Hi all ,
Reviewed Moodle as LMS , I am interested in it 2.0 version , and hope anyone could kindly help for the following questions :
Conditional Activities (what I most interested in):
1. The conditions are listed inside the course creation process ? Can add some new rules (e.g. some students fail ...... , they should take more excrises , but the passed one can go to the advanced courses directly) by users (tutors) ?
Course Management :
1. Can users copy existed course structures (not course user data , e.g. forum posts, like in OLAT) ?
2. Can users reuse existed resources in diff courses (e.g. reuse existed forum guides which is a HTML page in other forum, like in OLAT) ?
Standards :
1. Does Moodle able to import/export data using QTI format by default (like OLAT and Sakai) ? Or 3rd party plugins should be installed ?
User/Group Management :
1. Can users (tutors or students) can search users inside Moodle for futher actions (or inside other action , e.g. creating courses) ?
2. Can tutors assign existed users (by searched results) to a course (like OLAT) ? Or the tutors should add the users one by one ?
3. Can users (tutors or students) can create non-course related groups (no link to and existed course or cross-courses , e.g. group for a project or interest club, like OLAT) ?
Context Management :
1. What kind of resources (e.g. courses info , images and docs including PDF and Words , questions , groups , etc) can users can search inside the application ?
2. Can the resources be organized and searched in structure ? For example , there is a translation project A (a paper) , which contain other reference (other paper) describe translation method A , and the method A paper refer to other paper which describes forumla A . Therefore , there is a structure "translation project A -- method A -- forumla A " . If users search "translation A " , all these resources will be results .
3. If developers create new functions (e.g. a new question type or course element) , how can its data join to the Moodle search engine ?
4. All resources can be full-text searched ?
5. Can users search data stored in integrated Machara ?
Non-functional module Management :
Are there any logging / exception / transaction module (like OLAT and Sakai) for developers or administrators for helping in development and system maintenances ?
Thanks .
Jonathan
Good grief, Charlie Brown!you want a complete exposé of Moodle.
Some of these questions are easy to answer, Yes. It is growing. Integration with other systems like Mahara and mediaWiki is possible. I understand that QTI will be fully integrated into v2.0 as native, not needing a plugin. Currently, you can import but not export but this will change.
There are some things you are thinking that are outside the scope of Moodle - you actually seemed to have misunderstood what Moodle is. Moodle is a secure LMS, unless you have permissions to do things, it is just not going to happen. Only Administrator can access all parts of the Moodle and do everything. Course creators can create courses where they have permission to. Only Teachers can administer courses when they are assigned as a Teacher. Only enrolled students can access courses, when given permission to do so by their Teachers depending on how you set up enrollments. Students cannot do anything outside their native role inside a course, unless given permissions to do so by a Teacher - which does not apply outside that course.
An essential principle of Moodle is security. Unlike Mahara and earlier versions of OLAT, (which I used for short time before finding Moodle) Moodle is built on the idea that course security, student privacy and such issues are of paramount importance. You cannot, without the correct permissions, access anything at all. You may be limited to one course, or one subject, or one discipline. Site wide permissions do not exist for anyone other than Administrators.
Having said that, the key is "permissions". To get around some of the inherent restrictions, Moodle is flexible enough to allow groups and groupings, and metacourses that can have a much wider set of admittance criteria. Yet the basic security of Moodle is not compromised.
Bottom line, if you prefer OLAT or Sakai, use them, but they lack the one thing that Moodle has in abundance. A real community of fellow travelers, and for me, that is the key question. Both are good tools, well OLAT is OK and Sakai does not seriously suck like others, I understand, for what they are and what they do, but OLAT has support from a major university, and Sakai is actually controlled by a Japanese chemical company. I have never used Sakai, but OLAT, in earlier versions, did not offer the flexibility or adaptability I found in Moodle.
