Okay, need some help with my thinking on Journal. I want to provide a client with the ability that journal provides to submit their thoughts in text online, she also wants the ability for teachers to be notified when this has been done, for this activity to show up in Recent Activity and for there to be a link to Gradebook.
So far, I came up with the following information:
Journal is, however, being worked on.
- Journal is not core Moodle and has been deprecated (meaning it is no longer supported or updated)
- The Core Moodle developers are not going to fix any issues with Journal
- Online Text Assignments are meant to replace Journal. According to Howard Miller: “In Moodle 2.0, there have been changes to online text assignments. Online Assignment is improved in Moodle 2.0. It will now have a 'quick view' screen that Journal has so that you can see all the student's responses.”
- Howard has created a module to convert Journals to Assignments with the following comment written 18 months ago: “If you have Moodle 2.0, there should be no requirement to actually have Journal installed”.
Journal is, however, being worked on.
- the developer is working to make Journal talk to Gradebook and to make it work in Moodle 2 http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/CONTRIB/component/10880
- the latest update was done in January (doesn't show up as updated on page, but download of file shows it has been) http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=325&filter=1
The advantage of going over to OTA is that it is a Core Moodle Module, so it is guaranteed to be supported whereas Journal is now a plug in reliant on whether or not the developer currently working on it remains interested in doing so – as with most plug-ins. Any time there is an upgrade to Moodle, there could be a lag in the development work done on the plug-in.
Is Journal so much different that it is worth NOT making the recommended switch to OTA?
Thanks for your input and advice.