did you first encounter Moodle?

My first contact with Moodle was a long time ago, Moodle 1.1 in 2003 when I worked in the small elearning company.

What did you use Moodle for?

I mainly use Moodle as a developer creating plugins and customisations.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

My first plugin was Configurable Reports. I wrote it because there was no reports builders options in Moodle, and at the time there was no plugins available either.

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

My most recent plugin is the Forum discussion subscription. I wrote it because is one of the most popular voted “new features” in the Moodle tracker and it will only available in Moodle when the Forum rewrite happens.

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

Be very patient, test a lot your code and reuse ideas and code from Moodle.org

Follow the code guidelines and before programming, check others code.

And, this is very important, you have to maintain your code and help your “customer” that are the user’s plugins.

Don’t forget to use github!!

Final Thoughts

It’s good fun programming for Moodle 2

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that Juan has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the Moodle plugins database. To view all these in the Moodle.org Plugin database check this page

Collaborative real-time editor	This is a is a new type of assignment. It’s a collaborative real-time editor that works like Google Docs Two or more users can work at the same time in the same document
ConfigTabs	ConfigTabs is a local plugin that converts any configuration form in Moodle from a scrolled page to a tab view page.
Configurable Reports	This block is a Moodle custom reports builder. You can create custom reports without SQL knowledge. It’s a tool suitable for admins or teachers. Read the review
LTI Provider	This is a local plugin for making Moodle a LTI provider tool. It can be use to provide access to full courses or activities from remote systems (other Moodle installations, Sakai, any LMS LTI consumer compliant). Read the review.
UB Hot Spots	This is a new question type for Moodle. This new type of question allows the teacher to create multiple areas or spots within an image for self-evaluation.
umm: Unofficial Moodle Mobile app	This is an unofficial clone of the Moodle Mobile app for iPhone that works on Android and Blackberry devices. It should work also on iPhone and iPad.

Gavin Henrick: Ireland & UK Moodlemoot Updates!

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:34:58 +0000

With only two months to go until the Moot, there have been a few updates so here they are in short:

Register by Feb 14th for a chance to win a Moodle 2 book from Packt

Six lucky people will be collecting a Moodle 2 book of their choice from Packt Publishing when they attend the Ireland & UK Moodlemoot in Dublin this April.

All attendees who register for the Moodlemoot before Feb 14th, will have their name entered into the draw for a chance to win any book from of the Packt library of Moodle 2 books.

For more info check http://moodlemoot.ie/register-by-feb-14th-for-a-chance-to-win-a-moodle-2-book-from-packt/

WIRIS Suit for Moodle up for grabs!

Attending a Moot can sometimes add up to more than the sum of its parts. One lucky institution will be leaving the Ireland & UK Moodlemoot in Dublin with a one year license for the WIRIS suite for up to 500 users*.

For more info check http://moodlemoot.ie/wiris-mathematics-suite-for-moodle-up-for-grabs/

Proposals

There is still time to submit your presentation proposal to the Moodlemoot for consideration. To submit a proposal, either fill in the online form or email your submission to info@moodlemoot.ie

For more information on the formats please check http://moodlemoot.ie/presentation-formats/

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile: Davo Smith

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:31:46 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community, and today it is Davo Smith.

Name:	Davo Smith
Twitter:	@davosmith
Blog:	-none-
Source Code:	https://github.com/davosmith

Tell us something about yourself

I’m a Moodle developer working for Moodle Partner Synergy Learning. Before that I spent 8 years as an IT teacher and before that, I worked on a Superman game for the PS2/Gamecube.

When not sitting in front of a computer, I’m often found, with my wife and children, at our local church or in meetings to organise a couple of the small, local festivals here in Sheffield.

When did you first start programming?

I started programming in BASIC on the ZX Spectrum when I was about 8 years old. I cannot remember what my first program was, but since then I’ve written code in a wide variety of languages (from assembly, to C++, PHP, Javascript and Python) for a wide range of platforms (PCs, websites, games consoles and others).

When did you first encouter Moodle?

The college where I worked for 5 years used Moodle to power their VLE. After learning how to use all the features included as standard, I started work on adding a few of my own.

What did you use Moodle for?

Until recently, I used it mainly as a teacher, with Moodle development being done in my spare time. Having taken a job at Synergy Learning, I am no longer using Moodle to teach – the development work has taken over full-time.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

My first plugin was the ‘Realtime Quiz activity’. I wrote it as I liked the idea of using the hand-held voting buttons for class quizzes, but thought it would be silly to spend time getting out all the equipment when I already had a classroom full of computers.

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

My latest plugin was the Drag and drop upload block. I wrote it because I’d seen how you could drag and drop attachments onto an email in Gmail and wanted to see if it was possible to do the same in a Moodle course.

On the back of this, we’ve now got the latest development version of Moodle allowing you to drag & drop files into forms.

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

Be prepared to read the code – the docs are getting better and there are lots of helpful people out there to help in the forums, but there is really no substitute for simply looking at how the core plugins are written, figuring out what is going on and copying them.

Final Thoughts

I’ve enjoyed being part of the Moodle community over the last 5 years and I’m looking forward to still being involved for many years to come.

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that Davo has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the Moodle plugins database. For the uptodate list check this page

Checklist:	A checklist can be created by a teacher (or generated from the activities in a course) and then the students or teachers can check-off each item as they are completed. This includes an activity, a block and a grade export working together. Read the review
Drag and drop file upload:	This Moodle 1.9 / 2.x block allows you to drag files directly from your desktop onto a Moodle course. It works with recent versions of Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, but not with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Read the review:
Lesson Objectives:	This block displays current lesson objectives in the side bar (to both teacher and students) and allows a teacher to check them off as they are completed. Read the review
Navigation Buttons:	This block adds customisable navigation buttons (next/prev/etc.) to the bottom of each activity page
Realtime Quiz:	This is an MCQ designed for use in face to face lessons.
UploadPDF:	This enables a teacher to annotate student’s work within your browser and return it as a PDF. There is also a grade report which works with this.

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profile: Mark Johnson

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:28:08 +0000

This is part of a blog series of short profiles on plugin developers within the Moodle community. Today it is Mark Johnson.

Name:	Mark Johnson
Twitter:	@marxjohnson
Blog:	http://barrenfrozenwasteland.com
Source Code:	http://github.com/marxjohnson

Tell us something about yourself

I studied a BSc in Internet Technology and Web Design at Southampton Solent University. From there I landed a job at Taunton’s College, a 6th Form College in Southampton, where I still work as an in-house web developer mainly working with Moodle.

When did you first start programming?

I wrote my first program in PHP when I was about 14/15. I had a book called “PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites” and just worked through the examples in that (I’d been interested in building websites for a while).

My first proper web application was a bespoke CMS for a now-defunct local music e-zine run by myself and a friend of mine. It was pretty cool but we both moved away to university and it died.

When did you first encouter Moodle?

I read about it in Linux Format magazine in my first year at University, and thought “That sounds a lot better than what we’ve got at the moment” (a system called LearnWise). The next year, the University switched to Moodle.

What did you use Moodle for?

Originally I used it as a student, now I’m admin/developer, but I also use it to deliver training materials.

What was your first Moodle plugin? Why did you write it?

My first Moodle plugin was the Accessibility block. I wrote it when I started my current job as I’ve always been interested in web accessibility and I needed a project to cut my teeth on. It posed a few tough challenges (and still does), but has taught me a lot and resulted in me collaborating with a developer at the University of Southampton.

What is your latest Moodle plugin & why did you write it?

I’ve got a few on the go at the moment, but my most recent one is called Dashboard. It’s a block that’s designed to sit in the middle region of the page, and will display big icons that link quickly to pages relevant to the user. I’ve pushed the current code to github, but it’s all hard-coded at the moment so isn’t ready for release yet.

I wrote the dashboard block because we’ve been working to deliver as much digital information to students, staff and parents to save on printing costs and the hassle of distribution. There’s been a lot of useful stuff on our Moodle for a while (grade overviews, attendance data, exam timetables) but it’s not been visible enough to the users. The Dashboard is designed to wave it in their faces.

What would you say to someone who is considering writing a Moodle plugin?

Come along to my Moodle Plugins workshop at Dev8D on the 14th-16th of February at ULU in London. It’s a fantastic event and it’s free, they even feed you during the day!

Final Thoughts

The Moodle community is great, the perfect combination of users and developers helping each other out. I’ve always been passionate about Open Source and Free Software and Moodle’s community does it right.

Some Plugins

This is a list of the plugins that Mark has contributed to that are currently (Jan 2012) in the Moodle plugins database. To view all these in the Moodle.org Plugin database check this page

Accessibility	Provides options for changing text size and colour scheme. Settings can be saved to persist between sessions.
Appointments	This block provides a form for teachers to book 1 to 1 appointments with Students on a class.
Configurator	Allows aribitrary editing of config values for core and plugins.
Message My Teacher	This block allows configuration of roles to be considered “Teachers” of a course. The block will then display a list of these teachers for the current course in the block, with a link to message each one
On-site/Off-site	A modified version of the HTML block that allows the block to change or hide depending on whether the user is accessing the page though a local network, or the public Internet.
PaperCut Print Quotas	Displays the Papercut Web Widgets in a Moodle block, allowing the user to see their current balance and environmental impact.
Quick Course List	This block allows quick searching of Moodle courses, and displays a link to the course page.
Quickfind List	This block allows quick searching of users from a block, and displays a configurable link for each search result
Upload Metacourse links	This block allows linking of metacourses and child courses by upload of CSV flatfiles. Imports can be done by ad-hoc upload, or by a regular cron job.
Upload Tutor Relationships	This block allows assignment of user roles in another user’s context by upload of CSV flatfiles. Imports can be done by ad-hoc upload, or by a regular cron job.

Gavin Henrick: Developer Profiles

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:05:53 +0000

I have reviewed nearly 40 Moodle 2 plugins so far on the blog with some others underway, and sometimes the same names of authors happen to come up on the plugins I have reviewed. So I thought it would be a good idea to find out about the people behind the code. So I asked a number of developers who have released plugins or themes to answer a short interview questionnaire so we could get an insight into who they are.

This is not meant to be a complete list of developers, just a selection based on ones I know most. I am sure I have left out loads of developers (including all of Moodle HQ devs, which I thought may be good to ask them collectively sometime) – so apologies to anyone who feels they should have been included and were left out! Also still waiting for a few to respond, which they may or may not.

These are the questions I put to them:

Tell us something about yourself
When did you first start programming?
When did you first encounter Moodle?
What do you use Moodle for?
What was your first Moodle plugin and why did you write it?
What is your latest Moodle plugin and why did you write it?
What would you say to someone who is considering writing a plugin?
Any Final thoughts?

Thanks to all who answered (and who answer in coming week), their interviews will appear over the coming two weeks with the first later today in no particular order.

Profiled so far: Mark Johson – Davo Smith – Juan Leyva – Jenny Gray – Michael de Raadt – Dan Marsden

Jenny Gray: OU Annotate and paradata: to share or not to share

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:46:59 +0000

by Jenny Gray.

Following on from my investigations into the learning registry, Phil Barker sparked a thought in my mind about what place annotations have as paradata, and particularly whether there is useful usage information in the OUAnnotate database that could be shared.

The first stumbling block is ... what web addresses should I report on, or in other words what exactly is a learning object. Anything can be annotated, so does its use in connection with a learning and teaching tool make the item a learning object? News sites, wikipedia, blog posts, youtube, ... Would users of the registry expect to see data on such pages, and would they want to do anything with it?

Secondly, just because the data is gathered by a system run by the OU, does that give us the right to report on annotations on pages not run by us? Sites like Jorum will offer clickthrough paradata to openlearn into the uk experimental node and that's sort of the same. But we know about each other, and we already have an agreement for Jorum to list OpenLearn content, but no-one has agreed that we can annotate their content and most sites will be unaware of the registry.

Thirdly, we expect most use of OU Annotate will be on our own learning & teaching systems and module websites. These are only visible to students enrolled on those modules. So we'd be reporting usage data on pages that no-one else can see. Isn't that rather pointless?

Maybe it would make sense to report on annotations about OpenLearn and other public OU sites, but going further than that makes me nervous.

So, having decided to share something, how much could we share? Fred Bloggs marked this text with a yellow highlight, the tag 'rubbish' and the comment 'patently incorrect' or John Doe said that this paragraph clearly explained to him the concept of z would be useful data about a resource, as would Anna Todd bookmarked page t. But if they don't tag or comment, and only highlight, is that any use to anyone but them?

And revealing their names might be a breach of our users' privacy since we've not told them we'll share with a world-wide audience.

At the opposite end of the spectrum x people annotated y is probably meaningless.

We could anonymise perhaps "user 312 said...", or "user 50 tagged with", "user 567 bookmarked". And maybe don't submit the highlight only annotations?

Jenny Gray: LearningSpace and the Learning Registry part 2

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:38:49 +0000

by Jenny Gray.

Yesterday I spent the day in Manchester hearing about the UK's experimental node of the Learning Registry and talking to people who either want to publish data into it or write services based on the data in it.

A range of different options were available to me to get LearningSpace data in. The simplest way seems to be to run a python script which will wrap my existing OAI service (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/local/oai/oai2.php?verb=Identify) in the JSON notation required to submit to the registry. The biggest drawback here is that the OU doesn't have a centrally serviced python system (it would have to be a box under my desk) so that's not really the sort of thing I can advocate as a sustainable solution!

Or I could write a PHP version of the python wrapper. But if I'm going to write PHP, it seemed to me to be better (more reliable, quicker) to get the data directly an put it in the JSON notation rather than get it through a third script. This also allows me to extend our submission with paradata.

Yes, I now know (thanks to yesterday and very nice people commenting on my previous post) what paradata is! Its usage data about units. At first I thought "why would I want to do that" and we had some discussions about statistics all being lies anyway. After all, what does a page view really tell you about some-one's experience with OpenLearn. And page views counted by Moodle are different to those counted by Google Analytics too, so which would you list? The ratings and reviews are much more informative as are the downloads. So hopefully that's what we'll do, including page views from Moodle, just because we can and people like big numbers.

On the subject of big numbers, Pat and I discussed whether you should do an "everything up to now" first submission and then regular (monthly say) updates, which I could do using the date part of the activity stream. The first one would be the first released date of the unit to today, and then you'd do 1-31 January type submissions. Nice idea, but because of the volume of activity on LearningSpace I don't have easy access to log data back beyond about a year. So I think we'll just start with the most recent full calendar month (or release date to end month for any units released recently).

One rather scary thing is that there is no delete in the Learning Registry, so if I publish a test entry it will be there for all to see. That means the only time I can really test a full run of all LearningSpace materials will be on our live site as I don't want any development or test platform URLs getting "out there". This doesn't fit with our normal development practice of only letting fully tested code onto the live system. Fingers crossed then!

So where next? Well I've written up all my notes and handed them over to our LearningSpace maintenance team. Hopefully they'll complete the prototype and launch it over the next month or two. Its back to the day job of launching OU Annotate and working out how to get LearningSpace off Moodle 1.9 for me.

Look out for another post on the subject of OU Annotate and the Learning Registry soon when I've had a chance to mull over another interesting conversation with Phil Barker from yesterday.

Dan Marsden: Meta-course enrolments and failed Moodle 2 upgrades oh my!

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:33:42 +0000

We just upgraded one of our clients sites that makes extensive use of the meta-course enrolment feature combined with ‘nosyncroleids’ from 1.9 to 2.2 – they use meta-courses to enrol their students but use manual enrolments for their teachers so the teacher role was set in ‘nosyncroleids’ – during the upgrade these manual enrolments for teachers seem to have been corrupted – after upgrade the users show as “enrolled” using meta-enrolment but don’t have any roles in their courses. This seems strange as in the 1.9 site they were “manual” enrolments.

It looks like Petr Skoda may have fixed this as part of MDL-29684 but this is only fixed in master, not the stable branches. (and I haven’t tested it)

And unfortunately as the sync process has already screwed up the enrolments on the courses, simply applying the patch to the clients 2.2 site wouldn’t work – the only way it seems it might work would be to revert back to the 1.9 site and re-run the upgrade with the patch in place – or manually go through each course and fix the enrolments. Unfortunately we didn’t notice this early enough and the site was already being used so the client is now going through each course and manually fixing the enrolments for their teachers (time-consuming and frustrating!)

IMO this sort of issue should be back-ported but hopefully this post might help prevent others from experiencing the same pain!

Gavin Henrick: Review: OUWiki for Moodle 2

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:49:10 +0000

Today’s plugin for review is the OU wiki and I was using Moodle 2.2 for this review.

Background

This wiki module has been around since late 2007. It is created by The Open University in the UK, and is maintained by their internal team including Sam Marshall. As the OU switched to Moodle for September 2011, the module was ported to Moodle 2 and had a beta-release that month. There has been quite a few fixes and changes since then but currently those code changes are only available on the github site.

What does it do?

This is a Moodle activity plugin which is an alternative wiki option within Moodle. It has been designed specifically with teaching and learning in mind and not as a best-possible-wiki option such as MediaWiki (which you could use with Moodle over IMS LTI). The key to this wiki is simplicity and it has only one of the special wiki-syntax options available the syntax for linking (which is [[nameofpage]]).

Is it simple to install?

There is a zip available in the official Moodle plugins database, however for the purpose of the review I downloaded the most recent codebase from Github.It is a normal Moodle module, so once I downloaded it I created a folder called ouwiki in my moodle 2 site under /mod. I then uploaded the contents of the zip to this folder.

Logging into the Moodle 2 site as admin, I was prompted to upgrade to install the plugin, which went fine with no reported errors. There are no global settings for the OU wiki, so once installed it was ready to try out.

Is there documentation for it?

This is quite a simple wiki. The plugins page gives a simple overview on the plugin. There is a There is also a Moodle Docs page which provides more details on the plugin including a list of features and the development status.