EDIT: If you are trying to assess which tool your organization should pick up for an electronic learning environment, all I can really suggest is a trial of each of them. For my money, Moodle will win in more areas than the others. Such comparisons are really only possible in trials. In the end, a decision needs be made, based on perceived performance. One organization I worked for went for Blackboard because it looked good, it didn't work as well for what we wanted, but that did not matter, it looked good. They went broke btw.
Second edit: Here is a comment from another thread:
Just have to vent a little when ed tech gurus say the LMS is outdated and stodgy because all LMS's lack a social, connected, learner focused approach. This may be true of Blackboard, but Moodle has always had a different approach. The fact that Moodle 1.9 has student profiles, interest based tag pages, instant messaging, and student blogs is overlooked by many people because Moodle is an LMS and therefore not progressive.
Some of these questions are easy to answer, Yes. It is growing. Integration with other systems like Mahara and mediaWiki is possible. I understand that QTI will be fully integrated into v2.0 as native, not needing a plugin. Currently, you can import but not export but this will change.
There are some things you are thinking that are outside the scope of Moodle - you actually seemed to have misunderstood what Moodle is. Moodle is a secure LMS, unless you have permissions to do things, it is just not going to happen. Only Administrator can access all parts of the Moodle and do everything. Course creators can create courses where they have permission to. Only Teachers can administer courses when they are assigned as a Teacher. Only enrolled students can access courses, when given permission to do so by their Teachers depending on how you set up enrollments. Students cannot do anything outside their native role inside a course, unless given permissions to do so by a Teacher - which does not apply outside that course.
An essential principle of Moodle is security. Unlike Mahara and earlier versions of OLAT, (which I used for short time before finding Moodle) Moodle is built on the idea that course security, student privacy and such issues are of paramount importance. You cannot, without the correct permissions, access anything at all. You may be limited to one course, or one subject, or one discipline. Site wide permissions do not exist for anyone other than Administrators.
Having said that, the key is "permissions". To get around some of the inherent restrictions, Moodle is flexible enough to allow groups and groupings, and metacourses that can have a much wider set of admittance criteria. Yet the basic security of Moodle is not compromised.
Bottom line, if you prefer OLAT or Sakai, use them, but they lack the one thing that Moodle has in abundance. A real community of fellow travelers, and for me, that is the key question. Both are good tools, well OLAT is OK and Sakai does not seriously suck like others, I understand, for what they are and what they do, but OLAT has support from a major university, and Sakai is actually controlled by a Japanese chemical company. I have never used Sakai, but OLAT, in earlier versions, did not offer the flexibility or adaptability I found in Moodle.
EDIT: If you are trying to assess which tool your organization should pick up for an electronic learning environment, all I can really suggest is a trial of each of them. For my money, Moodle will win in more areas than the others. Such comparisons are really only possible in trials. In the end, a decision needs be made, based on perceived performance. One organization I worked for went for Blackboard because it looked good, it didn't work as well for what we wanted, but that did not matter, it looked good. They went broke btw.
Second edit: Here is a comment from another thread:
Just have to vent a little when ed tech gurus say the LMS is outdated and stodgy because all LMS's lack a social, connected, learner focused approach. This may be true of Blackboard, but Moodle has always had a different approach. The fact that Moodle 1.9 has student profiles, interest based tag pages, instant messaging, and student blogs is overlooked by many people because Moodle is an LMS and therefore not progressive.
Hallo, I am interested if moodle supports following functions; I couldnt find them in the documentation.
1. a display of the current status of a task (i.e. done, open or delayed)
2. design templates (for designing tasks or projects)
I would be very happy to receive a fast reply, as I need it for a comparision on friday.
Thanks a lot!
1. a display of the current status of a task (i.e. done, open or delayed)
2. design templates (for designing tasks or projects)
I would be very happy to receive a fast reply, as I need it for a comparision on friday.
Thanks a lot!
"Sakai is actually controlled by a Japanese chemical company."
Sakai is actually an open source project, just like Moodle.