Yes.... I think this makes perfect sense.

However my problem lies in making the leap from the idea of a central file store to how it would actually function in practice. Are we talking about a student portfolio "module" that is (essentially) additional to what Moodle does already, or are we talking about a major rework of the system to sit it on top of a more complex/versatile file system?

My impetus comes from the idea of a student being able to download work-sheets (probably in Office format), fill it in, and then upload back up into the system to (a) keep and (b) for attention of their Tutor. Even better if such documents could also be uploaded into forum posts - but then, in that situation, it might be better if they where converted to HTML!!! Ok - I'll stop there!

First: I haven't followed the discussions in detail so this might be a bit off the track.

I have the perspective of general reusability of any resource even between courses (if the owner of the resource permits this).

I went to a seminar yesterday where TeleTOP (http://www.teletop.nl/index_uk.htm) was presented and it has, at least what it looked like, a nice implementation of the above mentioned feature.

The teacher/developer from Twente University had experiences from using the TeleTOP system also in the private sector (Shell company) and the Dutch army/navy.

Every resource which was added had an extensive set of metadata connected to it (although most of them where not mandatory).

Basically I would like to have a somewhat broader approach to reusing resources.

Cheers

It's probably time to put my hand up. I'm about half way through writing a module which covers some of this ground but it's not a general "content store". It's coming from the assignment direction.

Basically I want an assignment where, as a teacher, I put up a set of "Specimen" pieces of work, get the students to comment on/grade them, add their own pieces of work and then let others comment/grade them. And if that's not enough, all the time the teacher is grading the student comments. It's actually a "relaxed" version of the peer graded assignment module with a few tweaks. I say relaxed as this new assignment has only one deadline (the PG module has two) and the assignment can rumble along for some time, students can, if allowed, resubmit work with hopefully the quality improving over time. The other diference is that the students do NOT get the chance to comment on the comments make by other students (although they can see them). The teacher does the meta-grading, that's their job.

Provisionally I've given this module the title "Gallery". The teacher "shows off" some example pieces of work, they could be all good or all bad or good and bad. The students "get up to speed" by commenting on them. They then have a go themselves and get the "flak" from their classmates. The teacher's there as a guiding light(!) and policeman. By the end the class has created a Gallery of Work where everyone can tell the good from the bad. For some assignments producing would be more important than judging, others may be the other way round.The teacher can weight the final grade accordingly (as in the PG module).

I think the interface will be better than the PG module and will allow the viewing all the pieces of work as an option. As it is at the moment the thing is completely anonymous, both the items and the comments can't be traced back to the originators (that's another difference from the PG module where the file path gives the user's id number away.) That anonymity could be an option but students will probably be more comfortable working anonymously.

I'm hoping the module will see the light of day in a couple of weeks. Any thoughts on the name would be very welcome, and an icon!

All of this mentioned above is great. I'm thinking mostly about it being as flexible as possible. In other words, the more choices an administrator and teacher has, the better it is. Then it will be up to each institution weather the students gets i.e. a certain amount of storage place (and how much), if the teachers can view this, etc. Any limitations should be optional on some level, a lot of them the administrator(s) has to deal with, while other it's naturally that the teacher(s) can tweak themselves.

This goes for almost anything within Moodle, so institutions can simply not use the functions they don't need and tweak ant twist what they want to use so it fits. I'm working at Nesna University College in Norway, and I clearly see that we have different needs within our institution, as much as other institutions in Norway and definately around the world.

Sounds great!

A module like this, properly (flexibly is probably a better word) implemented, would go a long way toward meeting our district's needs.

Although I've discussed some of this with you, Martin, via email, let me give a quick rundown on our plans for Moodle for the other forum readers - they may have some valuable insight:

We are a K12 school district (About 35 separate locations on an internal WAN). We are implementing a customized version of Moodle as our "FILE" (Fairbanks Integrated Learning Environment) System district-wide (rolling out in high schools next year). This will be focussed almost exclusively on classroom-based learning with the added bonus of allowing teachers and students to also access work/assignments from home.

All our staff and student accounts will be auto-managed by our current staff/student databases which will also handle the creation and enrollment of students in their courses (so the teachers need only create assignments in their courses - if they wish to use that feature).  Because this will be a closed system (you cannot enroll yourself or create new courses) the first page people will see is the login page.  From there they will have access to all district resources that their profile dictates (teacher, student, parent, etc.)

The central aim of FILE will be as a hand-in/hand-out facilitation mechanism. So having a centralized, student-managed, teacher-accessable storage area would go a long way toward replacing our current building-based fileserver w/drop-box-hand-in folders scenario.

For a student to be able to keep working copies of their documents on the Moodle server for editing at school and home would be great (esp. with WebDav support ). One of the issues we are dealing with is that we don't want the teachers to have to create an assignment just to give the students the ability to hand something in to them. We'd like a teacher- or course-based, catch-all hand-in function, with no time-limits or due-dates.

Of course, we would like teachers to create assignments online with due dates and everything so that students (and eventually parents) will be able to pull up their calendars and see exactly what is due when, etc.  But to address the needs of the lowest common denominator, so to speak, the simpler the "default" implementation is for teachers initially, the better received this system will be.  Believe it or not, we have some teachers who are not interested in learning new things, so this has to be drop-dead-simple for them right out of the gate. (i.e. Tell the students to hand in their homework and then go to the teacher's hand-in web page and download the resulting files for grading).  Most of our teachers should be able to handle that with a minimum of training.

Anyway, as I said before, the primary, underlying function of Moodle for us will be the hand-in/hand-out feature (even if we have to write it in-house) - with the added bonuses of online quizzes, diaries, discussion forums, etc. for the less tech-phobic of our teachers.   And, we feel confident, that as soon as they realize the power and flexibility of Moodle, some of them will be taking it places we never thought of.

Any idea on time-frame for this, and does your planned module fit this sort of convoluted use, or should we begin working on an in-house version?  I'd really rather not re-invent the wheel here if possible   Also, if there is anything in particular we can help with on this, please let me know.  This summer, I'm going to be a coding fool