There are some forums threads about the module, including a link to a manual put together by Steve Wright from Lancaster University Centre for Studies in Advanced Learning Technology (http://www.csalt.lancs.ac.uk/csalt/support/OU-wiki-guide_demo.pdf).

The README.txt in the zip provides an overview on the functionality too with installation instructions.

Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?

When you go into editing a course, it is just another option on the Add Activity drop down. The wiki settings for the OU wiki are more detailed than for the normal Moodle wiki.

The normal Moodle wiki has settings for the initial page name, the mode (a collaborative wiki or an individual wiki) and the format (HTML, Creole, Nwiki).

Default Moodle Wiki Settings

However, the OU Wiki has a lot more options.

OU wiki settings

Firstly, you can set a collaborative wiki for the course, or a group or just have the individual work on their own wiki.

Secondly, a user can be given rights to add inline annotations to the wiki.

A nice feature is the edit timeout. When two people want to edit the same page in a wiki, it is locked to one of them. This allows setting a timeout that will release auto-submit the person who is editing saving their changes and unlocking it.

It is possible to restrict editing to just between certain dates ( this is a nice detail which goes beyond the access restrictions allowing them to read the content and discuss it, but won’t allow them edit until the time set).

But of the features there is one which I really like, and that is the ability to upload pre-defined templates. This means a teacher can have a set structure and some content already created to help see the wiki rather than have it just a complete white space. This is a very nice option.

It also shows word counts, so when this is part of the requirement of submissions it can be set and when not, it can be left off.

The killer feature of this OU wiki however is the Grade options. The Moodle wiki has no grading options, and this does. Lovely!

OU Wiki Grade options

So once it is all set up, and the first page created what now?

Well, as you can import the structure from a template, once you build a wiki structure you can also export it for use as a template.

When viewing a page in the OU Wiki, with the right permissions you get access to the following look.

OU Wiki Page

This includes a link to edit or annotate the page. When you annotate it this shows up in the page as the small bubble with lines in it. This can then be expanded by clicking on it as below.

OU Wiki Annotation Expanded

This is nice and can be nicer than adding comments into the actual content.

I also like the fact there is an RSS feed available for the Wiki pages.

There are also some interesting reports that you can run:

Participation by User

This report has two purposes; firstly to provide a good overview on the contributions of users and secondly to grade those contributions. This can also be downloaded as a csv.

ouwiki participation report

You can also get a nice report of the OU Wiki page changes.

OU Wiki Changes Report

Is it easy for the learner/student to use?

For a student, yes, so very easy to use. No need to learn a complicated wiki language, students just use the built-in HTML editor. The students can add View, Edit or see the history and also their participation of the wiki.

The view page also has nice links to add section or page as below:

OU Wiki Student View

So it has done a good job of de-complicating wikis.

Does it do what it promises?

The OU wiki sets itself up as a simple wiki with clear goals, and it delivers on them all. It is easy to use for teacher and student whilst also having the option of annotation and grading which are very good for teaching practice and feedback.

It does not have all the options of the Moodle wiki and so there will be times you will use the standard Moodle wiki and other times you will use the OU wiki. I would love to see one wiki with the best of both worlds! Really nice job.

As mentioned this was said to be a beta release, so I am looking forward to when there is a production release of this module available and some perhaps up-to-date documentation once it is production ready.

Stars: 4 out of 5 stars for this plugin

**Standard Reminder**

These reviews check out the plugin for usability not for security. If you are considering installing any module on your site you should also check that is secure and does not impact the server performance.

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Michael de Raadt: Moodle – Now with more SERIOUS

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:48:28 +0000

I’ve been thinking of writing this post for a while now, and the list of things to include seems to have been increasing – so here goes.

New SERIOUS staff

Since I have arrived at Moodle HQ there has been a push to increase the number of developers. As Moodle popularity grows, so does the need for maintenance and new feature development. When I arrived in April there were nine employed developers, six more have been added and two more are arriving in coming months. My hope for the near future is to have two teams working on stable development and a third on new features development.

But Moodle is not just about development and in recognition of this, two new roles have been added to the HQ complement.

As a sign of the determination to get things right, we now have a Test Manager. Tim will oversee testing during development and release processes. He brings a great deal of experience as a tester and developer, and will improve testing processes so that the result is serious testing and a more solid Moodle codebase.

Tim the Test Manager

Barbara brings experience working as a graphic designer in universities, including work with Moodle. She also has teaching experience (in design), so she is highly qualified. But beyond that, she brings a level of style that Moodle has been lacking for some time. A quick look at moodle.org will demonstrate that developers are not very artistic. Undoubtedly the benefit of Barbara joining us will be Moodle – with more serious style.

Barbara the Designer

New SERIOUS release schedule

It took a long time for Moodle 2.0 to come to fruition. This was a significant step forward (one that many Moodle users are still taking). Afterwards it was decided that it is not necessary to wait for the a complete release roadmap to be fulfilled for each version. Instead, a timed release schedule is now used to create a greater sense of certainty. Part of my role is to “bulldog” developers, to ensure that major releases (such as 2.1 and 2.2) happen on time. We now have major releases every six months in June and December, and since 2.0 releases have happened on time.

Moodle also has minor releases (AKA point releases), such as 2.2.1, that occur between major releases. The main reason for minor releases is to send fixes to security issues out as soon as possible. This might sound like a bit of a ‘number’s game’, but for Moodle Partners and the Moodle community, keeping their Moodle sites up-to-date is a ‘big deal’, and we want to do what we can to help them.

Up to now, minor releases have been completed irregularly when a number of security fixes have come about. But now, we’re getting even more serious. In order to assist in planning upgrades now and into the future, minor upgrades are scheduled to take place every two months, offset by one month to major releases (January, March, May, July, September and November).

For more details, see the General release calendar.

New SERIOUS documentation

Moodle documentation has, in the past, been fragmented and inconsistent. For new developers, the task of discovering how to work in Moodle as a coding framework has been a daunting one. So to remedy this, HQ developers have put down their development tools to focus on documentation. Starting with core APIs, descriptions are being added and updated to create consistent codebase documentation. This is being linked to Dev Docs wiki pages, again in a consistent manner, to provide developers outside Moodle HQ with the information they need. A planned future addition is consistent ‘getting started’ documentation for each plugin type (currently there are 32 to choose from).

Staying SERIOUS

One of the main focus areas leading up to the release of Moodle 2.3 will be accessibility. With the help of staff from North Carolina State University in the United States, including Greg Kraus and Glenn Ansley, a solid list of accessibility issues has been compiled. Together we will work through these issues to create a release of Moodle that will be accessible to more people. If you would like to be involved in this effort, please help where you can.

As well as this, you can anticipate improvements in usability, specifically file handling, coming soon. (I bet you’re holding your breath.)

Integration, exposed: Integration round 2012-01-19 Summary - Poe was born (1809)

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:05:47 +0000

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7).

Cold numbers:

46 issues have been successfully integrated and 7 have been rejected / delayed. That is 87% success, well done!

Notes:

This week has been a normal one with lots of tiny discussions here and there, some recurrent, others trying to learn/define different aspects of the Process and, also, some nice brainstorming sessions about various aspects planned for the future. At the same time, the planned "Documentation Sprint", continues its cycle aiming to land along the next 2 weeks.

Hot topics:

MDL-31213 - Fixed one recent regression causing passwords not being editable on manual user creation.
MDL-31072 - Noticeable (speed) improvements for big sites in the role assignment interface.
MDL-31142 - Changes to the text library after detecting some ugly slowdowns with iconv under some LAMP stacks.
MDL-30929 - New checks to detect and warn about php files that shouldn't be there (from older versions of Moodle).
The quiz module, some themes and libraries, groups, blogs and installation also received some remarkable improvements/fixes.

Warm thanks:

To Andrew Nicols, Ruslan Kabalin and, of course, Dan Poltawski from LUNS, for their continuous collaboration reporting, researching, fixing bugs and suggesting all sort of improvements and good ideas based on their deep experience with Moodle. Thanks!

Ciao all, stronk7

Gavin Henrick: Ireland & UK Moodlemoot Dublin April 2-4

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:25:54 +0000

Registrations opened today for the combined Ireland & UK Moodlemoot 2012. The Moot is being ran in partnership with Dublin City University one of the earliest Moodle adopters in Ireland.

The Moodlemoot will be held in Dublin on April 2nd-4th, at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Northwood which is near Dublin airport.

The Moot schedule is as follows:

Monday April 2nd: Pre-Conference Workshops
Tuesday April 3rd: Conference Day 1 & Gala Dinner
Wednesday April 4th: Conference Day 2

For a current list of the workshops please check out the Moot site http://moodlemoot.ie/workshops

Tickets are available for either the two man days of 3rd and 4th, or the full three days including the workshops on the 2nd.

2 day Conference Ticket & Pre-Conference Workshop (April 2nd, April 3rd & April 4th): € 295.00
2 day Conference Ticket (April 3rd & April 4th): € 195.00
Conference Dinner (April 3rd): € 50.00

(All prices are quoted exclusive of VAT @ 23% and credit card charges.)

The fee includes full conference attendance, proceedings and lunch for the days covered by the ticket. The Conference Dinner is an optional extra.

Accommodation is booked and paid for separately – there are a range of options available see the Accommodation page for details. The two hotels mentioned are right at the venue, so plenty of opportunity for networking afterwards in the Bar

- Click here to register -

There are also a few Official Blogger Passes up for grabs – check out the page here -> http://moodlemoot.ie/blogger-passes/

Sam Marshall: For my first blog post of ...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:47:39 +0000

For my first blog post of the year, I thought I'd just give a brief rundown on the current issues (features and fixes) that I've coded and are waiting in the review process for core Moodle. I'm afraid this isn't a barrel of laughs, but at least it's informational.

Admittedly this is partly because I want to encourage HQ developers to review things, but also partly because I thought other people from the Moodle community might be interested in some of these changes! Feel free to vote on issues if you like them. :)

All these issues are ones seen as vitally important by our staff for various reasons.

Features (for 2.3):

MDL-29624 Media embedding should be consistent and customisable
At the moment, there are three totally separate mechanisms for embedding audio/video/Flash: the media filter, the File module, and the 'preview' window used when uploading video files. The latter two cannot be customised by any plugin.
This change standardises it so that all three places use the same system, and also makes it so that the embedding can be customised by writing code inside a custom theme. For example, if you want to change the Flash player used to embed video, or to support different formats, this would become possible without having to change core Moodle.
MDL-31121 File resource: option to display size, type
A couple of tickboxes on the File resource form; if you turn them on, then on the course page where it shows the link to the file, it also shows e.g. '24.1MB PDF document' in small text.

Bugfixes (for 2.1+):

MDL-31122 Navigation block: hide weeks that just contain Label
The navigation block already does not include course weeks that have no activities, because that would be stupid (you can't navigate to them). But, currently it does contain weeks that have a Label and nothing else. This change fixes that.
MDL-31015 File/URL resource: 'Open' option doesn't work reliably
If you choose 'Open' display type on a File or URL resource (meaning, open the file or go to the link immediately), this only works when the link is clicked from the main page. If you click it from navigation, ctrl-click to open in new tab, or open in any other way, you get an intermediate page with the link on, which you then have to click again to get the file/URL.
Users really hate this because it's like 'I clicked a link to go to the URL - now it's telling me to click a link to go to the URL! that's what I just did!'
This change simplifies the code (removing a chunk of JavaScript) and makes it so the 'Open' display type always works, wherever you come from.

Exciting, no? Okay, no. Still, now you know.

Finally, just as a reminder - if anyone uses any of the OU's custom modules for Moodle 2, please do make sure to keep up with the relevant GitHub repositories in case there are bugfixes that are important to you. (If you do upgrade as a result, don't forget to check the new version on a test server first.) And incidentally, developers working for the company NetSpot recently submitted a few bugfixes to those modules too, so thanks for that. You can see their contributions in the git history.

Integration, exposed: Integration round 2012-01-12 Summary - already 2012!

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:14:47 +0000

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7).

Cold numbers:

26 issues have been successfully integrated and 10 have been rejected / delayed. That is 72% success, new year holidays hangover, I hope!

Notes:

We missed completely reporting here the last two integration cycles (Dec 23th and Jan 5th), both aiming to (1) fix bugs for the new Moodle 2.2 version released recently and (2) prepare the new point releases for old versions (1.9.16, 2.0.7 and 2.1.4) released 3 days ago. As usual, updating to the last point release available is highly recommended.

Along January, all the people @ Moodle HQ is working hard adding more and better development documentation, both in the form of inline PHP Docs and online Moodle Docs.

At the same time, a lot of discussions are happening, researching and aiming to have the roadmap for the next Moodle 2.3 version (June 2012) completely delimited and defined.

Now, back to this week integration...

Hot topics:

MDL-22504 - Drag and drop functionality added to the File Manager (master).
MDL-29684 - Big improvements in the meta course enrol plugin (master)
MDL-26469 - One annoying and old issue about changes in module->cron (version.php), not being modified on upgrade.
CLI scripts, auth, questions, navigation.. also received some interesting fixes (stable versions) and improvements (dev version, future 2.3).

Warm thanks:

To all the people @ Moodle HQ whose name contains the letter 'A' that makes working on Moodle one funny and creative experience. Discussions, disagreements, grrr-ings and daily collaboration make my life, totally. I love you!
To Bree Vreedenburgh, also from Moodle HQ. Because of all the reasons above and, more important, because her name does not contain the letter 'A', thanks!

Ciao all, stronk7

Mike Churchward: Converting Moodle 1.9 Plug-ins to Moodle 2 - Activity Module Upgrade - Part 5

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Churchward) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:33:24 +0000

This is the fifth part in my Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2 activity module migration series.

Before I carry on too much farther, there are a couple of other fixes I need to do. One, there are two more occurrences of get_record that did not get caught with the original sweep in "lib.php". And two, there are multiple occurrences of the error function throughout. I need to change error() to print_error(). You can see these changes in the repo.

Next, I need to fix up the "index.php" script using the same navigation and display changes described in my last post. One extra bit I need to add to this script is the call:

$PAGE->set_pagelayout('incourse');

This sets the layout of the page to a default display reserved for module index displays.

Similar to before, I change:

$navigation = build_navigation($strstamps);
print_header_simple($strstamps, '', $navigation, '', '', true, '', navmenu($course));

to:

$PAGE->navbar->add($strstamps);
$PAGE->set_heading(format_string($course->fullname));
$PAGE->set_title(get_string('modulename', 'stampcoll').' '.get_string('activities'));
echo $OUTPUT->header();

In the index code, the old print_table($table) is used. This has been changed to the new html_writer::table($table) construct. Additionally, where before the $table variable could be any standard object, now it must be an instance of the html_table class. So, I add the line:

$table = new html_table();

to a place before it is used, and I change:

print_table($table);

to:

echo html_writer::table($table);

I make a few more of the standard output changes, and all seems to be well.

Something I missed earlier, is that I need to rename the "styles.php" file to "styles.css". This is an easy change, but there is still the possibility that the CSS is not rendering as it did in 1.9, since it may depend on styles that have changed. I'm not going to go to that level here, but keep in mind for your plug-in, that you may need to make changes to your stylesheet to have it display the way it did in Moodle 1.9.

Next up is a problem appearing on the "Edit stamps" page. I can see a broken image where I added a stamp, and the warning message:

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$pixpath in /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/editstamps.php on line 285Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$pixpath in /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/editstamps.php on line 289

Here, the problem is with the code $CFG->pixpath.'/t/preview.gif' and $CFG->pixpath.'/t/delete.gif. In Moodle 2, the $CFG->pixpath and $CFG->modpixpath were removed, and replaced with an $OUTPUT->pix_url() function. In this case, I replace:

$CFG->pixpath.'/t/preview.gif'
$CFG->pixpath.'/t/delete.gif

with:

$OUTPUT->pix_url('t/preview')
$OUTPUT->pix_url('t/delete')

Note that both the opening '/' and the extension of the image have been removed in the new code to conform with the function's requirements.

Next, I test the delete function using the newly visible delete icon. After the confirmation page, I see a warning display before the page redirects. The warning says:

You should really redirect before you start page output
line 566 of /lib/outputrenderers.php: call to debugging()
line 2503 of /lib/weblib.php: call to core_renderer->redirect_message()
line 128 of /mod/stampcoll/editstamps.php: call to redirect()

Here, the problem is with the code structure. Because the script has already started page output, by outputting the header, Moodle is telling me I should not redirect to another page. This should be fixed by restructuring the code so that redirects are called before any page output. I'm not going to do that for now, but keep in mind that for good code, this should be done.

One other issue I can see. In the 1.9 version, hovering my mouse over a stamp image, displayed information about that stamp, including any messages entered with it. This is not happening here. Something is wrong with the javascript. Looking deeper, I see that the problem here is that the code is using "Overlib", which was a Javascript library included in older Moodle versions. For Moodle 2, this was removed with the intention of using YUI libraries instead (see MDL-21533). Fixing this will require some research. I'll work on that in the next post.

Jenny Gray: LearningSpace and the Learning Registry

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:36:41 +0000

by Jenny Gray.

A while back some-one suggested that LearningSpace content ought to be listed in the Learning Registry. This happens a lot! In most cases, we just tell the repository owners where our OAI-PMH feeds and all courses RSS feeds are and leave them to it.

It appears that the Learning Registry will be a bit different, because it prefers a JSON input and that's not a service we currently offer from OpenLearn.

The Learning Registry community are very nice though, and the developer google group is quite active. I've been given a python script which converts OAI to JSON for submission. Shame I don't know any python and its not on the OU's supported technologies list. I've also been given some PHP samples which will get me part of the way there (specifically signing the envelope).

This is sort of a back-burner project for me, and my email is full of "ought to read this.." links to possible tools I could integrate or borrow from (thanks mostly to @kavubob).

