Quiz

How much did you send, Jean-Michel?  I heard at least $150 has been sent to Moodle Paypal for this project.  I did a little programming   myself and whipped up this donation thermometer.

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$150

Thanks to following donors...
- anonymous    $100
- dennis             $50
- jean-michel   ???euro

How much money are we talking about?

While I am grateful and beholden to Heinrik, does Heinrik actively want to keep developing the quiz module or might he be prepared to let someone else take up the job. It may be easier to find development staff than it would be to find development funds.

I am also interested in the answer to Peter Ward's question...What happens when one takes over the development of the quiz module?

Might one be able to put stipulations on how the code can be used? I ask because my university is thinking of making a much lighter, desktop quizzer for use by home, self-study pundits who purchase a textbook with some bundled materials. If the institution that supports the quiz module could specify that the module is FREE to use, upgrade, and sell *within moodle* but that only the sponsor can offer it as a standalone piece of software then perhaps that would create the required motivation for someone to take over the quiz module? This is probably impossible. Perhaps not quite that stringent... er.. if used outside of moodle then it must bear the sponosring institutions banner?

Tim

 

(As an aside, Don picked that number out of the air ... a more realistic amount might be closer to $30,000/year)

A few thoughts, Peter:

• You would be perfectly entitled to have logos and links on the Quiz module page, on the modules download page and the credits page too under Sponsors.
  
  
• Moodle groupies will kiss your feet and send you postcards.
  
  
• You would have some say over the priority of feature development, by choosing from a pool of collaboratively-designed specifications.
  
• All the source code can be made copyright to you, but must be made available under the GPL license (which means Moodle can use it).
  
  
• Moodle gets bigger and better and you protect your investments.
  

Martin wrote:
Moodle groupies will kiss your feet and send you postcards.

Peter, what exactly is your postal address?

Martin,

The last hat attempt did not have a clear-cut hat-criterior. I cried myself to sleep. Perhaps people would not mind if there were such criterior.

Also the benefits of the last hat experiment were less clear. Payment, on the other hand, is a very important issue. I think that everyone wants to see the Moodle Trust getting paid.

And also donor hats do not grade people upon their skill/knowledge. I think that it will largely factor upon desire (for support) and wallet size, with an sprinkling of honor.

I guess there would be as many groups as there are levels. It is up to you to choose the levels. Maybe starting at $50, then $100 and then going up in $100's or something. $50 is not a lot to pay for a system of this size. Perhaps the cost of the first hat could be made dependent upon where the donor comes from.

I think that 6 groups would do it.

$50 (industrial nations), $25 (semi-industrial?) $10 ("largely pre-industrial)) blue
$100 red
$200 silver (white)
$300 gold
$500 planinum (? white on blue? purple?) 
$1000 diamond (sparking gif) 

If you got $1000 from just 5% of users it would be a tidy sum. Those donating more than $1000 are probably not all that interested in hats.

What to do about developers is more difficult. I am not sure. Perhaps that is where the system falls down? If the hats are exclusively MONEY though, (perhaps they should be coins, not hats) then perhaps this is a different issue. And the major advantage (support) may not be all that much of an incentive to developers. Alternatively developers could purchase hats by asking people to donate for the code they developer.

If Sourceforge does it then it can not be such a bad idea.

Looking at your donations page it seems that there would not be all that much work. One donation a week?! I would, of course, be happy to assign members to groups if I were notified of the amount when paypal donations came in. That would mean being a Using Moodle moderator wouldn't it? Wow. I for one, would pay for the privelidge, and a better hat.

Tim
Takemoto

Martin  , I might be way off centre here, but Peter mentioned 'Flash '  'stuff'
and other threads have also commented on even 'paying ' for development of 'Flash stuff' , you  also commented in a couple of threads that the Flash could be brought into the SCORM module in Moodle. Just a thought, but, would it perhaps be an idea to get the SCORM module really grabbing the scores etc , and allowing each 'site' to use their own 'quiz, flash ' type software and packaging, to produce the SCORM's ? Seems to me that in some way ,you are being asked to develop (with quizzes) a lot more than I personally have experienced available in BB ! (as a student) and, that I would expect to be available in Moodle!
As I said, just a thought !
Joyce

I like hats, but last time I tried it things got a bit contentious.
Let me handle the contentious ones.

