Moodle – CS view Distributed IT Forum - 22nd February 2006 Stephen Gallacher Derek Higgins

Background Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (obhe.ac.uk) commissioned in 2003 by Sir Graeme Davies - to conduct a review of the use of ICT in the University to support learning and teaching OBHE was asked to indicate how the University might move forward

Background OBHE findings presented to Senate Education Committee on 12 May 2004 by Professor Mike MacMahon. Working Group set up convened by Andrew Nash VPLT to consider the OBHE report’s recommendations and how they could be implemented

Background Allan Martin, Director of the IT Education Unit and convener of the Learning and Teaching Committee’s VLE Working Group invited to join WP. AM presented VLE Working Group conclusions, and a recommendation that the University should identify Moodle as the single VLE to be supported centrally by the University. The Education Committee group accepted this conclusion which was subsequently endorsed by the University’s Senior Management Group – July 2004.

Background Noted that the University: Should recognise the possibility of Moodle being overtaken in the future by something offering greater utility or value for investment. Should monitor deliverables from the Sakai[1] consortium of US universities which develop an open source, standard compliant, Managed Learning Environment (MLE). Expect that migration from Moodle should be easier in the future since Open Source software. [1] http://www.sakaiproject.org/index.html http://www.gla.ac.uk:443/newsdesk/newsletter/details.cfm?id=2831&issue=259&category=catwork

Background Some teaching Departments had already adopted their own VLE – provided input to VLE WG Others postponed VLE development awaiting central direction regarding VLE choice Moodle would be supported centrally Departments which already developed VLE’s and could support themselves would not be forced to move to Moodle

CS involvement CS already hosted Moodle server for EDUC faculty since July 2003 CS ran internal Moodle server for delivery of some course material and testing. Tasked with establishing a production Moodle service by beginning of September 2004 Servers run on solaris

Timescale Chris Russbridge allocated 20K for purchase of servers on 21ST July 2004 Server order placed on 28th July 2004 Servers operational from 23rd August 2004 Migration from other Moodle servers started week beginning 30th August

Implementation at Glasgow Hardware – HP DL380, 2x3GHz, 4Gb, 6x36Gb, Linux Set-up and Installation - LAMP Moodle Configuration – separate Moodle for each requested site Administration – Set up Moodle Admins for each site

Disk Usage Resource area (docs,ppt,etc.) - 60Gb Database area - 1Gb Web area – 5Gb Resource size – 6k ppt's, max size found 16Mb 14k doc's, max size found 15Mb average resource 3Mb Max upload filesize configurable by each Moodle Admin

Spread No. of Moodles - 49 ( 42 live) 24000 Users, 16300 distinct 1100 Courses 4 Faculty Moodles (IBLS,Educ,Eng,Vet) 5 Faculties set up on a department basis

Governance Moodle Implementation Group convened by Mike MacMahon Moodle Technical Group convened by Steven Jack (CS Staff, Guide Staff, Faculty reps)

Support Support – helpdesk answer basic queries and pass on others to Moodle Admins FAQ and help on main Moodle page Staff Moodle Community for Admins and course creators CS / GUIDE (LTS) staff Moodle workshops

Administration Moodle system administration - Moodle site admin - Virus scanning - Course admin - Backups,etc. Installation of optional modules where requested - Questionnaire - Dialogue - Hotpot

Upgrading Upgrade policy decided by Moodle Technical Group One dept upgraded to the latest version before the start of the last term Department test this version during last term All other Moodles are upgraded to tested version during the summer.

Administration Themes - standard glasgow for consistency - template from future cms ? - local Moodle Admins can modify theme if required

Login Problems Invalid logins – incorrect username/pwd No LDAP account, which HelpDesk can check, or manual account, which Moodle admin can check, in that name Novell password expired – account disabled – max logins (3) –grace limit (6) Duplicate accounts- resolved by adding the users unique University ID as an alias to their Novell account

Other Problems Problems using Moodle - enrolment - works in 1.5.3 User Problems - questionnaires - forums - printing saving ppt/pdf/mathcad files - browser issues – cookies,sessions Should Moodles be configured to use standard student Email addresses ( deny hotmail etc)

Future Statistics – wider access to individual statistics RSS feeds for Moodle alerts LAMS integration Staffing Hardware requirements ( DR,SAN) Possible migration to other VLE (SAKAI ?) Learning Activity Management System   LAMS is a revolutionary new tool for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities SAKAI – Collaborative learning environment

Questions