So in order to kick start it and focus a bit more (for at least a day), I'm going to the CETIS Learning Registry UK contributors and JLeRN event in Manchester on the 23rd Jan which is a CETIS event to get developers to talk together about working with the UK node of the registry. I'm looking forward to seeing a few familiar faces, wrestling with metadata issues once again and maybe when I get back I'll understand a bit more about the jargon I just spouted!

Oh and if any-one can tell me the difference between metadata and paradata?

Gavin Henrick: Review: LTI Provider for Moodle 2.2

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:34:05 +0000

Today’s plugin for review is the hotly anticipated and very recently released LTI Provider plugin.

Background

Recently I had done a post on the LTI capabilities of Moodle 2.2. This provided an IMS LTI tool ability which enabled a Moodle site to connect to an IMS LTI capable external application/system such as Noteflight and ChemVantage.org . However, one aspect that wasn’t covered was the ability of Moodle 2 to be an IMS Provider (a tool) itself. We didn’t have to wait long for someone in the community to fill in the gap – Enter Juan Leyva, a very active developer in the Moodle sphere from Spain. Currently there are six plugins in the Moodle.org plugin database with Juan as a contributor/author including the popular Configurable Reports.

The first version of the LTI Provider module was released on Jan 2nd 2012, with some bug fixes released four days later.

What does it do?

This is a local plugin. It enables Moodle to provide access to an activity or a full course from other systems (either Moodle 2.2+ sites using the External Tool capability, or Sakai and other LTI compliant systems which can connect to LTI tools/providers).

Just to be clear on the language:

The LTI Provider is an application which provides features that other people want to and can connect to from their own LMS.

The LTI Consumer is an application which can connect to the 3rd party Provider system to avail of the features it has.

So with Moodle 2.2, it has the LTI consumer activity called External Tool

With this plugin, Moodle 2 has now gained the LTI provider aspect too.

So what are the basics of the LTI provider application?

Firstly, it provides a single sign on so that users do not have to re-register on the LTI Provider platform – this happens automatically.
Secondly it sends back course or activity grades to the consumer system.

This application also provides a few other features which are more Moodle related

The option to provide access to a single activity or a full course
The ability to modify the page for hiding headers, footer, and right/left blocks
The ability to change the navigation block of a course or activity for showing just links related to the activity/course in question.

UPDATED ** 29th Jan 2012

This module also now has Settings for

Enrolment duration
Enrolment start and end dates
Enrolments quota
Support for Moodle 2.2 allowframembedding option

Is it simple to install?

Most people will not have installed a local plugin before, however it is really just as simple as a normal mod or block. This was easy to install. I downloaded the plugin directly from the Moodle Plugins. After downloading the zip, and unzipped it there was a folder called ltiprovider. I uploaded this into the moodle/local folder of my Moodle site. When logging in as admin to the site I was prompted to upgrade to install the module. It installed and produced no errors. There was no global settings so that was that all it needed.

The source code is managed on Github and you can browse the code if you need.

Is there documentation for it?

The plugins page gave a good overview on the plugin. There is also a detailed Moodle Docs page which provided details on the local plugin, installation, configuration and information on how it works and grading. It also provided some details on the future versions of the plugin. There is a forum thread about the module where help queries should be posted too.

The README.txt in the zip provides an overview on the functionality too

Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?

When you go into a course, the navigation block will have another link to the LTI Provider. This brings you to the management page for the tools you enable.

LTI Provider Settings

So under Tool settings you can choose

which tool to provide: course or a specific activity
whether to send grades back
whether to force/override the navigation

There are also advanced options to map roles of teacher, student on course and activity.

Under the Remote system the two options which are there are

Shared secret (which you provide to the IMS LTI Consumer application
Remote System Encoding

There are no advanced options in this section.

In the User Default values section, this is related to the dynamic creation of users.

You can set two basic settings

Email display
City/Town name

Under advanced you can also set:

Country
Timezone
Preferred Language
Institution

Lastly, and not least, the settings in the Layout and CSS are very useful

you can hide the page header
you can hide the page footer

Under advanced you can

hide left blocks
hide right blocks
add some custom CSS

Once submitted it provides you a table of the

Tool Name
Shared Secret
Launch URL
Edit options

Once it was configured that was it. The other site or application (Moodle 2.2 in my case) just needed the two key bits of information:

Shared Secret
Launch URL

So I went over to my main test site for 2.2 and created an External Tool entry in a course using the Launch URL and putting the Shared secret in both the Consumer Key and Shared Secret fields, for clarity I also set the tool to open in a New Window. Once added, I clicked on it and it just worked.

So how does it work?

The user is auto-created with a username beginning with ltiprovider……. with nologin as their authentication method, so that they cannot log in to the tool site except through the LTI Provider/Consumer relationship. Very nice!

UPDATED ** 29th Jan 2012

The new enrolment options in the Jan 29th release enables a but better level of control for use of the Provider tool.

If you want to let just ten people from another institution access the course, you can now control how many use the LTI Provider tool.

If you are running a course for a set period, the LTI Provider now has the option to provide a date range for access so that people are not accessing it before it begins and after it is finished.

These are great use cases for training companies and collaborative academic courses too.

Is it easy for the learner/student to use?

For a student, yes, so very easy to use. I logged in as a student into my main site and clicked on the link in the course and it brought the user to the other site, auto-logged in able to view the course.

Does it do what it promises?

Yes. For the first version of the code this is an exciting piece of work. This moves the IMS LTI support within Moodle forward significantly and opens the door for real course sharing and collaboration across multiple LMS.

A course ran on a Moodle site in Australia could have students from classes in many other institutions all collaborating together in the one area. Just using the IMS provider and the built-in External Tool, not having to handle user lists, or authentication or enrolment. The potential is just huge.

But equally, this really does open up easier content selling as a SaaS too. A training company sets up their course in Moodle. When they sell access to a company for it, they provide the URL and Secret and it all just works after that.

An interesting start, this is a plugin to keep an eye on.

Note -

Initially I could not find the link in the Navigation block in the course. This was because I choose to use only Categories and Courses showing on the Navigation block settings (Option under Generate navigation for the following) so if you restrict the block in the same way, you will need to undo it and set to view more than that.

Since the restricted option still shows Participants and Reports links in navigation block perhaps Juan will change this to also include the LTI provider link at this level rather than requiring showing structure and activities.

Stars: 4 out of 5 stars for this plugin

**Standard Reminder**

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

David Mudrak: Contributed plugins versioning

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:03:11 +0000

Moodle core itself has a solid versioning scheme (see the documentation page describing it). However, authors of contributed plugins are pretty free to use their own system of versions numbering. As the author of some contributed plugins, I was looking for a good versioning scheme for my contributions. From my point of view, such a “good” solution should (1) be stable in the long-term period and (2) intuitively describe the required Moodle core version the version of the plugin is for.

After considering several alternatives, I ended with a system similar to the one used by the Moodle core itself. So I use versions consisting of three numbers separated by dots, for example “2.1.3″. The first two of these numbers declare the Moodle branch the plugin is intended for. So the plugin with the version 2.1.3 would be for Moodle 2.1.x. The last number is the sequential update number. And of course, the plugin with the version 2.1.3 would be the fourth update of the plugin as all real geeks who were breast-fed by C like languages start counting with zero (2.1.0 was the initial release of the plugin).

This scheme fits well the convention of using standard Moodle names for development branches in Git. The repositories of my contrib plugins have branches MOODLE_21_STABLE etc like the Moodle core has. So the plugin version 2.1.3 would be born on MOODLE_21_STABLE branch in its repository. Naturally, I use Git tags for the version releases points. Luckily there was no need to re-invent anything here as together with the switch from CVS to Git, Moodle started using standard tags like v2.1.3 instead of legacy MOODLE_213 style.

Just today, I realized this approach has yet another aspect I did not fully realize initially. It forces the plugin maintainer to release new plugin version together with the Moodle major release. Even if there is no real update of the plugin. As an example, the Course contents block is pretty feature complete and there are no known bugs in it (ok, that’s a bit of blaspheming). The most recent version of it was 2.1.2. Now when Moodle 2.2 is released, I had to go and release 2.2.0 of the block to follow my guidelines. Even when the code of the block has not changed.

Is it a disadvantage of this scheme? I believe it’s not. It’s actually a great opportunity to confirm that the plugin still works on the most recent Moodle version. And also it’s the information for the users that the plugin is still actively maintained. Even by releasing the new version for purely formal reasons, I as the maintainer declare publicly that I tested the current version of the block with Moodle 2.2 and consider it stable and working. And that is worth going through the whole release procedure – branching, tagging and uploading the new version to the plugins directory.

Gavin Henrick: Book Review: Moodle 2 E-Learning Course Development by William Rice

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:47:16 +0000

To start 2012 off I have put together a review on the recently published Moodle 2.0 E-Learning Course Development from Packt Publishing. The book is written by William Rice and is an update of his very popular book for Moodle 1.9. The book styles itself as “A complete guide to successful learning using Moodle” and Packt were kind enough to pass me a copy so I could do a review.

Having recently put together a soon to go live online course “Elearning through Moodle 2″, I was interested in reading William’s approach to the various issues I tackled so this review may read a bit differently to some others I have done.

Those familiar reading my blog will have seen the three presentations on Reasons to move to Moodle 2, and will be familiar with the many changes and improvements that are in Moodle 2 compared to Moodle 1.9, for those who aren’t I suggest a quick look over them before finishing the review as it will place a lot of it in context.

The book is a massive 344 pages covering topics from access levels to WYSIWYG tools. The 10 chapters covered the usual induction, installation and configuration of Moodle and then moved to the different steps covering different phases of your e-learning development.

Chapter 1: Learn About the Moodle experience (A Guide Tour of Moodle)
Chapter 2: Install Moodle (Installing Moodle)
Chapter 3: Configure your site (Configuring your site)
Chapter 4: Create the framework for your learning site (Creating Categories and Courses)
Chapter 5: Add basic course material (Adding Static Course Material)
Chapter 6: Make your courses interactive (Adding Interaction with Lessons and Assignments)
Chapter 7: Create tools to evaluate your students (Evaluating Students with Quizzes, Choices and Feedback)
Chapter 8: Make your course social (Adding Social Activities to Your Course)
Chapter 9: Add functionality by using blocks (Blocks)
Chapter 10: Take the pulse of your course (Features for Teachers)

As William explains, this book is designed for people who are creating and delivering courses in Moodle but he has also added in some administrator information.

Chapters 1,2,3:

In the first few chapters William brings us through the philosophy behind Moodle and then introduces and explains the interface. He touches on the architecture of the Moodle installation before bringing the users through the steps to install Moodle onto a web server. There is a lot of valuable information here for those who want to have that level of control over your code with information on the folder installation, domain configuration, database creation and the installation process itself. He also touches on the cron job setup.

Before he moves onto the live site work, he then takes the reader through the configuration side and covers the key aspects of:

account management
user authentication
enrolment
language
security
filters
front page

In chapter 4, William tackles the first key step for a live Moodle site – deciding the structure of the categories and course. He explains the way categories work and how the user can navigate them, and also explains about the limitations that categories bring.

William then covers the course setup and configuration itself. This part brings the user step by step through the key settings carefully explaining each one and the options available including the different types of course formats available out of the box. This is all presented to the user in a friendly and concise manner. He then explains how Teachers and Students are assigned using the enrolment methods.

Chapter 5 gets down to the actual course content – namely how the teacher adds the different types of course material, files, links, pages, labels and media. It explains the new file picker and then moves onto how the course itself is organised with sections and topic names and descriptions. One important note that he focuses on is the use of labels as context or instructions and not just as more content. William finishes the chapter touching on the ability to provide conditional access to resources.

Through chapters 6 and 7, the reader is stepped through adding various activities that can provide interaction and evaluation to the Moodle course. These included:

Lessons
Assignments
Quizzes
Choices
Feedback

Although the Lesson is one of the more complicated activities to set up, William provides clear and helpful explanation on the different aspects of the Lesson. He uses his namesake William (Wallace) to explain branches which is one of the harder aspects to understand for most beginners.

Throughout chapter 8 the reader is exposed to the many social and collborative tools that Moodle has to offer. This includes Chat, Forum, Glossary, Wiki and the excellent peer review tool Workshop. William provides steps for setup and usage of these tools and explains them in a clear helpful manner suggesting strategies for progessive rollout of these tools.

With chapter 9, William takes the reader through all the blocks with an example and a description of their usage. This is a nice simple guide for those not familiar with all the blocks that are available to enhance the course pages.

The book signs off with a chapter (10) on the fun aspects of Moodle, reporting and the Gradebook! As I wrote in another blog post Moodle logs a lot of the actions that users take. This chapter starts with an in-depth look at the logs and the types of reports that are available to the Teacher or Manager including the Activity Report and Participation Reports which are the key ones! The chapter then moves onto scales, grades and configuring the gradebook.

Summary

For Teachers not familiar with creating courses in Moodle, this book provides a solid introduction to all of the key aspects without overwhelming the reader with too many examples. It is well written in a clear and friendly tone and is a good read. For teachers more familiar with Moodle the book provides a good overview on the features that they would know but from a Moodle 2 flavour. Nice work and a pleasure to review.

The book is available on Packtpub.com http://www.packtpub.com/moodle-2-0-elearning-course-development/book

This review by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Gavin Henrick: A look back at 2011

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:43:48 +0000

I have really enjoyed sharing reviews and articles with people through this blog. So thought I should share a bit of the information about the most popular articles and the readership of the blog.

This is a list of some of the most read articles (in no particular order) on the blog. Multiple pages of same item / or versions of same page are collated.

Articles / Pages

Overview on Moodle 2 books (June)

Moodle 2 Module Reviews (March and updated over time)

Moodle 2 supports IMS LTI (November)

Official Moodle Mobile App for iPhone (September)

White paper – Moodle 2 Repositories (Oct)

White paper – A look at themes for Moodle 2 (November)

Reviews

Review of the Book module (May)

Review of CROT for Moodle 2 (March)

Review – Course Menu Block (May)

Review – Bigbluebutton for Moodle 2 (May – updated in October)

Review – Remote-Learner Adobe Connect Pro Module (May)

Blog Readers

In the past year over

23,000 unique vistors came to the blog.
These readers were spread across most continents and 160 different countries.
One third of all these unique visitors are regular readers of the blog.

Browsers & OS

These are the approximate percentages of visiting browser types:

Firefox 44%
Chrome 26%
Internet Explorer 15%
Safari 7%

Most visitors are using Firefox on Windows, but Firefox on Macintosh is the highest non windows option.

Nearly 10% of the visitors are from mobile devices. The most popular devices are Apple iPad, Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch with HTC Desire and Samsung Galaxy coming in after them.

2012

So that is it for 2011, it has been a very interesting year.

I will be starting off 2012 with a review of the book Moodle 2.0 E-Learning Course Development by William Rice. Packt Publishing have kindly given me a copy to review. Also in the pipeline is a review of the Moodle 2 version of ELIS (http://www.remote-learner.net/elis) and another book but this time on plugins.

Thanks to all for reading and for the feedback on the articles, and I hope that you all have a great 2012.

Gavin Henrick: A quick look at Adobe Edge in Moodle 2

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:08:01 +0000

Adobe Edge learning resources in Moodle 2

I had a quick look at the Adobe Edge creator tool when the preview came out, but never actually looked into it in-depth nor tested the content in Moodle.

What is Adobe Edge?

This is the new “web motion and interaction design tool” which uses HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3 to enable learning object designers to create a good interactive resource.

The key here is that it does not create flash content which as we know is now not going to be around for Mobile for long. ( http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html ) Now, as Adobe mentioned in the post that “HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively” this works well with the philosophy behind Adobe Edge preview ( http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/ )

So as a content creator what can it do? Quite a lot really is the short answer. Adobe have provided a nice set of resources to introduce people to it, and also a set of demos which gives an idea of the level of creativity that it can enable. ( http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/resources/ )

So having seen a post in a forum thread in Moodle.org about it, I decided to add the demo items to Moodle 2.2 and see how they played.

Adding Adobe Edge items to Moodle 2.2

There are two ways to get the files into Moodle depending on if you have enabled the URL downloader repository or not.

The normal way – You can go to the Adobe Edge resources page and download the zip file and then upload it to Moodle
The alternate way – You can use the URL downloader repository and paste in the direct url to the file and then pull the file directly into Moodle without having to download it. I prefer this option for moving big files (although these are small)

These are the steps I followed to set up the Demo course with the seven Adobe Edge demo files.

I created a new course (I always keep specific test content in a different course if possible, easier to isolate)
I added turned editing on
I edited the summary of the section 1 to provide the context for the testing with links to where I was taking the resources
I added in the labels for each of the demos on the Adobe Edge Resource page.

Then for each of the demos I did the next steps:

Clicked on Add a resource
Click on the URL downloader repository
In a different tab went to the Adobe Edge resources page and copied the link to the download of the demo that I wanted.
Went back to my Moodle tab and pasted in the URL into the URL field and clicked on download.

URL downloader repository options

The repository then goes to that URL and fetches the available downloadable resources and displays in the File Picker.

Url downloader repository Select

I clicked on the box for the edge_p3_sample
I clicked on Select this file and it was copied over instantly.
I used the icon beside the zip file and chose unzip
Unzipping a file

.

I browsed into the folder that it made and beside the HTML file I selected Set main file from the menu.
In the Options section I selected In pop up as the display option
I clicked Show advanced to see the pop-up dimensions
I set the width as 980 and the height as 700 (you will need to use different ones for different demos as they are different sizes)
I clicked on Save and return to course.

Once they were all added, I went through them and made sure the window sizes were appropriate for each demo.

Thoughts

They all worked fine in the pop-up, each demo has slightly different features and was quite interesting to see how they would work within Moodle 2.

Adobe Edge Demo in popup

However, I wanted to see if and how they worked with other display options and in my testing using the standard theme all the options except the download worked (which was expected). However the best experience in my opinion was the new window or In pop-up due to the large size of some of the objects.

Just for interest I have added a screenshot of the Editor with one of the demos open, it is so very powerful and I hope to see export to SCORM, or IMS LTI sometime!

