Hi
I have been running Moodle for a bout 12 months with a very limited amount of users. We are now going to go live with the whole university and I was wondering how people manage this sort of change.
Lets say for instance that I have now got around 5000 users to manage. Would I as the administrator add the students to each of the courses that they are enrolled on or would I leave this to the course creators or educators.
And I where to manage all these students how would one organise such a task? Would I add the students to groups. Is groups designed to separate stdents in to classes or is it designed to separate students in to different courses.
Any advice would be great
Thanks
Firstly, automate everything you can automate. Can you use automatic authentication and/or enrolment from existing systems?
After that, spread the workload. You should try to get teachers to manage their own courses, enrolments and groups.
I doubt you can do everything yourself for 5000 users - madness will ensue
After that, spread the workload. You should try to get teachers to manage their own courses, enrolments and groups.
I doubt you can do everything yourself for 5000 users - madness will ensue
I'm administrator of an 5000+ users Moodle installation.
Students are registering (creating user accounts) by themselves and enrolling into the courses using the enrolment key supplied by the professors. All the work within the courses is handled by professors themselves.
We use this system for two years now and so far I didn't have any major problem. There are only individual minor troubles, mostly in the beginning of the year.
Groups are designed to divide students within a single course. Maybe you could help yourself with groupings but I have never tried them so far.
Students are registering (creating user accounts) by themselves and enrolling into the courses using the enrolment key supplied by the professors. All the work within the courses is handled by professors themselves.
We use this system for two years now and so far I didn't have any major problem. There are only individual minor troubles, mostly in the beginning of the year.
Groups are designed to divide students within a single course. Maybe you could help yourself with groupings but I have never tried them so far.
Do you have a backend system? (SIS, etc.)?
Most institutions of your size have a backend system for managing enrollments, registrations, scheduling, etc. such as Banner, Peoplesoft, etc. These can be expensive to license and set up (several million USD to 10s of millions) - there are some SAAS SIS starting up - TopSchool, for instance. These systems are designed for master data management, archival records (student needs their transcripts 10 years from now), transaction logging (every grade change, for instance) etc.
Often, the backend system manages registrations, enrollments, etc. and then push the data to Moodle via integration points such as IMS Enterprise, flat file, LDAP, etc.
For a bargain barrel alternative, if you are handy with SQL or willing to learn, you could set up an external database, use Moodle's external db authentication and enrollment types, and manage the users in the external db (where you can set up a simple table structure for users, enrollments, etc.).
In between millions and bargain barrel, you could also work with a (UK
Moodle partner to build a lightweight SIS system to meet your needs, this can ease the process while keeping costs manageable. If you go this route, be sure to identify the requirements for MDM, transaction logging, transcripts, archival records, etc. up front, as these drive the design of the best system.
Most institutions of your size have a backend system for managing enrollments, registrations, scheduling, etc. such as Banner, Peoplesoft, etc. These can be expensive to license and set up (several million USD to 10s of millions) - there are some SAAS SIS starting up - TopSchool, for instance. These systems are designed for master data management, archival records (student needs their transcripts 10 years from now), transaction logging (every grade change, for instance) etc.
Often, the backend system manages registrations, enrollments, etc. and then push the data to Moodle via integration points such as IMS Enterprise, flat file, LDAP, etc.
For a bargain barrel alternative, if you are handy with SQL or willing to learn, you could set up an external database, use Moodle's external db authentication and enrollment types, and manage the users in the external db (where you can set up a simple table structure for users, enrollments, etc.).
In between millions and bargain barrel, you could also work with a (UK
Groups in my courses are used to separate pupils into separate classes (we have 8 per year group)
1) Stop guest access :- install a difficult to guess enrolment key ensure groups are enabled in course settings.
2) in each course Create Groups and for each group set an individual enrollment key
3) As each student first enters the course they are sorted into groups by the enrolment code.
4) Resources such as Wiki's, forums etc are then group specific.
5) The grade book can select out class groups of pupils
6) I also have a group called All (I Add all users to this group in case I need to have whole course activities)
Hope this helps
Mark
Thanks for the advice folks, and im sorry that I haven't got back to you very quickly its just that I have been on holiday.
It sounds like it would be best to leave the enrollments to the individual lecturers or set up a system that lets them enroll themselves by using an enrollment key.
OR use the current System Information System to somehow push this data to Moodle.
Ill have a good think about it
It sounds like it would be best to leave the enrollments to the individual lecturers or set up a system that lets them enroll themselves by using an enrollment key.
OR use the current System Information System to somehow push this data to Moodle.
Ill have a good think about it
I have been looking the authentication from an external database and think that I could add all the users to Moodle this way.
This doesn't however, deal with the course enrollments for the students that have been added. Would this be left up to the course tutors, educators or is there a way of automating this as well.
I am thinking here that students do not choose what modules they take until they arrive normally and should perhaps be left up to the either the departmental administrators or the lecturers.
Any thoughts
This doesn't however, deal with the course enrollments for the students that have been added. Would this be left up to the course tutors, educators or is there a way of automating this as well.
I am thinking here that students do not choose what modules they take until they arrive normally and should perhaps be left up to the either the departmental administrators or the lecturers.
Any thoughts