Yes, it would appear that admins (not teachers) can read messages.

This would be essential in, say, a criminal investigation. Either way, if you prevent it then database admins would still be able to read it. If you encrypt it and the police need essential information then you're stuffed.

Anyway, since when has communication via the internet / network been private?

Sorry, I've missed something. How would a teacher have access to the messages of a student who is not in her class?

For example, a teacher woudn't be able to see the logs of a different class, nor would she have "loginas" rights for students who are not in her course's "participant list."

If there is a way, I'd love to know how so that I can let teachers know.

Thanks!
Tom


LATER EDIT.... Oh, you mean, if a student wrote an off-course comment, it would still be visible to any of his current teachers? Yeah, that's true. I guess at the k-12 level this kind of potential audit is really necessary and critical...

I would leave it at admins, if they have an issue then check with the admins. If you try to restrict to messages in a teachers courses what happens when the messages are to/from a student not in their course?

We are institution uses Moodle at the graduate level and the messaging feature has been a great asset for us and serves an important purpose within our educational program!  It enables our students and instructors to communicate 1-1 about assignments, their thesis, etc..., and have a history of that communication in one place.  It also serves as a resource for immediate technical assistance for our students and instructors with our Moodle administration and support team - it is incredibly beneficial to our users to know they can get immediate technical support by pinging one of us who is online.  Because our program runs in the DL mode about 80% of the time this feature helps everyone feel "connected" to fellow students and the rest of the program even when they are away - it definitely has become a key component  in the success of Moodle over the proprietary system that had been used previously. 

Perhaps the login as student feature could be modified at the instructor level so instructors are prohibited from viewing a students "messages"  - but as an administrator we have had to have a peek into students and instructors messages from time to time to help provide technical assistance.

Hello,

I realize that this is 3 years after the initial posts, but feel compelled to reply in case someone else, like myself, is searching for answers to these types of questions, e.g., how do we control the use of the messaging system within Moodle.

I am in charge of an online program that provides supplementary courses for students enrolled in school districts within a rural geographic area in Oregon. One of the issues we face, which is actually faced by EVERY school, is which battles we want to fight. While I am not necessarily in favor of adding to my own workload or that of anyone else's, I believe we need to look at how the world does business before we make decisions regarding blocking communications technologies.

A recent study by the National School Boards Association found that "96 percent of students with online access use social networking technologies."

The new NETS standards for Students, published by ISTE in July, 2007, states that students need to learn to communicate and collaborate (among other things).

How can we prepare our students for THEIR futures if our knee-jerk response is always to block what's difficult or uncomfortable for us? At a workshop this spring, someone compared this practice to working with young students and teaching them to cross the street:  We don't completely prevent them from crossing the street, but we begin by teaching them about the danger, then hold their hand when they cross the street, and after much practice, monitoring, and some maturity (?!), we allow them to cross the street independently. What we are currently doing with much of our educational technology problems, e.g. MySpace, chat, cellphones, etc., is ignoring the fact that students need to learn to cross the street/use technology safely by preventing them from doing so while they are still within the safe confines of school. This point of view is not uniquely mine; it is shared by well-known educational technology gurus as Marc Prensky and David Warlick, among others.

To me the question is: How can we help students learn to communicate effectively and responsibly?

Kudos to all who are helping us to explore ways of preparing our students for their futures.

<?PHP

require_once('../config.php');

$context = get_context_instance(CONTEXT_SYSTEM);
require_capability('moodle/site:readallmessages', $context);

$PAGE = page_create_object(PAGE_COURSE_VIEW, 1); // Complete hack - no idea how to use this function properly
$PAGE->print_header('View all messages'); // Should probably be PAGE_ADMIN but I can't get this to work

if ( isset($_GET['days']) ) {
$qualifierr = 'WHERE msgr.timecreated > UNIX_TIMESTAMP(DATE_ADD(CURDATE(),INTERVAL - 10 DAY))';
$qualifieru = 'WHERE msgu.timecreated > UNIX_TIMESTAMP(DATE_ADD(CURDATE(),INTERVAL - 10 DAY))';
} else {
$qualifierr = '';
$qualifieru = '';
}

// SQL based on a suggestion by Ian Cannonier, in this thread: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=27559

$query = <<< END_OF_SQL
SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(timecreated), senderr.username, message, recipientr.username, FROM_UNIXTIME(timeread), senderr.id, recipientr.id, FROM_UNIXTIME(senderr.lastaccess), FROM_UNIXTIME(recipientr.lastaccess)
FROM {$CFG->prefix}message_read msgr
INNER JOIN {$CFG->prefix}user senderr ON msgr.useridfrom=senderr.id
INNER JOIN {$CFG->prefix}user recipientr ON msgr.useridto=recipientr.id
$qualifierr
UNION ALL
SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(timecreated), senderu.username, message, recipientu.username, 'unread', senderu.id, recipientu.id, FROM_UNIXTIME(senderu.lastaccess), FROM_UNIXTIME(recipientu.lastaccess)
FROM {$CFG->prefix}message msgu
INNER JOIN {$CFG->prefix}user senderu ON msgu.useridfrom=senderu.id
INNER JOIN {$CFG->prefix}user recipientu ON msgu.useridto=recipientu.id
$qualifieru
ORDER BY 1 DESC, 5 ASC;
END_OF_SQL;

if ( ! $connection = mysql_connect($CFG->dbhost, $CFG->dbuser, $CFG->dbpass) ) {
print_error("Could not connect to MySQL database");
}

if ( ! mysql_select_db($CFG->dbname) ) {
print_error("Could not select database");
}

// print_header(''); // This seems to be unnecessary / pointless

if ( ! $result = mysql_query($query) ) {
echo "<p>No messages have been sent</p>\n\n";
} else {
echo "<table border=\"1\">\n";
echo "  <tr><th>Sent</th><th>From</th><th>To</th><th>Read</th><th>Message</th></tr>\n";
while( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result) ) {
echo "  <tr>\n";
echo "    <td align=\"center\">". substr($row[0],0,10) .'<br>'. substr($row[0],11,8) ."</td>\n";
echo "    <td align=\"center\" nowrap><a href=\"{$CFG->wwwroot}/user/view.php?id={$row[5]}\" title=\"last access: {$row[7]}\">{$row[1]}</a></td>\n";
echo "    <td align=\"center\" nowrap><a href=\"{$CFG->wwwroot}/user/view.php?id={$row[6]}\" title=\"last access: {$row[8]}\">{$row[3]}</a></td>\n";
echo "    <td align=\"center\">". substr($row[4],0,10) .'<br>'. substr($row[4],11,8) ."</td>\n";
echo "    <td>". str_replace("\n","<br>\n", $row[2]) ."</td>\n";
echo "  </tr>\n";
}
echo "</table>\n";
}

print_footer();

?>

Unread messages and read messages are stored in separate tables. That's why mine does the UNION to combine the results from both.

Hi,
I tried to install this on a couple of sites, our test site and our main site.
On the test site 1.9.4 it went in fine with no problems. On the main site 1.9.2+ I get an error when I click on 'Message Logs' - which links to http://docs.moodle.org/en/error/admin/sectionerror.

The text of that page reads...

error/admin/sectionerror