Editor view of a demo file

Mike Churchward: Converting Moodle 1.9 Plug-ins to Moodle 2 - Activity Module Upgrade - Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Churchward) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:04:12 +0000

This is the fourth part in my Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2 activity module migration series.

When I left off, I had completed the necessary changes the allowed me to successfully install, add and edit instances of the stamp collection module. Now it is time to start making it function.

In Moodle 2, the entire navigation and page display functions have changed. I need to change all of the code that does this. This document describes the changes, but it is outdated so there will be inconsistencies.

To check where my code is, I click on an instance of a module that I've added to a course. Right away I see several warnings and errors I'll need to fix. I'll start with my "view.php" script.

One of the first things I need is to set the URL of my display page into the global $PAGE variable. This identifies the page's URL and any necessary parameters to the internal systems, such as navigation, so that links back to the page get rendered properly. In my module, I add the lines:

$params = array();
$params['id'] = $id;
if ($view) {
$params['view'] = $view;
}
if ($page) {
$params['page'] = $page;
}
$PAGE->set_url('/mod/stampcoll/view.php', $params);

before the require_course_login function.

This code, combined with the require_course_login call, pretty much sets up everything I need for the page and navigation display, and gets rid of the first group of warnings..

Next on my list is changing all of the output functions to use the global $OUTPUT variable. Essentially, everything that used to write output to the screen should now come from a function of the object $OUTPUT. So print_box would become $OUTPUT->box, and so on.

I'll start with the print_header functions. I find two, both very similar to this:

$navigation = build_navigation('', $cm);
print_header_simple(format_string($stampcoll->name), "",
$navigation, "", "", true, '', navmenu($course, $cm));

In Moodle 2, these functions are replaced with the simpler $OUTPUT->header(), but I need to first specify all of the arguments that were passed to the old function. Also, the navigation has already been handled by the page setup functions and the course login functions. So I completely remove these lines of code. Then, before the code block where the first print_header_simple was, I add the lines:

$PAGE->set_title(format_string($stampcoll->name));
$PAGE->set_heading(format_string($course->fullname));
echo $OUTPUT->header();

These three lines replace the navigation and header printing functions for the script, and when I access the module instance, displays the page heading again.

Next up, I look for the "print_" functions. When I look at a page of my module now, I can see warnings for these functions. The ones I replace are the "print_heading" and the "print_box..." functions. I believe I can pretty much simply replace "print_" with "echo $OUTPUT->". After doing that, and revisiting the screen, the warnings are gone.

Next, I click on the "Edit stamps" tab link. I get essentially the same warning and errors as on the view page. Looks like I need to make the same changes in "editstamps.php" as I did in "view.php".

Now, I'll do some testing as a student. I login as a student and access the activity. Since I have no stamps, I am presented with an empty display and the message "Number of your stamps: $a". I'm pretty sure that "$a" should not be there. This will require a change to the language files, "lang/*/stampcoll.php".

Essentially, in Moodle 1.9 and below, language strings could specify variables that would be loaded into the string at runtime with the string "$a". In Moodle 2, the "$a" needs to be enclosed in braces ("{}"). I open the "lang/en/stampcoll.php" file (the language I'm using), and replace all "$a" with "{$a}" and save. Before I check if it worked, I remember to go to the "Site administration / Development" menu and click "Purge all caches". Going back to my stamp collection instance as a student, and clicking it, shows that the message now says: "Number of your stamps: 0". That seems more correct.

Okay, now that I have students in my course, I should go back and check how the adding stamps functions works. Accessing it again as the "admin" user, I get a problem right away:

ERROR: Mixed types of sql query parameters!!

More information about this error
Stack trace:

    line 704 of /lib/dml/moodle_database.php: dml_exception thrown
    line 804 of /lib/dml/mysqli_native_moodle_database.php: call to moodle_database->fix_sql_params()
    line 191 of /mod/stampcoll/view.php: call to mysqli_native_moodle_database->get_records_sql()

This is a problem that I had not encountered yet. Doing some debugging, I discover that the code:

if ($where = $table->get_sql_where()) {
$where .= ' AND ';
}

no longer works as it did before. In fact, it now works in a similar fashion to the $DB->get_in_or_equal() function. I need to do some heavier refactoring in this code.

First, I need to change the code above to:

list($where, $w_params) = $table->get_sql_where();
if ($where) {
$where .= ' AND ';
}

I also discover another problem. I am using a named parameter in my SQL, ":stampcollid". But the get_sql_where and the get_in_or_equal functions use positional parameters for the SQL. This is the "mixed types of sql query parameters" part of the error message. What this means is that the parameter array I pass to my SQL query must provide the replacement arguments in the same order they appear in the SQL query. My SQL query must use "?" instead of ":variable" replacement strings. So refactoring, this chunk of code now looks like:

list($where, $w_params) = $table->get_sql_where();
if ($where) {
    $where .= ' AND ';
}

if ($sort = $table->get_sql_sort()) {
    $sort = ' ORDER BY '.$sort;
}

$select = 'SELECT u.id, u.firstname, u.lastname, u.picture, COUNT(s.id) AS count ';
list($uids, $u_params) = $DB->get_in_or_equal(array_keys($users));

$params = array();
$params[] = $stampcoll->id;
$params = array_merge($params, $w_params);
$params = array_merge($params, $u_params);

$sql = "FROM {user} u ".
       "LEFT JOIN {stampcoll_stamps} s ON u.id = s.userid AND s.stampcollid = ? ".
       "WHERE $where (u.id $uids) ".
       "GROUP BY u.id, u.firstname, u.lastname, u.picture ";

if (!$stampcoll->displayzero) {
    $sql .= 'HAVING COUNT(s.id) > 0 ';
}

Note that I have replaced ":stampcollid" with "?", and moved around the order that the $params array gets loaded so that the $where and $uids positions appear after the first "?".

One more issue crops up after this. The $OUTPUT->user_picture is not passing the correct parameters. This is because I simply replaced the old print function with $OUTPUT-> one. The old function took a user id. The new one takes a user object. The other parameters are different too, so I change it to:

$picture = $OUTPUT->user_picture($auser, array('courseid' => $course->id));

This gets me most of the way there. But I'm still getting an error about a missing "imagealt" field. A little research, and I determine that the user records that I am passing to the user_picture function are missing a field that is required by that function. Looking at other examples, I notice that the are all calling a new function, user_picture::fields, to get the fields they request from their database call for user records. It appears that this function returns a list of user record field names suitable for providing in an SQL query, that are the minimum required for other user functions. This seems to be the new preferred way of specifying user record fields, rather than specifying them directly in the SQL. So to fix my code, I replace:

$select = 'SELECT u.id, u.firstname, u.lastname, u.picture, COUNT(s.id) AS count ';

with:

$userfields = user_picture::fields('u');
$select = "SELECT {$userfields}, COUNT(s.id) AS count ";

This change makes the "imagealt" error go away, and displays the user pictures in the list.

Next, I am getting errors related to using helpbutton(). Essentially, the use of this function has been replaced by $OUTPUT->help_icon. This is similar to what was changed in the forms. Basically, the old way of providing a full help file that appeared in a pop-up, has been replaced by a help string that shows in a mouse-over tip. So, I have to replace the function call, and move the help message from the help file into the language file as a language string.

The first change is changing:

helpbutton('pagesize', get_string('studentsperpage','stampcoll'), 'stampcoll');

to:

echo $OUTPUT->help_icon('studentsperpage', 'stampcoll');

In the old version, a help icon labeled with the language string "studentsperpage" would be rendered, that when clicked, would load a pop-up with the file "pagesize.html" in it. In the new version, an icon will be displayed that when clicked, will display the string from "studentsperpage_help" in the pop-up tip window. So, I also need to bring the text from the old help file into a new language string. In this case, there was no help file in the old version, so I'll just create a new string:

$string['studentsperpage_help'] = 'Set the number of students you want to display per page';

I have to make this same series of changes in "editstamps.php" and one more for a "showupdateforms" help string.

At this point, I have migrated all of the basic functions in the main files to Moodle 2. I still have work to do though. I need to check the rest of the scripts for all of the same changes I have performed so far, and there are still more migration tasks. For now, I am calling it a day.

Gavin Henrick: New Version of the official My Moodle from Moodle HQ submitted to App Store

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:24:54 +0000

Just in time for the holidays, Martin Dougiamas (@moodler on twitter) announced that the latest version of the official My Moodle mobile app for iOS has been submitted to the Apple App Store and is awaiting approval.

@Moodler: “My Moodle 1.1 (with Course Contents feature when used with Moodle 2.2) is now submitted to App store – awaiting Apple’s thumbs up.” – Twitter

The new version includes a very useful feature for those taking a Moodle course - Course Contents.

You will need to upgrade to Moodle 2.2 to use this new feature.

So what does it do?

Well, this is the new interface with the extra Contents option.

My Moodle 1.1 Options

Well, choosing the content options – just like the participants options it can provide a list of your courses.

Once you select one you get an overview of the course sections. Some of the options are grayed out because you cannot do anything through the app with them currently.

My Moodle 1.1 Course View

However,beside some of the resources there are Download icons. This means that you are able to select that item for download so that you can view it offline.

My Moodle 1.1 Resource Download

Once you have downloaded the item the Down Arrow icon changes to the navigate icon.

This is really quite useful feature and for me it worked for range of content including:

html files
text files
pdf documents
word document
images
mp3s

Well done Moodle HQ!

Do keep a look out for the new version coming to an iOS Device near you once it is approved!

Tomaz Lasic: What I learned in 2011

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:28:18 +0000

My big(gest) lessons and reminders of 2011:

The importance of doing what you love doing in your career.

I never have or will regret joining Moodle HQ but I never have or will regret leaving Moodle HQ this year either. Thank you Martin & Moodle HQ. I love Moodle and its community but I am really happy to be a Moodle volunteer again and get paid (less) to work with teens that I dare say majority of teaching colleagues would not want to see in their class.

The importance of expectations.

You don’t significantly change or disrupt status quo by doing more of the same (way) but harder. Changing expectations shifts things dramatically.

Picture the expectations of a kid (and his surrounds) who has been told, overtly and covertly by the system of mainstream schooling, that most he can aspire to be is a dumb poor loser with some dead-end job as his only option (like many in his family). Suddenly, he completes a great project in the field he is passionate about. He is told, for the first time in his life, that a local university is offering courses in that field, and that, on the basis of things shown and in all sincerety, going to uni and/or getting a well paid, challenging job in the industry is a realistic option for him in a couple of years if he puts in the effort. I saw the reaction of this kid and his parents. And it gives me tingles as I write this.

The value of Big Picture.

Big Picture is not a panacea for all our educational ills. It also isn’t for every kid out there. It requires a special kind of educator to really ‘get it’ too. But from what I have seen, learned and experienced this year after working in a Big Picture school and seeing some great work of kids and colleagues in BP schools around the country and the world, it is an approach, a state of mind rather, that truly empowers.

‘School’ is deeply ingrained in our societal DNA

It is soooo damn hard to ‘forget’ what ‘school’ looks like and does. In a ‘school’ you learn to play the game (usually called ‘what does the teacher or test want me to say’) then pass … and largely forget. There is a teacher, the knower, and a bunch of students who need to be ‘taught’ stuff prescribed by often someone else and contextually remote. You need a grade to show how much you are worth. Above all – you don’t ask (tough) questions. Things like: ‘What are we doing this for?’ And if kids don’t learn, the teacher says ‘I taught them that but they didn’t learn it’ (akin to a realtor saying ‘I sold them the house but they didn’t buy it’ …).

No wonder it takes us a very long time at our school (yes, we are one, but a Big Picture one) for kids and parents to come to terms with statement/questions like: “What are you passionate about?”, “What is worth learning?”, “No, I am NOT going to tell you what to do next, but I am happy to figure it out WITH you.” “You (student) know more about this (topic) than me (teacher) already so I am going to learn with you.” Crazy stuff huh? Or is it? Ask yourself why (not).

The value of networks

You have no idea how grateful I am of my, well our, network. This goes particularly when I see you from around the planet interacting with kids at our school, kids who, in most cases, have barely left their suburb all their life. Things like comments to ‘John’s’ motorbike website or ‘Billy’s’ ‘World Of Drugs‘ wiki project (one I am hugely excited and hopeful about in 2012) are small but priceless.

Every comment here on Human, every @ reply on Twitter, every *Like* on Facebook, every email, Skype call, shared document or other interaction reinforces my liking for Stephen Heppel’s observation: Previous century was about making stuff FOR many people. This century is about helping people help each other.

and finally … drumroll …

Watching students flourish in front of my eyes in moments during the year and particularly during their Big Picture exhibitions reminds me why I want(ed) to work in education: not to be “the knower” in some field and bang on about it as if it were the most important thing in the world but watch and help others becoming knowers (of) themselves in the fields they chose and share.

PS. If I don’t post anything before Christmas/New Year it probably means I am playing with my own kids and enjoying a bit of holidays. But I do check in here and Twitter …

Have a peaceful Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Kiss your kids and loved ones and tell them you love them. Often. And mean it.

Gavin Henrick: Review of the Exabis E-Portfolio for Moodle 2

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:12:03 +0000

Although I am a fan of the Mahara E-portfolio, I always like to check out the alternatives. So today’s plugin for review is the recently migrated Exabis E-Portfolio block for Moodle 2.

Background

The 1.9 version of this block has been around since early 2008. The Moodle 1.8 and Moodle 1.9 versions are available still in the old modules and plugins database. The Moodle 2 migrated code was released in October 2011, and has had a few updates since then to fix a few glitches. It is developed and maintained by Andreas Riepl. The current version in the database covers Moodle 2 and Moodle 2.1 with the 2.2 version to be released soon I believe!

What does it do?

This block provides a nice and simple E-Portfolio option for students within Moodle. There are many good standalone applications for E-Portfolios one of which is Mahara, however they are external to Moodle. This block provides a nice set of features within the Moodle environment.

Users can do four key tasks:

Add files, links and notes to their portfolio, broken into categories if they so wish.
Build pages (views) to showcase their content
Share this page with others in the course or external to Moodle
Export a view with the portfolio data.

These are all handled nicely within the confines of a course block, so if a course does not want students making portfolios for their course then they don’t need to add the block.

Is it simple to install?

It was straight forward to install. You can download the plugin directly from the new plugin database. After downloading the zip, and unzipped it there was a folder called exaport. I uploaded this into the moodle/blocks folder of my Moodle site. When logging in as admin to the site I was prompted to upgrade to install the module. It installed and produced no errors. There was one new global setting which was to enable/disable the interaction with block exabis competencies, if installed. As I don’t have that installed, I left the setting alone.

Currently the version of Moodle supported is Moodle 2 / 2.1. So, as I wanted to review on Moodle 2.2, I was given the pre-release version which should end up in the plugins database soon. Thanks Andreas!

Is there documentation for it?

Although there is no Moodle Docs page for it currently (I hope this will be added for the latest version), there is a 14 page booklet explaining how to install and use the block. This is available on the plugins website in both English and German. You can also get the information and download for the competencies Block too.

The README.txt in the zip provides an overview on the functionality, the history and installation instructions.

Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?

Adding the Exabis E-Portfolio block to your course is as easy as any other block.

When the teacher first adds it, there are three options for the Teacher:

Teacher View Exabis E-Portfolio

This first link brings up the manage portfolio page which enables the user to

manage their profile information
E-Portfolio categories
portfolio content (Links, Files and Notes)
Views (create, edit and share)
Export or Import their portfolio
View shared portfolios

The second link goes directly to the view Shared Portfolios

And the third link goes directly to Exporting a View in the Scorm format.

Viewing

Once the view is shared with the teacher they can then see a list of views and then click into one to have a look around it.

A view

Each link of Show lets them look in detail at that entry. When viewing a student E-Portfolio view you can also add comments on a per item basis (items they have added into the view), this is a nice feature rather than commenting on the whole view, the feedback can be more focused.

Commenting on an item in a view

Is it easy for the learner/student to use?

For a student, they can also see the same three links. Building an Exabis E-Portfolio is really quite simple. I went through the following process:

Added a profile description
Created two categories – project 1 and project 2
Added some files to project 1
Added a Link to project 1
Added a note to project 1

Then I created a view, the below image is the view creation screen:

Student Add E-Portfolio View

This is a very nice and simple process for creating a view.

The sharing options again are very simple to follow, you can either share it externally and have a unique URL to show it, or you can share internally with others in your course either all, or just specific users.

The external access uses guest access which works even if the course has no guest access enabled.

The Scorm export worked fine. I exported the view into the scorm file and added it to my handy scorm player in Moodle, and it just worked. Cool!

Does it do what it promises?

Indeed it does, good job! I like it. Although this block is not as full featured as a website creator, and hasn’t got the diverse set of features that a dedicated E-portfolio like Mahara has, it is straight forward to use and is inside Moodle for extra simplicity and activated on a per course basis.

I can see it being used in many institutions who don’t want the complexity an extra portfolio platform and the challenges that can bring.

Stars: 4 out of 5 stars for this block

**Standard Reminder**

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Mike Churchward: Converting Moodle 1.9 Plug-ins to Moodle 2 - Activity Module Upgrade - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Churchward) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:51:58 +0000

When I left off, I had completed bulk changing the DML function code for the module. Now I'll move on to other functional and output changes.

One of the key changes that affects this module is the standard use of the "intro" field. This is the field that typically provided the textual description for an instance of the module. In Moodle 1.9, some modules called it "intro". Others called it "description". This module called it "text". The point is, it was not standard and was not necessarily the same in all modules. In Moodle 2, it is standard, and needs to be called "intro".

To do this, I will first need to change the database code that sets it up, and add an upgrade script for existing installations.

For the "install.xml" file, there are three changes of "text" to "intro" I need to do: the actual entry for the "text" field's "NAME" parameter and the two entries on either side of it's "NEXT" and "PREVIOUS" parameters.

