General developer forum

A cool feature that I came across Dokeos that might want to be integrated in Moodle or at least included in future releases. Having the ability to convert Word , Powerpoint presentations to SCORM format for both students and instructors. The feature uses OpenOffice to run as a service on the Moodle server and converts them into SCORM / Learning paths which I believe I haven't seen in Moodle, or at least did not explore the in-depth capabilities of it. Im still trying to play around with other features of Moodle that is relevant to me being a Technical Training Supervisor. Keep up the good work guys.

Is this open to improvements or just new features?

"We'd really like our student projects to be popular with the Moodle community, rather than just offering projects which have a mentor"

For all its flaws... having an explicit mentor means that the mentor has made sure that the feature is achievable (not too complex, reasonable workload, reasonably spec'd, simple dependencies), and not too easy.

It also means that you have a mentor!

Following the link you posted, it's a wild mix. Some things are good GSoC projects, but there's plenty of of trivial stuff, things that people request but may not be good idea, and some very hard tasks. If we don't do a bit of preselection, we may end up spending a lot of time saying "actually, that may be popular but it isn't a good gsoc project".

Edit: What I mean to say is - neither mentor nor votes are good enough as the sole metric. Maybe we need a combination of factors. Some prioritization strategy that mixes both mentors and votes? Maybe add some third variable? log(rand()) ? : End edit.

Anyway -- I throw my hat into the ring, and will be available to mentor one or two projects, and I will be specially keen on projects that have a positive impact on K-12 usage, plus the general areas that I've worked on in the past... (webdav, performance, email->forums gateway...)

I have a couple of ideas for the K-12 stuff... where should I put those projects?

my two cents...

- what I need need and need is the "conditional branching" in the questionnaire (see: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=90901)

- what I don't need but I spend a lot of time every time I face the problem is the "bulk upload of pictures" for a gallery styled database. See: MDL-14019

- what I would like to see, because I believe a VLE is not only "L" but also "E" is MDL-10285

In my personal opinion what should be faced deeply is the data collection as general issue. Sometimes I asked for related issues as in:
CONTRIB-275
MDL-17223
MDL-14528

- Quite bigger than these and with hight impact for students is what I asked in: MDL-9738 I tried to search the web for this, but I didn't find any good always working solution. This last one by itself is enough to be already a very big project.

Few ideas from me-

1. Any online environment require a strong backoffice system. The backoffice user information system should provide more support to admin. A strong database support for report generation. Like, after a course is over, the same  is reset for another schedule. Now, if the admin wants to keep record of  the details of all users (including student progress/creator/teacher)  associated with the course, then he must  have a previlage to keep track of them.  This in turn would  help admin/teacher to  generate different types of reports as n when  required by him of a particular course for adminstrative purposes.

2.The content posted in 'lesson' or any other activities can have read only(optional) previlage to protect it. The content index buttons created during the design does not place itself in order. It should be made more user friendly.

3.wiki needs to be made more user friendly and easy for collaborative work so that both novice and expert computer users can use it easily.

4.User must have previlage to generate his own questionnaire for survey.

5.Blog should facilitate acess to the individual user postings, to any site vistors as is available in any community portals.

In business ambients, a hierarchical structure of users management would be helpfull.
I think it would be an extension of mentees logical, but for supervisors and his supervisors and so on.
Then a chief could see the activity of his employees, and his chief (chief's chief, one step above), could see all chiefs and all his employees' activity.

Grouping is not applicable for this case, because it has only one level, and I think the porpouse of groups and groupings is other.

Hi

It would be nice for students and teachers allowing to edit the same text from a wiki at the same time , and maybe list the name of the users that are editing instead of block the wiky text.

Importing multiple pages in the context of Lesson, but this might have applications elsewhere (Questionaire or even Quiz).

I would like to see one group work on something similar to a GIFT file that will import Text into a series of Branch Tables. In stead of feed back, place the jump commands for next, this, previous page. I would settle for importing an OOwriter file with 2 levels of outlining with just a continue button.

Another group could work on importing a series of pictures into a series of Branch Tables. This could be similar to ImportPPT.php. Simply insert pictures from a zip file in alpha order. ImportOOImpress using the webpage concept in PPT might be a good starting point.

A more involved importing image project would be to create simple format such as a GIFT format, where the instructor could determine the image name ./lesson1pics/image3 and maybe allow some text. Again KISS is important.

I would not get too involved with the more advanced adpative functions of Lesson with an imported file in any kind of page (branch or question).

There is the relatively new online Google document/spreadsheet tools. Not sure how similar the code will be in the future (remember what happens to PPT html code with every version upgrade) but we might get more bites using that standard than OO.

Chris

Moodle Networks has a lot of potential, but currently has limited use. It would be interesting to see student projects that use Moodle Networks to integrate Moodle with other software. The obvious ones are single-signon integration with other software (e.g. SSO to/from Drupal, SSO to/from MediaWiki, SSO to/from WordPress etc.).

