Job offered: Moodle Administrator Needed

Type: Part-time
Location: Telecommute


We are looking for a developer who can not only solve our issues, but can also understand and explain to us (in layman's terms) how the different parts of our system work together and how we can best set up and maintain everything.

Here's our situation, to the best of our understanding. Please ask any questions you have and we'll try to answer them.

What we started out with:
We have a customized Moodle instance.
It's Moodle version 3.7.1+ (Build: 20190725).
We do not know what the customizations are.

Moodle is linked to a custom Laravel site.
However, we're planning to switch our website to WordPress. We've put together the beginnings of a WordPress site, but it needs work.
Moodle will be purchased through a custom Woo Commerce module.

Our Moodle has 9 courses. Each course contains a set of Topics, which contain these types of modules:
  • SCORM package
  • Quiz (Moodle)
  • Files (pdfs and MS word templates set to download)
  • Feedback
  • Custom certificate
We also want to add these types of modules:
  • Badges
  • Pages containing javascript custom calculators
We created SCORMs using Articulate Rise. Our SCORMs contain hard-coded links of these types. Because of the nature of the program, all links are hard coded with static addresses. We linked to the web address of the page containing the Moodle module.
  • Links to external websites that need to open in a new tab.
  • Links to other Moodle modules that also need to open in a new tab.  
  • Links at the bottom of each SCORM that serve as buttons to the previous and next SCORM. These need to open in the SAME tab.
One last thing---we also need to prohibit the SCORMs in the course from being copied or printed. 
To do this, we manually added some custom code to the CSS to prohibit copy/print.

It might be helpful to note that we need to prohibit some of the PDFs from being copied, downloaded, or printed as well, but haven't figured out a good way to do this.
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What happened when we tried to move it
We wanted to beta test our courses with a small group of students.
The developer we were working with copied the courses elsewhere for the beta test. 
He also upgraded Moodle on the beta test site to 3.9.1+ (Build: 20200723) to make sure our courses would work with the upgrade.

When I checked the courses in the beta site, none of the links in the SCORMs worked. They all went to different pages than expected. That was because when our developer moved Moodle to the beta site, all of the web addresses changed. Therefore, the hard coded links no longer worked.

Our developer wrote a python script to fix this issue. The script created a map of web addresses from the source site to the destination site and changed all the links in the SCORMs to the destination addresses. This worked perfectly.

We were so happy with the performance of the script that we asked the developer if he could use it to automate the addition of custom code to the CSS to prohibit copy/print as well. 
The developer added that code to the script.

We then asked the developer if he could change the links at the bottom of each SCORM (the ones that served as previous and next buttons) so that they opened in the same tab, rather than in a new tab (as was the default). Our developer added that to the script and again, it worked perfectly.

The developer also wrote a detailed readme file that another developer could use to run the script.
Unfortunately, that developer is no longer working with us.
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What we'll need moving forward
When we launch the new website and courses, we will still need to be able to work on Moodle to improve existing courses and develop new courses.
I assume this means that we will do one of these things:
  1. Move our Moodle instance to a new site that we will launch from, OR
  2. Migrate all the content to a development site before we launch so we have a place to keep working on the courses.
Let me know if I'm missing something here. I'm not a developer.

If we go with choice #1, we'll need someone who can use the script to successfully move the SCORMs over.
If we go with choice #2, we'll need a new script to add the custom CSS code to prohibit copy/print and to set the links at the bottom of each SCORM to open in the same window.
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Other immediate needs
Part of our custom moodle theme makes us unable to change the banners at the top of the courses. We either need help changing the banners or (preferably) we need that customization removed.
Students found some Moodle bugs during beta testing that need to be addressed.
Add electronic badges.to moodle
Add javascript calculators to moodle
Prohibit copy/print/download of pdf files in moodle
Connect Woo Commerce to the same course in different ways for different prices (different amounts of access time, etc)
Turn off/on items in Moodle courses based on what was purchased through Woo Commerce
Make sure that we have backup and security plans in place and running
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Future needs
We'll need someone to maintain the system (upgrades, backups) and troubleshoot problems on an ongoing, on-call basis
In the future, we'll need to copy all content to a new server (same content but targeted at a different market) with different web address/website
For marketing and accreditation purposes, we'll need to generate reports from student data, feedback, test scores, etc.
Also for marketing and accreditation purposes, we'll need to measure the time spent by each student on a particular course
Eventually, we'll add moodle forums, glossary, and other components
We may add a feature where students can interact with teachers
We're hoping we'll connect with a developer who can recommend Moodle features to add


Entry added by JC Zorn - 1 Dec 2020
Last updated - 1 Dec 2020