Along with "intro", Moodle 2 now requires that the module have an "introformat" field in the database table. This needs to be added to the "install.xml" file as well as the upgrade script. For this module, I need to change the old "format" field to "introformat". I'm not including the XML code here, but you can see it if you check it out of Git.

Next, I need to add an upgrade script to handle changing the database field name for sites that are upgrading from an older version. I add the following lines to the bottom of "db/upgrade.php" in my module:

if ($oldversion < 2010080300) {

/// Rename field text on table stampcoll to intro
    $table = new xmldb_table('stampcoll');
    $field = new xmldb_field('text', XMLDB_TYPE_TEXT, 'small', null, XMLDB_NOTNULL, null, null, 'name');

/// Launch rename field description
    $dbman->rename_field($table, $field, 'intro');

/// Define field introformat to be added to data
    $field = new xmldb_field('format', XMLDB_TYPE_INTEGER, '4', XMLDB_UNSIGNED, XMLDB_NOTNULL, null, '0', 'intro');

/// Launch rename field introformat
    $dbman->rename_field($table, $field, 'introformat');

    // conditionally migrate to html format in intro
    if ($CFG->texteditors !== 'textarea') {
        $rs = $DB->get_recordset('stampcoll', array('introformat'=>FORMAT_MOODLE), '', 'id,intro,introformat');
        foreach ($rs as $d) {
            $d->intro       = text_to_html($d->intro, false, false, true);
            $d->introformat = FORMAT_HTML;
            $DB->update_record('stampcoll', $d);
            upgrade_set_timeout();
        }
        $rs->close();
    }

/// stampcoll savepoint reached
upgrade_mod_savepoint(true, 2010080300, 'stampcoll');
}

This block of code will rename the "text" field of the "stampcoll" table to "intro" and the "format" field to "introformat". It will also reset the format values where necessary for existing instances. Just to be sure, I test this by manually changing the version of the "stampcoll" entry to a lesser number, and then hitting the "Notifications" screen of my site. As expected, the "stampcoll" table "text" and the "format" fields are renamed.

Lastly I test the XML changes by removing the "stampcoll" module, and then allowing it to be reinstalled from the "Notifications" screen. This works too.

After making those changes, I need to then go and change every use of the "text" variable to "intro". This will also be important in my restore code that I will deal with later on, since older restore sets will be using "text" and not "intro". Searching, and being careful to find only the correct places, I replace the few "text" instances that need replacing (in "lib.php" and "view.php"). There will be changes in backup and restore as well, but I'm doing that later.

I don't need to worry about "introformat", since that is a variable used internally by the API, and not directly by my code.

Next, I'm going to change the module edit form in "mod_form.php". Most of this remains the same as before, but there are some crucial differences.

The first and easiest is changing the "intro" component. In Moodle 1.9. this involved several lines. In Moodle 2, thanks to the standardization of the "intro" field (which I just fixed), it is now only one line. So I change the lines:

/// text (description)
    $mform->addElement('htmleditor', 'text', get_string('description'));
    $mform->setType('text', PARAM_RAW);
    //$mform->addRule('text', get_string('required'), 'required', null, 'client');
    $mform->setHelpButton('text', array('writing', 'richtext'), false, 'editorhelpbutton');
/// introformat
    $mform->addElement('format', 'introformat', get_string('format'));

to:

/// intro
$this->add_intro_editor(true, get_string('description'));

The next change I have to make involves the help system. Now, in this particular module, there are no specific help buttons added. But if there were, I would need to change each occurrence of:

$mform->setHelpButton('elementname', array('helpfilename', get_string('helpstring', 'component'), 'component'));

to:

$mform->addHelpButton('elementname', 'helpstring', 'component');

The function name changes, and the arguments are simplified. Additionally, all old "help" files in your language directories need to removed, and their contents added to the main language file, assigned to the string "helpstring_help".

One thing to consider at this point, is that the help buttons that are added now are mouseover text areas. The amount of text displayed there should be suitably limited. If you need more help content, you can create HTML files elsewhere, and link to them in the help string. Moodle docs provides a space to create this content if you want to use it.

One thing I will change for this module is the help text for the main edit screen, up next to the title. In Moodle 1.9, this content was in the "lang/en_utf8/help/stampcoll/mods.html" file. In Moodle 2, this is in the language string "modulename_help". I add a shortened version of this text to that string in my "lang/en/stampcoll.php" file.

These changes should be all I need to be able to add and edit instances of the module. I test it to make sure, and indeed I can successfully add and edit instances. I'm far from done though. Clicking on an added module will display a lot of errors still. In the next part, I'll work on fixing those.

Make sure you get the latest code from Git, to follow along.

Integration, exposed: Integration round 2011-12-09 Summary - back to normality

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:15:41 +0000

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7).

Cold numbers:

32 issues have been successfully integrated and 6 have been rejected / delayed. That is 84% success, lovely one!

Notes:

With Moodle 2.2 packaged on Dec 5th, the exceptional QA/beta/candidates period (November) is over and this round has been the first back to the "normal" weeklies cycles.

Be noted that these first weeks (3-4 estimated) we are integrating normally but always trying to keep the new MOODLE_22_STABLE branch and master (upcoming Moodle 2.3 in some months) on sync as much as possible (specially versions and other critical stuff). This means that we are not accepting code for master only until that period is over.

More or less along the same period (December 2011) one of the main goals of all HQ developers is to fix as many problems and regressions as possible in the new release. So it's highly important to have everything reported in the Tracker with the maximum level of detail.

Hot topics:

MDL-30623 - One regression with guests access and course passwords was detected and fixed.
MDL-30542 - Some webservice-related features landed both to Moodle 2.2 and 2.1, aiming to provide a richer API to be used from all sort of clients.
MDL-27314 - One really annoying issue about the impossibility of deleting/regrading quiz attempts was finally fixed over all the 2.x branches.
Messaging, choices, forums, SCORM.. also received some interesting fixes.

Warm thanks:

While I have tons of people to say thanks (and I will), this week I wanted to reserve the complete "dose" to Helen Foster, our super* Community Manager, both for her continuous effort and commitment to Moodle and, more important, at least for me, for being the way you are, big thanks!

Ciao all, stronk7

* Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious I'd say.

Jenny Gray: Investigating licenses in Moodle2

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:11:38 +0000

by Jenny Gray.

I've spent a very brief amount of time today investigating the licence choice screen in moodle 2, and seeing what it affects.

I'd had high hopes for this screen when I saw it first pop into the codebase, but I'm feeling a little let down right now. I can't help wondering if I missed the point somewhere?

In my dev site, I set the sitewide default to CC-BY-NC-SA to match OpenLearn. I'm still using the standard theme, but no CC icon appeared on the page anywhere. So, if I create a course, I should be able to say which licence it has right? Wrong. Ditto any activity within a course.

At which point I started searching the codebase for use of the config variables to see if I could work out whether the screen controlled *anything*.

It seems to do "stuff" with the community hubs "publish this course" and course finder block. I will probably post more about those another day.

And whenever I upload or use a file, I can set and see what its license is. But it is never displayed on the course home page or used to restrict or open access to the file.

This licence choice could be very powerful for Open Educational Resources. I'd like to see the licence icon displayed prominently for each course/page/activity/asset, and that if the license is open the access permissions for the item could be different and less restrictive, and that items with open licenses would be discoverable through RSS or OAI services, open to search engines, include additional RDF metadata.

I'm hoping some-one will tell me that I've missed the point (or a setting) somewhere, but I think it needs a fair amount of development yet for it to reach that point.

Gavin Henrick: An eLearning framework for implementing Moodle

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:56:03 +0000

There are a number of methodologies for implementing a training/teaching course online. In the Moodle for Business book published earlier this year, a slightly different implementation framework for Moodle was proposed. So as the book has been out for six months now, I felt it was a good time to post a bit about the framework.

The framework is designed to be an iterative process which builds on the results of the evaluation through the clarification and re-alignment of goals. Thus it helps an organisation think about their project, namely:

What do they want to achieve with the Moodle implementation?
How will they implement it?
How will they measure whether it has been successful?

The ADIME framework has five key steps:

Align
Develop
Implement
Measure
Evaluate

The align step helps the organisation explore the potential organizational impacts of the Moodle initiative, such as what is business problem are you solving with Moodle? This helps ensure the project goals are aligned with the business and organisational strategy.

The develop phase combines a design and development aspects where the solution is built to meet the declared objectives from the align phase. This is often done within a collaborative area/course within Moodle to aid the rapid development.

The implementation phase tackles the practicalities of rolling out the solution dealing with access, permissions, scheduling and notifications.

The measurement phase relates to how the learners are doing within the context of the implementation. This is checking if the solution itself is working to meet the learner needs.

The evaluation phase takes the organisational goals and measures the impact of the solution to help generate and re-align the goals for the next iteration.

Summary

Behind the process is the principle that Moodle makes it easy to try things and tweak/change things as you figure out what works and what doesn’t work. This way you use the framework to sketch out the solution, pilot it and improve it and roll it out.

To end, I will throw out some questions that perhaps people can add comments on..

What frameworks or models do you use?
What other models did you consider and why did you choose the one you are using?

This article is based on the framework outlined in the Moodle 2 for Business guide from Packt Publishing written by Gavin Henrick, Jason Cole and Jeanne Cole and it does go into more detail on each aspect than I covered here.

I have included below some basic information on two frameworks/models that some may be familiar with for comparison.

The well known ADDIE model focuses on the phases of the process:

Analysis (clarification of the goals and objectives and constraints)
Design ( Document strategy, design experience, prototype, look and feel)
Development (create the content / develop the product)
Implementation (train the facilitator, prepare learners, check the tools)
Evaluation (ongoing formative and post implementation summative evaluations)

Another I had seen was the OTARA framework. OTARA stands for:

Objectives (or learning outcomes)
Themes (the way we group or chunk the related objectives)
Activities (that learners need to undertake to achieve the goals)
Resources (that are used to support the learning activities)
Assessments (which are used to gather evidence of learning)

I saw this being referenced in the presentation Moodle Course Design: a high-wire act at the New Zealand Moot this year from Joyce Seitzinger (@catspyjamasnz).

Mike Churchward: Converting Moodle 1.9 Plug-ins to Moodle 2 - Activity Module Upgrade - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Churchward) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:23:01 +0000

This is the second part in my Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2 activity module migration.

When I left off, I had modified the installation and upgrade code using the new XMLDB/DDL changes. Now I'm going to focus on the DML changes.

The most obvious change I need to make throughout the module is changing all DML functions (get_record, set_record, etc.) to be methods of the global $DB object instead of standalone functions. So get_record becomes $DB->get_record, and so on. The other most obvious change is that the 'parameter / value' arguments that used to be passed to these functions are now replaced by an array with 'key => value' pairs instead. There are many other changes I will have to make, but I'll look at those as I come to them.

One of the tools this document points me to, is the 'check_db_syntax' helper script. This script is designed to locate all areas of a plug-in that need database code changed. The instructions are there to retrieve this script and execute. When I run this script on the code, I get a lot of information. I have provided the output below, but I have removed the items involving the backup and restore scripts, since I will deal with backup and restore separately:

Checking the /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll directory recursively
(executed from custom directory - false positive detection DISABLED!)
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/mod_form.php: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/styles.php: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/lib.php:
* ERROR found!
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 22 : if ($stamps = get_records_select("stampcoll_stamps", "userid=$user->id AND stampcollid=$stampcoll->id")) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 88 : return insert_record("stampcoll", $stampcoll);
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 101 : return update_record('stampcoll', $stampcoll);
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 112 : if (! $stampcoll = get_record("stampcoll", "id", "$id")) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 118 : if (! delete_records("stampcoll_stamps", "stampcollid", "$stampcoll->id")) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 122 : if (! delete_records("stampcoll", "id", "$stampcoll->id")) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 140 : $students = get_records_sql("SELECT DISTINCT u.id, u.id
- ERROR ( OTHER ) - line 141 : FROM {$CFG->prefix}user u,
- ERROR ( OTHER ) - line 142 : {$CFG->prefix}stampcoll_stamps s
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 182 : return get_record("stampcoll", "id", $stampcollid);
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 192 : return get_records("stampcoll_stamps", "stampcollid", $stampcollid, "id");
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 202 : return get_record("stampcoll_stamps", "id", $stampid);
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/editstamps.php:
* ERROR found!
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 13 : if (! $course = get_record("course", "id", $cm->course)) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 81 : if (! $newstamp->id = insert_record("stampcoll_stamps", $newstamp)) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 102 : if (! update_record("stampcoll_stamps", $updatedstamp)) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 120 : if (! delete_records("stampcoll_stamps", "id", $form->deletestamp)) {
- ERROR ( OTHER ) - line 241 : $sql = 'FROM '.$CFG->prefix.'user AS u '.
- ERROR ( OTHER ) - line 242 : 'LEFT JOIN '.$CFG->prefix.'stampcoll_stamps s ON u.id = s.userid AND s.stampcollid = '.$stampcoll->id.' '.
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 247 : if (($ausers = get_records_sql($select.$sql.$sort, $table->get_page_start(), $table->get_page_size())) !== false) {
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/version.php: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/view.php:
* ERROR found!
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 14 : if (! $course = get_record("course", "id", $cm->course)) {
- ERROR ( OTHER ) - line 171 : $sql = 'FROM '.$CFG->prefix.'user AS u '.
- ERROR ( OTHER ) - line 172 : 'LEFT JOIN '.$CFG->prefix.'stampcoll_stamps s ON u.id = s.userid AND s.stampcollid = '.$stampcoll->id.' '.
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 181 : if (($ausers = get_records_sql($select.$sql.$sort)) !== false) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 184 : if (($ausers = get_records_sql($select.$sql.$sort, $table->get_page_start(), $table->get_page_size())) !== false) {
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/caps.php: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/tabs.php: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/index.php:
* ERROR found!
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 8 : if (! $course = get_record('course', 'id', $id)) {
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/db/log.php: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/db/install.xml: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/db/access.php: ... OK
- /home/www/moodle.git/mod/stampcoll/db/upgrade.php:
* ERROR found!
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 29 : if ($collections = get_records('stampcoll', 'publish', '0')) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 44 : if ($collections = get_records('stampcoll', 'publish', '2')) {
- ERROR ( DML ) - line 64 : if ($collections = get_records('stampcoll', 'teachercancollect', '1')) {

This report gives me a pretty good list of code locations I need to fix.

I will go through each of these and upgrade to the new method. Some examples of changes are, "editstamps.php" line 13, I change:

if (! $course = get_record("course", "id", $cm->course)) {
error("Course is misconfigured");
}

to:

if (! $course = $DB->get_record("course", array("id" => $cm->course))) {
error("Course is misconfigured");
}

In this case, I added the $DB-> to the call, and changed the parameters to a "key/value" array.

In "editstamps.php" line 81, I change:

if (! $newstamp->id = insert_record("stampcoll_stamps", $newstamp)) {
error("Could not save new stamp");
}

to:

if (! $newstamp->id = $DB->insert_record("stampcoll_stamps", $newstamp)) {
error("Could not save new stamp");
}

In this case, I only added the $DB->, since the rest of the function is the same as 1.9.

In "editstamps.php" line 240-247, I change:

$select = 'SELECT u.id, u.firstname, u.lastname, u.picture, COUNT(s.id) AS count ';
$sql = 'FROM '.$CFG->prefix.'user AS u '.
           'LEFT JOIN '.$CFG->prefix.'stampcoll_stamps s ON u.id = s.userid AND s.stampcollid = '.$stampcoll->id.' '.
           'WHERE '.$where.'u.id IN ('.implode(',', array_keys($users)).') GROUP BY u.id, u.firstname, u.lastname, u.picture ';

$table->pagesize($perpage, count($users));

if (($ausers = get_records_sql($select.$sql.$sort, $table->get_page_start(), $table->get_page_size())) !== false) {

to:

$select = "SELECT u.id, u.firstname, u.lastname, u.picture, COUNT(s.id) AS count ";
list($uids, $params) = $DB->get_in_or_equal(array_keys($users));
$params['stampcollid'] = $stampcoll->id;
$sql    = "FROM {user} AS u ".
          "LEFT JOIN {stampcoll_stamps} s ON u.id = s.userid AND s.stampcollid = :stampcollid ".
        "WHERE $where u.id $uids ".
          "GROUP BY u.id, u.firstname, u.lastname, u.picture ";

$table->pagesize($perpage, count($users));

$ausers = $DB->get_records_sql($select.$sql.$sort, $params, $table->get_page_start(), $table->get_page_size());

There are a number of DML changes here. First, I have added the standard $DB-> part. Next, I have removed the $CFG->prefix portions and instead enclosed the table names in "{}".

I also need to replace the PHP variables in the query with DML parameters. This query has two that I will deal with: $stampcoll->id and $users. The $stampcoll->id I replace with a named placeholder called ":stampcollid". The value of $stampcoll->id needs to be added to an array called $params, that I will pass to the DML function. The $users variable is a special case, because it needs to potentially be used in an "IN (...)" SQL statement.

In the old version, I created the necessary SQL using the code:

'u.id IN ('.implode(',', array_keys($users)).')

In the new version, I will use a new function created for this type of SQL statement, $DB->get_in_or_equal. This function takes an array and returns the proper SQL for "IN" if needed, or an "=" if there is only one value to worry about. My new code replaces the old code with this:

list($uids, $params) = $DB->get_in_or_equal(array_keys($users));

This statement returns the proper SQL structure in $uids, and creates the placeholder value in the $params variable. I do this before loading the 'stampcollid' placeholder value, as it creates the $params array that I need. After the array is created, I load the 'stampcollid' parameter value with:

$params['stampcollid'] = $stampcoll->id;

In the new SQL statement, you can see the use of ":stampcollid" and "$uids".

Finally, I modify the get_records_sql line significantly. I add the standard $DB->, I add $params as the second parameter and I completely remove the "if" statement from around the call. The reason I remove the "if" statement is that the DML records functions now always return an array. If no records are found, the array is empty. This means that the following "for" block will work no matter what is returned.