SSO to a PHP application may be 1/4 to 1/2 of a GSoC project, depending on the other software's authentication system; SSO from a PHP application may be 1/4 of a GSoC project; SSO to and from a PHP application may be 1/2 of a GSoC project. Integrating with subsequent PHP applications should take less time, since the student should be familiar with Moodle Networks after the first one. Integrating with a non-PHP application might be a full to 3/4 of a GSoC project since the student would need to implement the Moodle Networks protocol in another language. (This is based on my experience as both a GSoC participant last year (though with a different mentoring organization), and my experience programming with Moodle Networks. However it is still just a guess.)

SSO is, of course, just one possibility. I'm sure that a creative student could come up with very interesting integration ideas.

We now have AJAX ratings, which is remarkably better and more useful. Can we possibly get rid of the "You have just posted to this forum .... Continue" text that appears every time you post to a forum. Can't we just see that we've posted.

This is written like a rant ... unintentionally. No constructive energy at the moment, I guess.

What I would like to see is an extensive course planning, scheduling and information system. I have started on building one myself as a block, but it is quite a lot of work, and I am really applying it to our situation. It would be great if students/teacher/whoever can download (personalized) schedules from the website. I think this goes further than the standard calendar functionality, as course lectures should not really show up in the regular calendar. Also, it would be great if there was a more extensive information page for each course, where a lot of information can be given such as the main teacher (+ email link), requirements, prerequisites, etc, etc, etc.

My requests might be:

1. What about a request for a protocol for WML-enabled devices/browsers? Moodle hasn't been able to (neatly) organize information in its format for a mobile device yet (that I'm aware of). I know there are several projects out there that work to hit this, but it seems like it would be nice that without any real "extra" work for the administrators of a site, a site would have an option to have a check for the browser protocol and render the page accordingly. There seems to be a growing demand for this.

2. Another thought was a Facebook App that would "plug in" to Moodle, allowing updates on course information (perhaps course information from "recent activity" and assignment/forum updates)... I know there are many potential privacy issues and again, this has been discussed before, but with a clean interface on what should be allowed to be published (both at the site level and course level), I think that one could control what gets sent to them (and how frequently) without any real privacy concern. I don't know about any of you, but it seems that students spend a LOT more time on Facebook than on Moodle and any way that we can help them stay plugged in, the more successful they can be. I have an interest in this and would be willing to help with the application, if it were deemed to be worthy of pursuit.

3. Improvements to the Import feature of Moodle for proprietary systems like Bb and WebCT. I know you all do your best, but it seems like with the evolutionary process, they (other companies) make it more difficult. Perhaps this is chasing a ghost, but having the ability for users to bring their content over more efficiently I would think would allow for an even higher adoption rate. What about a "Wizard" to import things and provide a way to better structure them? Oooo... or better yet....

4. ... a course set up wizard, allowing new instructors the ability to specify their course set up and have Moodle build the shell for them with everything configured to their specifications. It's not bad now, but having a step-by-step walkthrough might help new users get their initial configuration correct right away (we've had a few challenges with these things). If more information is desired, let me know. I don't want to ramble if it's not worth rambling.

I like a lot of the other ideas that have been presented as well so far. It's going to be tough to decide I think!

One very old and heavily voted request of (presumably) appropriate size is to have ability to subsribe on a single thread (discussion) instead of whole forum only (MDL-1626).

Other important medium-size usability things is

• AJAX course editing interface improvment, that can make it really usable - see MDL-13785
• bulk activities editing - see http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Linked_activities

One issue that we have run into with Moodle deals with the conversion of Word documents into "Create a Webpage" resources ... avoiding all the extra garbage that Word generates. At http://www.webmastersherpa.com/content/useful-code/cleanup/ , FCKEditor was modified to allow for direct pasting of Word documents into the editor and and providing a cleanup of the code.

I assume that a version of TINYMCE will be the default editor, so it might make sense to provide a similar fix for it, although providing this capability for Moodle's current HTML Editor would also be appreciated.

The demo on webmastersherpa.com is fully workable in it's present format and can currently be used as an intermediary between Word and the html editor in Moodle (grabbing the source code generated and pasting it into the html editor). Images still have to uploaded and added to the Moodle page manually and some minor cleanup is currently required. Wether this can be further refined for such a direct Moodle implementation is not known but having it built-into the Moodle editor would be a great asset.

Hi,

an idea would be to start a Virtual Desktop from inside Moodle and to be able to Share the Desktop with course participants. This would guarantee a more comfortable way to share Desktops.

So you need

• A open source virtual machine (Virtualbox) for example (exists already)
  
• A image of a Virtual Desktop with many educational programs (exists)
  
• A Java-Application to start the Desktop in the browser (to be programmed or take the one from ulteo if it is opensource)
  
• A moodle module to integrate the Virtual Desktop in Moodle (to be programmed)
  

For more advantages of a Virtual Desktop integration look at this post.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
(Henry Ford)

Yours,
David

100% ajax interface. I hate having the page reload on every click. Use Jquery and jquery-ui for it- it works out really well and jquery is opensource.