Will people who can't donate financially feel discriminated against?
No.

Will people who submit code get a hat?
Yes.

Do people who submit code that no-one wants get a hat?
Yes, they will get a hat that no one wants.

Do people who donate $2 get a hat?
Yes.

Same as those who put in $2000?
Yes. Or maybe a cooler hat.

If so, where's the incentive? Do we have ten groups for different levels?
No. So far Moodle has been built without explicit incentives. That can continue. But those who cannot code can now participate and support those who can code but need finances for their living. And those who contribute will see clear results for a specific donation.

Who manages all this?
Henrik does. With a few appointed cheerleaders and evangelists. Actually, it is most important to hear what you are comfortable with, Henrik. I would like to help organize a system for small donations (to hopefully complement a big donor(s) to whom I will happily send cards of appreciation to. How do you feel about this, Henrik?

I think we need a very simple system (no hats, actually). One that is built upon a lot of trust and good will. I imagine this next year something like this...

1. Moodlers make requests for quiz module
- we compile ten or so feature requests
- one or two knarly difficult platform restructurings (flash question)
2. Henrik chooses 4-5 simpler ones and puts a programming fee to each one, including time for integrating into the whole module and moodle as a whole.
3. Fees are published and donations solicted by a cheerleader (4-5 needed, one per project). Moodlers send donations ($2, $20, $200) to moodle.org
4. moodle.org sends donation reports to cheerleader
5. cheerleader updates red donation thermometer. Shall we use wikis?
6. When goal is reached, moodle.org sends money to Henrik.
7. Henrik does programming. He confers with moodlers as needed.
8. Discussions happen publically with anyone for these small ones.
9. Henrik listens a little harder to those who donated.
10. Cheerleader moderates forum/wiki.
11. When feature is completed, effusive cheers behold all Moodleland. Statues are erected. Stories told to grandchildren. Conquering heros welcomed home to warm beds and hot food.

For a big, knarlly, complicated project, we would do much in the same spirit. Except that we may need a big donor to lead the project. In that case, we should set up a private forum for invited donors to discuss with Henrik, but keep a public forum as well for general input.

I think we are deviating a bit from the initial objective of this thread. We are talking about finding better ways in which institutions or individuals could donate to Moodle. Which is very good, and I think the subscription idea is a very good one.

But I don't think this scheme might work for things like introducing specific improvements in a module or creating a specific new module that a group of people think they need. How would we go about doing that? You pay for 2 or 20 subscriptions depending on the magnitude of the job you need to get done? Do you contact a specific developer and tell him/her that you have paid for 15 subscriptions and therefore you need him/her to work on this or that?

I think that, without abandoning this thread about donations which should be continued here or elsewhere, we should go back to discussing Martin's original proposal for funding of specific developments that certain institutions or grups of people consider important but that are not considered priorities in the core Moodle development.

In this respect what I have to say is that it would be wonderful if we could find some individual, company or institution that would cough up $30,000 (these are Australian dollars or US dollars, by the way? ) to take care of all the needs of the quiz module or any other module for that matter.

Call me party pooper but I'm pretty skeptical that this can happen any time soon (and believe me, I'd love to be wrong on this one). In the meantime, though, there might be considerable amounts of money here and there that could be used to support good Moodle developers like Henrik and to make Moodle even better. This sums of money will be lost (to Moodle) because we cannot find a good way to channel them.  Assuming this can be organized properly (and I do understand Martin's concerns that this might be a complicated job) if we manage to put together $50 here, $500 there, $1000 there and so on, this could amount to some interesting sums of money that otherwise would go unused. I don't know what the constraints of other people are, but I think many institutions or companies or people like me who have money from grants would only need some kind of document or bill stating that a particular job has been performed. This might be a bit more administrative work, but it might be worth it for Moodle developers.

Just my 5 (and a half) cents.

Josep M.