I also change the other two lines with database code and save "editstamps.php".

I make similar changes in "view.php", "index.php", "lib.php" and "upgrade.php" as listed in the "check_db_syntax" script output above. One thing to note, is that when I make a change in a function, like in "lib.php", I also add the code declaration "global $DB;". Without this, $DB is undefined in a function.

After making all the changes, I rerun the syntax script. The only changes noted are in the backup and restore code, which I will deal with later.

This code might run, but there are other changes I need to make still. So for now, I'll just leave it as it is.

Gavin Henrick: Edublog Award Nomination for Some Random Thoughts

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 04:34:12 +0000

(This is now over)

The Edublog Awards 2011 voting is now open.

This blog has been nominated in the Best ed tech / resource sharing blog 2011 category.

A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate me on their blog, now over to the voting!

If you have found the blog or the blog posts / white papers useful, please consider voting for the blog, it is quick and painless (so they assure me).

Vote here -> http://edublogawards.com/vote-here/

If you can please vote from your home, as they restrict the votes to one vote per IP per day. THis means that if your organisation shares one IP address externally they wll only count one vote per day from it.

While you are over there I recommend you consider adding a vote to the following Moodle-y nominees:

Moodle – Best Free Web tool

Human (Tomaz Lasic) – Best Teacher Blog

Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org – Miguel Guhlin – Best Administrator Blog

You can vote for them all in one page using the block on the left side http://edublogawards.com/2011-3/best-ed-tech-resource-sharing-blog-2011/

Gavin Henrick: Review: Ajax Marking Block for Moodle 2

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:28:25 +0000

The plugin that I am reviewing today is the practical timesaver for people marking submissions – the AJAX Marking Block.

Background

This block has been around since 2008. It is developed by Matt Gibson who has been migrating it work on Moodle 2. Although it currently works for Moodle 2 not all features are active yet.

What does it do?

Currently when a teacher wants to get a complete list of all work to be marked, there is no way to get a complete list of every submission without going into the courses. This block solves that issue. When you place this block on the front page, the teacher is then shown all of the unmarked work that has been submitted by students in their courses.

The list of submissions needing marking are broken down by course and expands to show the individual modules and student submissions. When you click on the course, it expands, and then you see the assignments that have submissions. When you click on the assignment it expands to show the list of names that have submitted. One nice feature is that when you click on a name it will bring you directly to the work to be marked in a pop-up window.

As this is a recent migration from 1.9, not every feature is enabled yet for the Moodle 2 version.

Currently the block supports the following submission types for Moodle 2:

Assignment
Forum (only if ratings are on)
Workshop
Quiz (essay questions only)

The Moodle 1.9 version also supported the Journal activity.

Is it simple to install?

It was straight forward to install. You can download the plugin directly from the plugin database or access it through Github where you can browse the source code too.

After downloading the zip, and unzipped it there was a folder called ajax_marking. I uploaded this into the moodle/blocks folder of my Moodle site.

When logging in as admin to the site I was prompted to upgrade to install the module. It installed and produced no errors. There was no new global settings created by the plugin.

Is there documentation for it?

The Moodle Docs page provides an overview of the functionality and an update of what the difference is for the Moodle 2 version. and then details all the screens that a teacher or student can see, and explains the key features and settings. The README.txt in the zip provides an overview on the functionality.

Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?

The block is very simple to use. Once added to the page, the teacher can just expand the courses that they want to look at and click on the name of the student they want to correct. The submission then appears in a pop-up.

One very helpful feature is that once you have graded the submission in the pop up, and clicked on submit it will close the pop up and auto-updated the listing in the block so that submission does not appear anymore to be marked. However, if you want to continue marking all the submissions you may prefer to go into that particular assignment using the grading interface without the pop up.

The Moodle 1.9 version has a feature not yet ported for Moodle 2 which enables configuring on a per assessment basis if you want to hide it, or have the groups show up in the expanding tree. I can’t wait for this to be working on Moodle 2 as well.

Is it easy for the learner/student to use?

This is not a block for students as the block requires you to have a teacher role on a course to see the submission listing.

Does it do what it promises?

Yes it does, or will when fully ported. I liked the Moodle 1.9 version, and it will be great when all the functionality is fully ported over to Moodle 2 so keep an eye on it. This is a simple time-saver and it is easy to use. If you are a teacher having to mark submissions across a number of courses, this is going to be a block you talk to your Moodle admin about.

Stars: 3 out of 5 stars for this activity.

**Standard Reminder**

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Integration, exposed: Integration round 2011-12-02 Summary - Moodle 2.2 RC1

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:29:18 +0000

by Sam Hemelryk.

This is a summary of the integration effort since our last notice through to the release of Moodle 2.2 RC1.

Cold numbers:

104 issues have been integrated and 17 have been delayed or rejected. That is an 86% success rate, we're on the way up!

Notes:

These rounds have led us to the upcoming final round before the release of Moodle 2.2.
During these rounds we saw several more fixes for issues identified during our Quality Assurance (QA) tests which just goes to show that they are there for a reason and they work!
The upcoming final round which is in progress now will see installation, and upgrade testing really put through it's paces, and only bug fixes for issues that are straight forward and 100% safe will be accepted from now on out, and will be accepted on an issue by issue basis.
The final round is set to wrap up tomorrow, allowing us to release Moodle 2.2 within the next 24 hours.

Hot topics:

Several issues that would have blocked release have been fixed now. Including an upgrade conflict caused by the removal of the global search block, and several issues relating to RSS feeds.
Unit tests have now been run on a number of different systems and all noted failures have been fixed up.
A couple of priority backup related issues have also now been resolved.

Warm thanks:

To everyone who has helped with the QA tests for Moodle 2.2
To all of the developers who have helped out in fixing bugs turned up by QA testing and other blockers found along the way.

Cheers, Sam

Jenny Gray: LearningSpace revisited

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:28:50 +0000

by Jenny Gray.

For the last year I've been working hard on our Moodle 2 VLE for students and on our new web annotation system.

Those projects have now come to an end and although my colleagues will be continuing to maintain and improve those systems, I will be turning my attention back to OpenLearn.

My first task is to take a look at how to move LearningSpace away from its Moodle 1.9 platform before it is no longer supported.

There's a lot to think about over the next few months as we plan out how to do it.

We want to take advantage of the opportunity to try to make things better. So we're looking at which features of LearningSpace are most popular, what works well and what doesn't.

If you have any opinions that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you.

Gavin Henrick: Review: Scheduler for Moodle 2

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:30:34 +0000

Today I am reviewing the very popular plugin for helping you schedule appointments with students – Scheduler 2.x

Background

This Moodle plugin has been around for a few years, originally for Moodle 1.9 which was maintained by Valery Fremaux but now has been migrated to Moodle 2 by Henning Bostelmann from the University of York.

What does it do?

In short, this activity enables you to plan and schedule one-to-one appointments with participants in the course. The teacher specifies time periods in which they are available for the appointments and how long each appointment can be. Then the students can select one of the time slots and book it. The teacher can then record the attendance of the student at the appointment. There is also an option to grade the session if so required.

One important feature is that it can support group scheduling as well as just one-to-one.

Is it simple to install?

Yes. You can download the plugin directly from the plugin database or access it through Github where you can browse the source code too.It should be noted that the author says that all minor updates will only happy on Github so you should keep an eye on that!

After I downloaded the zip, and unzipped it there was a folder called scheduler. I uploaded this into the moodle/mod folder of my Moodle site. When logging in as admin to the site I was prompted to upgrade to install the module. It installed and produced no errors.

It did create a number of global settings which as normal I left as default for my review.

Scheduler Global Settings

Is there documentation for it?

The plugin entry has a brief overview on how it works but the Moodle Docs page provides a good overview and then details all the screens that a teacher or student can see, and explains the key features and settings. The README.txt in the zip also provides good installation information.

Is it easy for the teacher/admin to use?

This is a very nice activity for the teacher to use. There are a number of tasks the teacher can do with this:

Create the scheduler activity

This entails setting the overall settings for the scheduling in addition to the name and description; for example whether a student can only register one appointment total, or just one at a time and whether it is graded.

Settings

The activity options are:

Role name of teacher
Mode - (One single appointment vs. One at a time)
Reuse guard time
Default slot duration - (length in minutes for the slots you set up)
Grade - (if you wish to grade and if so, the value)
Grading Strategy
Notifications - (teachers and students can receive notifications when appointments are booked or cancelled.)

Add Slots (multiple or single)

When adding a single slot, you specify exactly when it is, the start time, duration and other details related to the booking. When adding multiple slots you specify a range and what days/times you want the slots created between.

Below are the images for both options:

Add single slot

Add multiple slots

Some of the features I really like are the reminder emails which can be sent some days before the slot or on the morning of the appointment.

It is also possible to schedule the appointment for the student rather than having them do it themselves which is good if someone has forgotten to book.

There are a number of other features such as the reporting on statistics which can be reported by student, teacher, slot duration or group size which is very neat!

Is it easy for the learner/student to use?

It is a very straight forward option for the student. They are presented with a range of options and can choose one.

Scheduler Student View

Once they select and save the selection goes bold so it is easy to identify. The reminder emails are great way of ensuring attendance at the appointment.

Does it do what it promises?

Yes and more. I always liked this activity with Moodle 1.9 and now it is available for Moodle 2 it is great news. It is easy to use, has lots of good features and has plenty of documentation. This provides a much-needed feature for scheduling appointments with reminders and personally would love to see this or a similar feature end up in core Moodle as it is useful to academic and corporate training world.

Stars: 4 out of 5 stars for this activity.

**Standard Reminder**

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Gavin Henrick: The move to Creative Commons license for blog posts

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:09:05 +0000

It has been my intention for some time to move my blog posts to Creative Commons license and that is now in progress (with blog posts being retro edited in the content).

Most I have discussed it with asked two questions: Why and Which license? So this post will try to answer both.

Why

The why is the easy part. With no explicit license on a post there sometimes is ambiguity on what someone can do with the content. Most realise what no specified license means, but some do not and feel that anything online is fair game for re-use. Probably 99% of people who copied the content attribute, but there was a small minority who probably in ignorance took the post or part of and did not attribute.

So this way, I am clearly informing that it is totally okay to take the content, translate it, excerpt it, print it, recite it backwards and so on as long as the chosen license is followed. It would also be nice to know where it gets used too, but that is optional.

So which license?

I have read many posts, listened to podcasts, watched videos, read slides on the benefits of different licenses for content for sharing, and well, a few points were common.

All carry the basic Attribution aspect, that the user must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. This is nice and basically follows the concept of citations, so this is why I went for Creative Commons in the first place. In my case, it will be referencing my name and the website url beside the included content. There is a good page on this on creativecommons.org http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Marking/Users

The one aspect I liked instantly was the ShareAlike aspect which requires that anyone who uses the content, must subsequently license their content in the same manner with the specific license. So this was in.

The Non Commercial restricts the distribution of the content but to what purpose and to what extent? It is also something of a debate as to what non-commercial means. Are fee paying institutions commercial or non commercial. What difference is a university using a Creative Commons item or a training company? So I ruled out this option as something too confusing and really not helpful in my case.

The No Derivatives Works option is something that I also felt unnecessary in the case of the content. Where only a piece of the post, or paper, or review may be useful it does not make sense to stop people from altering, transforming, or building upon the work. So I ruled out this option on this basis.

So that is how I came to decide that the license I will use is the Attribution ShareAlike or CC BY-SA.

The Creative Commons website describes this license as follows:

“This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.” (from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)

There are options for other licensing arrangements, just contact me with any requests.

Implementation

In theory there are a number of options, such as using a plugin, a block, or changing the theme, but in the end I decided on a manual option. Although there are some old plugins for adding the item to every post and RSS feed item, I could not find one that was up-to-date. I did not want to add a text block to make everything on the site covered, as there may be occasions I will include something that can’t be the CC BY-SA open license that I wish to use. So the only way that I found was the manually add in the text to every new post and old one. Which means I will be going backwards to apply the text in the old posts.

So go ahead, use the posts which get the CC BY-SA added if you want in your training materials, just make sure that the attribution is clearly on the same page / slide as the content used and that your resource is also CC BY-SA licensed. If you are unsure about your usage, just ask and I can help clarify.

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Dan Poltawski: The beer is about to get a lot colder..

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:21:28 +0000

When Tim first returned to the UK from his time at Moodle HQ, the first thing he did¹ was to invite me to come to The Great British Beer Festival with him. Apparently i’d taunted him with reports of Real Ale whilst he was in Perth. Well.. it’s time for Tim to get his own back!

After seven years working at LUNS and nine years living in Lancaster, I’ve decided to have a change of scenery and i’m going to be leaving many great friends and colleagues behind to move to Moodle HQ in Perth, Australia. Needless to say, this was not an easy decision to make. (Although the weather like Lancaster demonstrated today could convince me otherwise!)

My involvement with Moodle started with LUNS and it has been a great journey. We were newcomers to the Moodle community with a small project to move a few keen high-schools onto supported hosting platform in 2005. My first post to moodle.org was asking the theme forums for advice on how to do multiple themes on a single codebase and the first patch I remember getting accepted was to help us solve that problem six months later: MDL-6784.² Today LUNS is one of the largest non-HQ code contributors to recent Moodle releases and have provided hundreds of thousands of people with access to Moodle through our various clients – primary school students³, university lecturers⁴, high school teachers, company employees and charity workers. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed that journey and the great people who have made it what it is.

I’m really looking forward to working for Moodle HQ! Despite being so close to Moodle as a developer, I continue to be amazed and motivated by how many people I can touch by working on Moodle. Friends from my days at school and university use Moodle as part of their job on a daily basis, my youngest sister is currently studying and supported with Moodle (unfortunately only at stage 1 of Martin’s pedagogical stages) and I meet more and more moodlers ever day! I’m hoping that my time working as external developer working on the other side of the world to Perth will be a great new perspective to add to the team.

I’ll be working for LUNS for a while yet, but it feels like a good opporunity to thank everyone i’ve worked with over the years at LUNS, clients and community members who accepted my patches. I’m touched by the kind post about my leaving. I expect to continue working with you if more indirectly at Moodle HQ.

Happy Moodling!

Well, the first thing I knew about, anyway
Although the git history suggests my first fix was actually a horrible JS change which surprises me more than anyone!
Making their initial steps to learning how to use a computer
No comment

Mike Churchward: Converting Moodle 1.9 Plug-ins to Moodle 2 - Activity Module Upgrade - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Churchward) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:44:16 +0000

Continuing on with my Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2 code migration series, I next want to tackle an activity module. I took a look around the "contrib" areas for a suitable module that needed attention. Alas, I could not find one that was simple enough to do in this blog and hadn't already been migrated. But, I have chosen to do David Mudrack's Stamp Collection module. I have spoken to David, and he is in the process of migrating this, so my version won't be official. Still, it is a good module to migrate as it is straightforward and will allow me to demonstrate the key areas that need to be changed.

I have created a repository for the code, forked from David's. The MOODLE_19_STABLE branch contains the code that will be modified. The MOODLE_21_STABLE branch contains my changes as I migrate the module. Start with the MOODLE_19_STABLE branch if you want to follow along.

When I did the block migration I attempted to install the block with the old code first. With an activity module, I could do this, but I already know with the amount of changes necessary, it will fail. And because of the way Moodle works, as long as that old code is there, I will not be able to get past the upgrade screen as an administrator. So instead, I am going to try and create a methodical upgrade process here.

I'm going to start by referring to the "Migrating contrib code to 2.0" document. This document is for exactly what I'm doing.

Now, here I will diverge for the first time (yes, already). One of the key things missing here is the new language string requirements.

In Moodle 1.9, all plug-ins had language subdirectories with the suffix "_utf8" in their name. In Moodle 2, this suffix is removed. So one of the first things I need to do is rename all of my language subdirectories in this fashion. For example, I rename my '/mod/stampcoll/lang/en_utf8' directory to '/mod/stampcoll/lang/en'. The other key change is to add two new strings to my language file: 'pluginname' and 'pluginadministration'. I add the following to my '/mod/stampcoll/lang/en/stampcoll.php' file:

$string['pluginadministration'] = 'Stamp collections administration';
$string['pluginname'] = 'Stamp collections';

There are some other key changes that I will have to make to my language files, but I will put that off until later.

Back to the migration document, the first thing it notes is that I need a 'requires' statement in my version file. Without this, my module will not pass the installation stage.

Looking at my 'version.php' file, I specifically change:

$module->requires = 2007101508; // Requires this Moodle version - 1.9 Beta 4

to:

$module->requires = 2010080300; // Requires this Moodle version

I also upgrade the version of the module to reflect that it is new. For now, I have selected the same version number as the "requires".

Next, the document refers to the database layer. There are many changes in Moodle 2 that impact database functions. I'm going to focus on the XMLDB/DDL changes first, since they impact the actual installation and upgrading of the module.

I have opened up the "db/install.xml" file in a text editor. At the bottom of that file, there is XML code framed in <STATEMENTS> tags. In 1.9, this section was used to execute any specific data statements that needed to be executed after the data tables were set up. Primarily, this section contained records to enter into the Moodle "log_display" table. In Moodle 2, log display entries go into a separate file, "db/log.php". If there are any other data statements required for the module, they now belong in "db/install.php".