Im pretty sure they can handle that at google summer of code.

also, use tinymce for the html editor, so it also works in Safari

Jabber-based chat

Some moodle users complain chat module is slow and unstable, I propose to use jabbser server as chat backend, this will release moodle from heavy chat load, possiblly, more students can chat concurrently. What need to do:
1. Setup OpenFire jabber server (or other jabber server you prefered)
2. When create a chat module in moodle, moodle will create a jabber conference room in jabber server, and starts to talk with it.
3. When student logged into chatroom, moodle will create a jabber account on jabber server automatically, then students start to chat in the chat room, or start a private conversation with teacher or other students.

Pros of this solution:
1. Jabber server will process all the chat messages, moodle just process http requests and responses.
2. More advanced features in chat module will be possible.

I would like to propose a set of scripts to help administrators deploy Moodle in production servers focusing on optimization techniques, such as:
- Minification
- Checking the web server configuration (cache header, compression headers, etags, etc.)
etc.

This scripts would be multiplatform (done in PHP) and would be integrated in the administration panel in Moodle, so they are easy to use.

Lets start with a fact: Most Moodle users are users visiting Moodle pages for the second time (or more) and so most of them have most of the files cached.

In big installations, when you switch a theme, you are making all this users download again the files because the ones cached are no longer used. This might create a bottleneck when making the changes.

The main idea here, which is used by big applications and services out there, is to preload parts of the new theme in the old one so you distribute the load in time. Of course this preloading technique must be used in background and should not affect the user´s interaction with the page. There are several utilities out there, such as YUI Get Utility, that can help to achieve this purpose.

Moodle could have a simple selector in the administration panel to select the next theme so if can handle the way of sending the new files to the current users in background.

Private folder for individual students

I am hoping to see a new feature that allow the teacher to create a private folder for each student in the course, so that the private/sensitive feedback for each student is not accessible by the other students in the course. Each student would only see his/her folder being displayed on the course's main page.

I've noticed that a lot of other projects have integrated web based systems for loading and updating extensions/modules. Netbeans, Joomla, wordpress etc all seem to have sorted it out so it can't be too difficult and it would make it a lot easier to manage the site.

I can see three useful functions:

1. Browsing available extensions in remote repositories e.g. moodle.org or other sites via moodle networking

• Implies some integration with database module
  

Adding/removing extensions

• Upload file or get it from a repository
• extract file and place contents in the /mod or /blocks directory
• Triger the notifications screen upgrade process
  

Scanning for available updates to currently installed extensions

• available module updates could be shown at the top of the admin block
  

Fetching new copies of extension code for installed modules and plugins when the main Moodle codebase is upgraded.

• This would make upgrade simpler as one could just start with a fresh copy of the core files and have the installed extensions added automatically according to the records of installed modules in the database.
  

Left this a bit late - hopefully not tooooo late...

On sloodle we have a ton of 'to-do's - some of which could be student projects within the timescale. Its not "core" Moodle, but would we be able to suggest ideas for inclusion with the GSoC projects? We have a few people who could mentor.

We've been getting some great feedback on sloodle recently - even though there is a ton of stuff to do - and the opportunity to get a little extra boost for the project would be greatly appreciated.

A nice project for some students might be redoing the plugins database. Not necessarily replace it completely as suggest MDLSITE-571 but improve version specification (MDLSITE-353, cf also attachement to MDLSITE-571), notify owners like other modules (MDLSITE-551), add rating system (MDLSITE-406 and http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=92972), and so on. This is one of the key components of Moodle and it is due for an overhaul. Many of these things are not so difficult to program but require an effort to adjust the data; for example, implementing version-specific checkboxed instead of ... and later. Something that a few students could readily accomplish.

Adapt Moodle's layout (whether it be by a theme, JavaScript, etc.) to work better on mobile devices (iPhone, Android, etc.). The same site should work using a regular browser, or a mobile browser, and automatically switch layouts. This is probably too big of a task for a single GSoC project, but probably some of the groundwork could be done for it.

Hi,
I would love to have a plugin or something to define multiple attributes of tasks, materials and all kinds of stuff
This would be extremly useful for assign tasks individually for example by reading competence.
The easiest way to achieve that maybe tags.
So if have a text of a certain complexity I could add a tag to adress an audience (only for experienced readers) or I could assign different tasks for the same text for different students (like Mike could answer question from level 4-6 while Sandra should answer question from level 3-4).
This would be really helpful.
You could use them for a lot of things btw.
So this would be a nice task for GSOC

Relative to items on the wiki's "suggested projects" page, do new ideas stand a chance when all of the student proposals are being evaluated? I wonder this because I have found nothing so far that my two potential proposals would be added onto. Thanks,
                         Zachary Hoffman

OpenID integration. MDL-12903 deals with allowing Moodle to use OpenID for authentication. Stuart Metcalfe has made an authentication plugin (https://launchpad.net/moodle-openid), but there are several issues/bugs in it.

It should also be possible to use a Moodle site as an OpenID provider.

This task is probably too small to be a full GSoC project, though, so it may need to be combined with something else.