In my "db/install.xml" file, I have:

<STATEMENTS>
<STATEMENT NAME="insert log_display" TYPE="insert" TABLE="log_display" COMMENT="Initial insert of records on table log_display">
    <SENTENCES>
      <SENTENCE TEXT="(module, action, mtable, field) VALUES ('stampcoll', 'view', 'stampcoll', 'name')" />
      <SENTENCE TEXT="(module, action, mtable, field) VALUES ('stampcoll', 'update', 'stampcoll', 'name')" />
      <SENTENCE TEXT="(module, action, mtable, field) VALUES ('stampcoll', 'add', 'stampcoll', 'name')" />
      <SENTENCE TEXT="(module, action, mtable, field) VALUES ('stampcoll', 'update stamp', 'user', 'concat(firstname, \' \', lastname)')" />
      <SENTENCE TEXT="(module, action, mtable, field) VALUES ('stampcoll', 'delete stamp', 'user', 'concat(firstname, \' \', lastname)')" />
    </SENTENCES>
</STATEMENT>
</STATEMENTS>

I remove all of these statements from the file, and create a new "db/log.php" file containing:

$logs = array(
    array('module'=>'stampcoll', 'action'=>'view', 'mtable'=>'stampcoll', 'field'=>'name'),
    array('module'=>'stampcoll', 'action'=>'update', 'mtable'=>'stampcoll', 'field'=>'name'),
    array('module'=>'stampcoll', 'action'=>'add', 'mtable'=>'stampcoll', 'field'=>'name'),
    array('module'=>'stampcoll', 'action'=>'update stamp', 'mtable'=>'user', 'field'=>'concat(firstname, \' \', lastname)'),
    array('module'=>'stampcoll', 'action'=>'delete stamp', 'mtable'=>'user', 'field'=>'concat(firstname, \' \', lastname)'),
    );

There are no other statements I need to worry about, so I don't need a "db/install.php" file.

Next, I need to remove all "ENUM" statements from the XML. "ENUM" is no longer a valid attribute in Moodle, so the presence of these statements will be flagged as a warning. I could manually remove them from the "install.xml" file right now, but I'm going to leave them. Moodle provides me a simpler method using the XMLDB editor that I will use later.

Finally, I need to make some changes to the existing "db/upgrade.php" script. As documented, there are many changes to be made, most of them straightforward. The summary of what I chang is:

Change the $db global declaration to $DB.
Add the line "$dbman = $DB->get_manager();".
Change all of the "XMLDB" functions to "xmldb_" functions.
Change all of the "setAttributes" functions to "set_attributes", removing the sixth and seventh parameters in the few places they are provided.
Add $dbman-> to the DDL functions.
Remove the use of $result from the DDL functions.
Remove all other uses of $result and set the return value to "true".
Add upgrade_mod_savepoint calls at the end of each upgrade block.

When completed, I have a "mostly" working upgrade script. There are some changes I will need to make at the start of this script, where DML function calls are used. This will not impact a fresh install though, so I will do that when I do the main DML changes later.

There seems to be one other change I need to make, that I cannot find documented anywhere. In "db/access.php", the variable name $mod_stampcoll_capabilities needs to be changed to $capabilities.

These should be all the changes I need to have the module install correctly in Moodle 2. Time to give it a shot! Visiting the site notifications page, offers me the option to install the module. I hit the "Upgrade" button, and it installs without errors or warnings.

Now, there is one more thing I'm going to fix before leaving the installation code. Remember that I noted that "ENUM" statements needed to be removed from the "install.xml" file? Now we're going to use the Moodle tool to do this.

I select the "XMLDB editor" option from the "Site administration / Development" menu. From there, I look for the "mod/stampcoll/db" entry and click the "Load" link. If I click the "XML" link now, I will see the "ENUM" statements still present. Instead, I click the "Edit" link. This brings me to a screen like the image below. Clicking either of the "XML" links shows me XML without the "ENUM" statements.

Now, at worst case, you can cut the XML from this display and paste it back into your XML file. At best, you can set your directory permissions so that the application can write to it, and save the changes right from there. Both will work fine, and both will result in XML with the "ENUM" statements gone, which is what Moodle 2 wants.

Just to make sure my XML is okay, I un-installed my Stamp Collection module, and then re-installed it. Everything worked fine.

That will be all I do for this part. Next, we will look at the other changes to make the module functional.

Gavin Henrick: Moodle 2.2 supports connecting to IMS LTI tools.

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:33:53 +0000

The upcoming release of Moodle 2.2 now has the IMS LTI or “External Tool” functionality which is going to be one integration type that I forsee being heavily used.

But what is it? What is IMS LTI and why would you want to use it?

IMS LTI – quick overview

For those who have not heard about it before, IMS LTI is an IMS standard for Learning Tool Interoperability. This means that learning tools now have a set way in which they can seamlessly connect to each other.

In practice while a user is logged into one tool (Moodle for example) they can then connect over to the other tool (a wiki or blog) and be automatically authenticated providing a seamless experience.

This is a link to a 30 minutes video about Basic LTI by Charles Severance which I recommend you watch when you have time!

But let’s get back to Moodle.

How will this work within Moodle?

So one example would be, that a teacher can set up an Activity in the Moodle course for the students which connects them to a blog site(like WordPress). This process automatically authenticates them and enables them to use the external blog. #

This could be used for any standalone learning tool which implements LTI.

Think about the possibilities – someone builds a really cool maths engine and instead of having to make it work inside Moodle, all they do is implement the IMS LTI standard and provide connection details to those who want to use it.

There are a range of tools already enabled such as Learning Objects Campus pack tools and Noteflight.

How to use

The integration in Moodle 2.2 is simple to use, it is just an activity in a course. A teacher turns on editing, and then starts adding the activity External Tool from the dropdown.

The basic integration details that are required are

Launch URL
Consumer key
Consumer secret

This is the information the Learning Tool provider needs to give to the teacher so they can connect. Depending on the tool, it is also possible to pass over some extra custom parameters which can be used to display one particular resource. This would be where the overall connection has a library of activities, but the teacher wants to connect to just one.

External Tool Settings

There are four privacy options which can control how much information the tool gets from Moodle.

Privacy Options

The one that stands out for me is that the tool can pass grades back into Moodle. This has much potential.

An Example – ChemVantage – General Chemistry.

ChemVantage is a free resource for science education which includes grade exercises, homework exercises, practice exams, video lectures and free online textbooks. It was created by ChemVantage LLC which was founded by Prof. Chuck Wight, who has taught General Chemistry at the University of Utah since 1984. The site is powered by the5 Google App Engine.

The below image shows homework exercise on Atoms and Elements embedded into the Moodle webpage. Although the exercise is hosted on ChemVantage.org the LTI enables the teacher to use it in Moodle without having students log in again.

ChemVantage embedded into Moodle with LTI

An Example – WordPress Multi-user

As mentioned, it is also possible with some changes to to an existing web application to make it an LTI provider tool. One example is turning WordPress Multi-user into an activity for Moodle. The below image shows WordPress site embedded within Moodle with the teacher automatically logged in.

Wordpress Multi-user embedded into Moodle 2 with LTI

This was using Dr. Chucks WordPress Multi-User Sandbox.

An Example -Mediawiki

Here is an example screenshot of using the External Tool to embed a Mediawiki site into Moodle. The category it goes to is determined by the course shortname.

Mediawiki embedded into Moodle 2 with LTI

An Example – Musicflight

This is an example of how it can work with a really cool Music tool called Noteflight.

More to come!

I will update this post with other examples too over the coming days.

So that is it, or isn’t it.

What are the benefits of having the tool outside of Moodle?

Learning Tool Producers

Organisations who want to provide their tool into Moodle now don’t need to learn Moodle, they just learn and implement the standard. Where before each system released an integration activity or block for Moodle and other LMS they wanted to support, now this means less cost for them in supporting and maintaining those connections. They can focus on their product – the tool.

Institutions / Teachers

If a teacher, or an institution has an idea for a tool but want to ensure it is usable with Moodle, it won’t matter if they are Perl, Java or Python developers – they don’t need to learn how to program in PHP, nor how any of the APIs in moodle works. All they do is code their tool to the standard.

Training Companies / Content Providers

Where before training companies provided a set of learning objects (usually Scorm or full course backups) which users installed into their LMS, this will provide an alternative strategy.

They will now be able to keep all the content centrally, and provide LTI access to it. This offers the training company and the end users many benefits. These benefits include:

Any fixed or small changes can be done centrally, and benefit everyone without having to distribute a new copy of the learning object
Any improvements can again be applied centrally
The ability to provide test access is much improved, and does not comprimise the security of the content, so it will be easier to get to test something out without having to install it locally.

Moodle administrators / Teachers

Up to now, if you wanted to add a tool into Moodle you usually went through a vetting process with IT – which could include many technical, functional and security type tests such as

Is the code written in a secure way
Is the code maintained
Does it work with our version of Moodle?

Now it will be easier to test and check out the tools (when they implement the LTI connection) without having to worry so much on the technical side.

Summary

This seamless integration will open the doors for many cool learning tools and activities to further extend the learning eco-system beyond the LMS.

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Gavin Henrick: Moodle 2.2 Details

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:14:11 +0000

(update) Moodle 2.2 is now released.

With most the Moodle 2.2 QA testing in full swing, I thought I should do a quick post on what we can expect in Moodle 2.2, and highlight what I am most looking forward to in the release. But first a quick word on the roadmap and QA testing.

Roadmap

The roadmap for Moodle is always available on the Moodle docs - http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Roadmap and gives a good indicator of any major features which should appear in the coming release. One thing to remember is that with the new release cycle being a release every 6 months, it means that should a feature not be ready for release it will slip till the next release date so a solid version is released.

This release combines a range minor tweaks improvements, bug fixes, and some significant improvements specifically in some of the underlying system. The current draft release notes for Moodle 2.2 can be found here – http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_2.2_release_notes.

QA Testing

Most of the first run through the tests is now complete, with the any of issues found being worked on in tracker items. This was the first release where I helped with doing some of the QA tests and it has given me a greater appreciation for the process and for the amount of work that they put into the test cycle. If you are interesting in taking part in QA testing for Moodle, you should check out the following page http://docs.moodle.org/dev/QA_testing.

User Cohorts

As mentioned in another post, User Cohorts have got a major boost through the admin being able to use the existing Upload User feature to load users into a cohort (by specifying the CohortID).

Uploading users with a cohort ID

This is a great change, and will make it much easier for managing collections of users where people do not have existing integration with their MIS or Student management system.

For the full post on cohorts check out – http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/2011/11/22/using-cohorts-with-moodle-2-2/

Rubrics

The new advanced grading plugin option is a huge step forward and will enable developers to build really fancy grading methods for assignments. As with all activities in Moodle, the grade is calculated in the activity, so an important thing to note is that the grading concept and rules are detailed within the plugin itself, opening up many options. Although only the assignment currently has the new grading options, potentially any of the modules could be enabled this way with some development.

Rubrics is the first of these plugins to be developed. For those unfamiliar with the term, a rubric is basically a set of criteria which the activity is rated against.

So for example, the list of 5 criteria I use in my public Moodle 2 module reviews could be used in a Rubric. They are marked 0-1 with one decimal place and the total rounded to a number of stars.

How easy is it to install?
How easy is it for a teacher to use?
How easy is it for a student to use?
How good is the good documentation?
How rich a feature set has it got?

When adding this into Moodle, it could like the following form (but for ease I have just added 3 levels 0,.5 and 1):

Editing a Rubric

And when using it to grade, it looks like the following image:

Grading with a Rubric

All the teacher does is click on the correct grade box – selecting it and turning it green, and adds a comment if required.

So a teacher can choose to use a Rubric instead of the normal grading selector and thus provide a series of scales by which the assignment is rated and graded. For a great video about the Rubrics you need to check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXavtUhDINA from @moodlefairy.

Reports Plugins

The reports are now handled as a type of plugin. The new system provides a much more manageable and extensible system for the control of reports. Where before reports could only be course or site level, they now can be contextual and even with the user context. We will see the benefits of this move over time as more reports get added and it becomes easier to write reports within this framework.

IMS LTI (Learning Tool Interoperability)

I just finished a blog post on IMS LTI which will go live tomorrow, so I will include a quote here:

“For those who don’t know IMS LTI is a standard for Learning Tool Interoperability. This means that learning tools now have a set way in which they can seamlessly connect to each other. This means, that while a user is logged into one tool (Moodle for example) they can then connect over to the other tool (a wiki or blog) and be automatically authenticated providing a seamless experience.”

chemvantage.org embedded with LTI

The new activity will be one that is heavily used in coming years.

Check out the blog tomorrow for more details.

Moodle Mobile

This is one area which certainly gets a lot of interest. The review I did of the official Moodle iOS app is one of the most viewed pages on the blog. With Moodle 2.2 we see two sets of improvements;

Firstly the mobile theme that has been available in the plugins database in Moodle.org is now part of the Moodle core. This is a great move and may will welcome it. The theme itself is really good being built on the Mobile jquery code. If you have not tried it, either try out the Moodle 2.2 beta or download it from the plugins database for use on your Moodle 2.1 site.
Secondly there is a HUGE improvement with the iOS app. The newest addition enables the user to download course content for offline viewing. Although initially this will only work for a resource, it could be possible to store a text/html copy of forum posts locally too for reading or other activities once they enable that aspect.

(On a side note, it was announced at the Moodle Developers meeting this week that HQ had engaged an Android developer to build the GPL version of the Official App. This will be available on GitHub and is expected at or soon after Christmas.)

Gravatars

As @moodlefairy pointed out on her blog, http://www.moodleblog.net/?p=690 – you can now use a Gravatar in Moodle as your picture. Your Gravatar is an image that your upload to their site which then “follows you around from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog and thus help identify your posts” .

Check out the Gravatar site here: http://www.gravatar.com/
Check out the post by @moodlefairy here: http://www.moodleblog.net/?p=690

Other improvements:

There is a list of other fixes but some of them that I am very happy about are:

If you wish, you can have the section links in the navigation menu as links which then display that topic only – although this is not as powerful as course menu, it does provide a similar experience for combating long course screens. Again @moodlefairy has a nice post and video on this - http://www.moodleblog.net/?p=702
The Restrict Access options for conditional access now has the hour/minutes options instead of just the date – which is very useful.

Other info

Mark Aberdour provides a good preview Moodle 2.2 features as well, on his Open Thoughts blog. He covers a range of topics including some which I haven’t included. His topics are:

Moodle’s first mobile theme
Course browsing from mobiles
Automatically add users to cohorts
Advanced assessment grading using Rubrics
Reworked architecture for reports
Reworked architecture for admin tools
Quiz access rules to help make customisation easier
Easier integration with learning applications
Easier import and export of entire courses
Other minor amends

Be sure to check it out too – http://www.open-thoughts.com/2011/11/moodle-2-2-preview-the-mobile-lms/

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Sam Marshall: This is a special super ...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:57:13 +0000

This is a special super bonus blog post. Not only are there two blog posts in one day, but this second one has two screencasts in it!

In today's Moodle developer meeting, I suggested (rather rudely, sorry) that the OU's subpage module was a better way to handle the 'everything in Moodle course has to go on the same single page which is stupid' problem than implementing some kind of 'show things on separate pages' feature in every single course format.

Subpage - quick demonstration of subpage using the standard theme so it looks pretty much like standard Moodle (about 5 minutes)

Subpage in real life - how we use subpage at the OU (about 3 minutes) - you get to see our pretty theme in this one

Here are some reasons I think subpage is a good approach:

Not dependent on course formats, or inconsistent depending on which format you're using.
Obvious; easily understandable by students and staff. (Except the name! The name sucks, but I couldn't think of a better one.)
You can keep using convenient views that take advantage of the course format to see the entire structure of the course at once (only it won't be ridiculously long now), or to show N weeks around current, or whatever it is.
Generally more flexible - for instance, want to nest pages within pages? With subpage, you can. (It's probably a bad idea, though!)

There are some problems with the way subpage is implemented; basically, it's a leetle bit of a hack. In order to make it un-hacky, some of the following things would need to happen to core:

Add all the 'come back to this URL afterward' features that we included in a short patch. Without that, in core Moodle every time you do anything in a subpage you end up back at the course page. (For instance, add a forum? Okay, great, but after it's added you're back on the course page.) It isn't really practical to use without this patch even though it does basically work if you struggle through.
Implement something (ownercmid?) in the sections table to indicate that they're owned by a module and therefore take them out of the ordinary numbering. Apply some changes to backup and restore and navigation and formats to make this slicker. (It works OK without, we're using it, but we do have a few special things in our course format to handle it as well...)
Note that this change would let authors create other modules that can include sections/Moodle activities, which could actually be pretty cool.

Subpage code repo (...may or may not work at the moment, I hope it does though).

Integration, exposed: Integration Round 2011-11-21 Summary - on demand master

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:05:05 +0000

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7).

Cold numbers:

31 issues have been successfully integrated and 6 have been rejected / delayed. That is 84% success, sweet one!

Notes:

This round was focussed into producing a new Moodle 2.2beta+ interim release aimed to facilitate everybody to test and discover new bugs and also, to unlock (reset) some QA tests with fixes added for the problems found.

Next integration cycle will run along the next 48/72 hours, trying to catch-up developers and all the remaining issues sent to integration up to 5 hours ago. It will produce stable weeklies that will be wrapped as new releases (1.9.15, 2.0.6 and 2.1.3) next Monday.

Hot topics:

A good number of improvements and bug fixes arrived to the External tool (aka, IMS-LTI) activity debuting with Moodle 2.2.
Various Theme issues received fixes here and there.
Messaging, backup and restore, wiki, web services... also received they portion of "medicine".

Warm thanks:

To all you, why not, thanks!
Specially to Chris Scribner, from Moodlerooms, for their intense week fixing and improving the External tool.
To Mary Evans, from NewSchool Learning, and her continue efforts fighting (I think that is the word) with all those css/layouts/ltr vs rtl/git worlds.

Ciao all, stronk7

Gavin Henrick: Using cohorts with Moodle 2.2

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:27:48 +0000

Cohorts are very useful in Moodle 2, but with the upcoming Moodle 2.2 release – cohorts become much more useful. It is not that the enrolment options have changed, so what has?

Up until now, the only way to add users to a cohort was through the user interface manually assigning them, which although it worked was quite time consuming! With the upcoming release this has been improved with the changes to the user upload.

The existing upload users options enables to you do a range of things including:

create user accounts
update user accounts
add users to a course or many courses
specify which role that the user is added to each course
specify which group that the user is added to in each course

But with Moodle 2.2 you will be able to add the user to an existing cohort!

Currently if you had year1 with four Moodle courses, and you wanted to mass upload users you would have a csv (spreadsheet) which had four courses specified.

So you would have the fields

username
password
firstname
lastname
email
course1
course2
course3
course4

And for each of the course1 fields you would specify the shortname of the course involved (mathsyr1, or whatever you use).

However with Moodle2, if you have enroled a cohort called year1 into each of those courses, now all you need to do is add the user to the cohort and they will be automatically added to each course under that cohort.

So now the csv has less fields and is easier to follow

username
password
firstname
lastname
email
cohort1

An example being:

username,password,firstname,lastname,email, cohort1
tomjones,Pass1234*,Tom,Jones,tomjones@example.com, year1
marysmith,Pass1234*,Mary,Smith,marysmith@example.com, year1
bobjones,Pass1234*,Bob,Jones,bobjones@example.com, year2
alicesmith,Pass1234*,Alice,Smith,alicesmith@example.com, year2

This is going to make using cohorts much easier, and although it is a small change it is really a huge one. The one thing to remember is that you MUST have the cohort already created.

So the process is as follows:

Firstly you would define all the cohorts in the cohort management area. This is found under Settings -> Site administration -> Users -> Accounts -> Cohorts.

Setting up the cohorts

Secondly you would enrol the cohort into each of the courses that it would cover. Once within the course, you find it in the course administration section under Settings -> Course administration -> Users -> Enrolment methods

Course Enrolment Methods

Once you have linked the cohort into all of the courses that you need to, you are ready to upload your users. As above, there is an example format of the csv. You upload it through the Upload users feature which is found under Settings -> Site administration -> Users -> Accounts -> Upload users. You select the file which your want to use and click Upload users.

You are then show a preview of the upload file (and it checks if the format is correct).

user upload preview

Once you have selected the other options on the page and chosen your default values you then click on Upload users. This processes your file fully, and creates the users and adds them to the correct cohort.

upload users complete

So what has happened?

The users are now synched to all the courses that the cohort was attached to. Checking the cohort page again, we see that two users have been added to each of the cohorts which is exactly what we wanted.

Cohort list updated

So now we can check the course, and here is the view of the enrolled users in one of the courses:

course user list updated with cohort members

So it shows that the users are now enrolled, as students, and that it is part of the cohort.

So that is it, it will be in Moodle 2.2 once it is released.

Spreadsheets at the ready!

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Sam Marshall: It's slightly out of date ...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:32:01 +0000

It's slightly out of date browser stats time!

Here's our browser stats for the end of last month from our Moodle 1.9-based system (...this one!) which is responsible for the vast majority of our current course ('module') websites.

Oct 2011 browser stats (Google Docs)

This includes all off-campus access (so basically, all students and tutors, but not internal staff such as academics and me) during a week at the end of last month.

The counting method is based on page views not on individuals or IP addresses, so if you use a mobile phone to access the system occasionally, but you mainly use IE9, then (when combined with everyone else) these proportions will be replicated in the stats. And if you use the system a lot (maybe you're a very active student studying several courses) you will be counted more times than somebody who only checks their course homepage once a month.

If you saw the last lot, you might be interested as to why IE7 has dropped precipitously (from about 13% to about 6%). That's because there was an error in the stats program before and it was incorrectly counting IE8 and 9 users, who had selected compatibility view, as IE7 users. (Our site forces these browsers to behave as their real version, but the user agent still has the wrong one in. However there is a way to tell.) I recalculated the old numbers too and the trend graph shows the kind of gradual decline you'd expect.

Here's hoping most of the people who are genuinely still using IE7 get new computers for Christmas. :)

Dan Poltawski: Siri Interface to the Moodle Tracker

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:44:02 +0000

Earlier today I came across an interesting project which provides a ‘proxy interface’ to Siri on the iPhone 4S allowing custom plugins to be created to respond to requests from Siri.

Eager to try this I hacked together a Moodle plugin for the siri proxy which would do lookups to the Moodle tracker. So, welcome Siri – the newest aid to the Moodle 2.2 QA testing effort

(The plugin I wrote is available on github. It is my first ruby script and its not particularly elegant as it was just for fun )

Integration, exposed: Quotes of the week

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:56:34 +0000

by Moodle Morbo.

Effectively reviewing something like that seems like an interesting challenge, because really to effectively review the solution you need to understand the problem and agree with the solution.

-- Dan Poltawski hits the important aspect of the peer-review process, which is now part of the Moodle development. Morbo notices that the final invasion solution is still being rejected by Earth integrators but that won't stop us from further interest in this tiny planet!

Actually, you are allowed both hand luggage and a lap-top bag. Perhaps you should attach the keyboard on the iMac with some duct tape, and then put that in a bag.

-- Tim Hunt's tip on how to turn a desktop computer to a laptop before travelling from UK to Australia. Morbo will do that next time he warps for holiday at his granny.

Every time I come in the morning the first message I see is that you've gone for lunch.

-- Adrian Greeve (in reply to Sam Hemelryk) experiences how it is to work on Moodle development from various sides of the planet. Morbo laughs about this local timezone issues and demands the human race switching to the Coordinated Universe Time as all other worlds have done.

Integration, exposed: Integration Round 2011-11-18 Summary - weeklies and on demand

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 17:39:26 +0000

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7).

Cold numbers:

19 issues have been successfully integrated and 6 have been rejected / delayed. That is 76% success, not bad, but far from perfect!

Notes:

This was an "hybrid" round, where we mixed:

stable branches: Normal "weeklies", with bugfixes, security stuff, small improvements and friends. Towards new minor releases in 2 weeks.
master branch (aka 2.2beta), Special "on-demand" round where we are under continuous-integration, furiously reviewing and accepting all the fixes that are solved thanks to the QA testing process, apart from other fixes and improvements. This "crazy" mode will last until the release of Moodle 2.2, planned for December 1st.

Hot topics:

A good number of improvements and bug fixes arrived to the quiz activity, now far better integrated with the gradebook.
Various regressions from last (mammoth) week were detected and have been fixed now. More coming soon.
Some nice improvements to RTL languages.

Warm thanks:

To all the people involved in the big pressure that this (last) month before release imposes. I'm sure it will be worth the effort, thanks!
Specially to Tim Hunt and Sam Marshall, from the Open University, UK. They accounted > 50% of fixed issues in this round, but the gratitude goes beyond that, thanks!

Ciao all, stronk7

Jenny Gray: OU Annotate - a new way to give feedback

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:30:07 +0000

by Jenny Gray.

We always expected it, and I know tutors are worried about OU Annotate adding a new place that they feel they need to keep an eye on for student comment, but I'm surprised at how quickly we're seeing OU Annotate used to give feedback about page content.

Let me say now that we do not expect tutors to moderate activity on OU Annotate. That's why there's an "alert" feature, so students can report things to us. We also do not expect tutors to engage in dialog with students about annotations, though I can understand why a dedicated tutor might feel that it is a good idea to do so. For now, OU Annotate is a "personal tool" not indended to be required as a part of study. In the same way, we don't expect tutors to look at their students personal blog posts.

Last week I blogged that OU Annotate had gone live to a select group of students. Just a few hours later, someone had annotated my post! If you have access to OU Annotate, you can go and look. If not, the annotation was on the phrase "February is the bigger unveiling to all students, with some extra features that we've nearly finished." and the comment made was "I'd like to hear more about what these extra features are..I hope it will be on the blog."

This isn't the only example of early use of the new system to provide feedback. There's some on the student user guide for the VLE too. As an author, its an odd feeling to see someone "write" on your work. Very direct. On balance, I think its a good thing, but definitely unnerving.

And it definitely provokes a response! So here, for Will and any-one else who's interested is the list of features coming in February.

In the toolbar:

slip of the mouse created an annotation you don't want? One click immediate delete option
tried to load on a site with frames and nothing happened? explanation message added
move the end points of existing highlights - including merging annotations together
copy some-one else's highlight to annotate the same words
give an annotation a rating to show you like it, see a count of "likes" for each annotation
automatic and user methods for fixing broken annotations (where the page has changed)

In the manager:

view your own and other people's profile, not just followers
a tag cloud
give an annotation a rating to show you like it, see a count of "likes" for each annotation, sort by most liked, most liked block
rss and atom feeds of recently shared and most liked annotations
export to Google docs or RTF options
select subset of displayed annotations for export, paged download for large exports
advanced search - filter by highlight colour, author, url, date etc
alter the number of items displayed in each block
accessibility & usability improvements

Mike Churchward: Converting M1.9 Plug-ins to M2 - Block Part 7 - Cleaning Up

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Churchward) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:12:31 +0000

This is part eight of my series concerning porting Moodle 1.9 code to Moodle 2.

In part four, I ran into an issue where the Ajax script was spitting out warning messages, specifically:

Coding problem: $PAGE->context was not set. You may have forgotten to call require_login() or $PAGE->set_context(). The page may not display correctly as a result

I resolved this by adding a require_login and set_context function calls.

Tim Hunt suggested in the comments that this might be unnecessary if resolved by setting the constant AJAX_SCRIPT to "true". Tim also provided me an example in the Moodle repo to look at.

I have tried this. I added the line define('AJAX_SCRIPT', true) to the top of my script, and removed the $PAGE->set_context($block->context) line. Unfortunately this caused the warning to come back, leaving me to think that I still need to have the set_context function to complete the rendering function. I left the require_login there as it is more appropriate and secure for that function to be there.

That said, there are probably good reasons to leave that AJAX_SCRIPT constant in there, so I have looked to see what it does. From the code I have looked at, and some of the issues in the tracker, I believe that setting this constant should prevent some potential problems by setting the page renderer appropriately. This should prevent unnecessary output from normal HTML page output, and package exceptions differently. To be safe, I will leave it there even though it did not solve the problem I hoped it would.

In part six, I added a global configuration to the block to so that the defaults for instance configurations could be specified. In my original design, I modified the specialization function so that instead of using hard-coded defaults for the instance settings, it checked for a global default setting first. This meant that for each instance setting, one database call was made. An example of what I have is this:

if(empty($this->config->search_string)) {
    if (($defaultsearch = get_config('block_twitter_search', 'defaultsearch')) === false){
        $defaultsearch = '#moodle';
    }
    $this->config->search_string = $defaultsearch;
}

This code is repeated three times; one for each configuration variable. Each one of the calls to get_config is one database access.

In the comments for this post, Tim Hunt pointed out that get_config can be called without the second argument. When the function is used without that argument, it returns an object with all of the global configuration variables for the plug-in as variables (properties) of that object. Thus, I can get all of the configuration variables with just one database access and reduce the load on the system.

So, I will create a new function called get_global_config as follows:

function get_global_config() {
    if (!isset($this->globalconfig)) {
        if (($this->globalconfig = get_config('block_twitter_search')) == null) {
            $this->globalconfig = new stdClass;
            $this->globalconfig->defaultsearch = '#moodle';
            $this->globalconfig->defaultnumtweets = 10;
            $this->globalconfig->defaultpolltime = 30000;
        }
    }
    return $this->globalconfig;
}

This function creates a new variable within my block containing the global settings. If there are no global settings, it uses hard-coded defaults. It also returns those settings in case a calling function wishes to use what it set that way. I will use this function to set the instance configuration variables if they have not been specified for the instance in my specialization function:

function specialization() {
    $this->get_global_config();

    if(!isset($this->config->search_string)) {
        $this->config->search_string = $this->globalconfig->defaultsearch;
    }
    if(!isset($this->config->no_tweets)){
        $this->config->no_tweets = $this->globalconfig->defaultnumtweets;
    }
    if(!isset($this->config->polltime)){
        $this->config->polltime = $this->globalconfig->defaultpolltime;
    }
}

By doing things this way, I have reduced the database accesses required for each block instance by two thirds. You may also notice that I changed the use of "empty" statements to "!isset" statements. The reason for this is that empty is true for many conditions including blank and zero values. isset is only true if the variable actually exists. The polltime setting is supposed to be allowed to be zero, so using empty would not have allowed that.

When I did some further testing, including uninstalling the block completely from my test site, I discovered that the global configuration values were not removed from the 'config_plugins' table. This means that there are remnants of the block left in the database after I have deleted the block. Ideally, Moodle should handle this with the uninstall process automatically, but after looking through the code in detail, I have determined that it does not. I have logged an issue with the Moodle team in the Moodle Tracker describing this problem. You can see it under MDL-30327.

Until that bug is fixed, if I can solve the problem, I should. So, I will add a new method to my block called before_delete. This function is part of the blocks API, and is called by the system when the block is being uninstalled but before the uninstall operation completes. I will use this function to delete the global configuration data specifically from the block code when it is being deleted. My new function looks like this:

function before_delete() {
unset_all_config_for_plugin('block_twitter_search');
}

With the addition of this function, my block now completely cleans up after itself when it is removed.

In part 6, when I was creating the configuration code, I noted that the global settings link for the block was visible in the menu tree, but would not be visible in the main block management page unless there was a has_config method defined that returned "true". In the comments to this post, Tim Hunt suggested that this may in fact be a bug, rather than intended functionality. I have therefore added MDL-30332 to the tracker for the Moodle team to look over.

There have been requests to make the code I am playing with available via Git. To that end, I have set up a public repository called "moodleaddons" at Github. There are two branches available there: MOODLE_19_STABLE which contains the code I started with, and MOODLE_21_STABLE which contains the code as it is now. Feel free to grab that code and play with it anyway you'd like. If you are not a Git user, there is a link to grab a zip of the code as well.

Lastly, Kevin Hughes, the original code author has now made his Moodle 2 version available at the Moodle downloads site. He has commented that he will look at the changes done in this series for possible inclusion into his release.

I am going to put this code away for now, and will look for a good Moodle module to focus on next. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for code that I can look at.

Integration, exposed: Integration Round 2011-11-15 Summary - Moodle 2.2 beta

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:34:41 +0000

by Sam Hemelryk.

Integration this week took longer than usual and in fact ran throughout the entire week with the last issue being integrated on Tuesday the following week.
This was because of the impending code freeze in preparation for the release of Moodle 2.2.

Cold numbers:

64 issues have been successfully integrated and 13 have been pushed back for further work. That's a success rate of 83%! Not a bad effort given the quantity of exciting new features and improvements in this weeks haul.

Exciting new features in master:

The new IMS-LTI module was integrated this week.
The MyMobile theme is now in core. A new theme for Moodle 2.2 especially designed for shiny mobile devices.
There's a new plugin type available now for Reports that allows general reporting on several context levels. Several reports within Moodle have already been converted to the report plugin type.
A new report plugin type has been introduced. This will allow developers to create a broader range of reports more easily and will in a future release see the course reports plugin type deprecated.
Advanced grading methods have also made the cut this week and are now in core. Check out what you can do with them within the assignment module.
The first half of Common Cartridge Import/Export has also been integrated this week. It is now possible to restore courses from a common cartridge format.

Hot topics:

Improved consistency of user selectors throughout Moodle with more fields than ever being selectable.
A new scorn report plugin this week to report on interactions.
A handful of performance and usability issues this week, most notably better handling of session locks and enrolment caching.
Numerous areas have received multiple fixes this week including Themes, Quiz, Question, Token login, and SCORM.

This weeks thanks:

A big thank you to all those who participated in the significant new features and improvements for the upcoming release.
And of course our top integrator Eloy Lafuente who forgot to mention his phenomenal efforts in last weeks integration summary.

Cheers
Sam

Gavin Henrick: How to separate students into two different activities using groups and groupings

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:30:41 +0000

As this has been a common query on mailing lists and twitter, so I thought I should do a short piece on the feature. This short article shows the process for setting up activities which are locked to group members only; that is, I will create two activities but each will be locked to two different sets of students and in this example we will use a forum.

Firstly to give the background – with normal course groups you can set up an activity (forum in this case) with two options:

Visible groups
Separate groups.

With Visible groups each group member works in their own group, but can also see other groups work.

With Separate groups each group member can only see their own group, and the others are invisible.

In both options using the forum settings and this means that the users communicate in the same forum activity(same link on the page) but in different threads. However, this means it is the same forum description and link.

But sometimes you want to have each doing something different (perhaps if it is 2 different project discussions). This is where groupings come in. A grouping is a group of groups.

So what are the steps?

So in this example, firstly I created two groups of students. I called one of them apple and the other one carrot and placed three students into each. I placed my student account into the apple group.

group setup

Next, once the groups were created, I created two groupings and placed one group into each.

As mentioned earlier a grouping is a collection of groups, so it could have more than one in it, I am just using one in this example.

So I created a grouping called FRUIT and put the apples group into it. Then I created a grouping called VEG and put the carrot group into it.

Groupings List

So now the course part is ready to start using creating the activities, but before I create the forums, there was another setting I had to enable, this is called Enable Group members only.

This is found in the Settings block > Site Administration > Development > Experimental Settings.

I needed to tick the Enable group members only setting and save.

Experimental Settings

With that done, I could go back to the course.

So in the first topic of the course I started to create the first forum, and lock it to the Fruit grouping.

Under the Common module settings I chose selected the correct grouping Fruit and ticked the box to lock to group members only as in the image below.

Common Settings

Then I repeated the same with a forum for the Veg grouping.

This is how the course page looks to the course admin:

Course view

Each forum has the grouping name after it in brackets.

But what about the student view?

In my different browser, I had myself logged in as a student.

The student was in the apple group (image above) and therefore the FRUIT grouping, so it can only see the fruit forum. There are no brackets with grouping name after the activity, and the student is unaware of any other activity existing.

Student View

So that is it. That is the process for setting up two different activities for different groups of students so that they are only aware of the one they are supposed to use.

So to recap:

A group is a collection of students – Set these up first
A grouping is a collection of groups – Set these up next
You need to enable the experimental setting Enable group members only to get the options in Common Module Settings.
Create the activities last

This work by Gavin Henrick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.