Our CIO would like to identify universities that plan to implement Moodle for the first time using Moodle 2.x. U of England in Australia and Open University appear to fit this criteria, but they are very online focused. We are a state university of about 20k that is seriously considering Moodle. We would like to talk to others a little more like us that are going straight to 2.x. Thanks!
It depends what you mean by "for the first time". The British OU uses Moodle now. They are shifiting to 2+ sometime.
- The problems in going from 1.9 to 2+ are greater than starting with 2+. You have a large staff dis-orientation problem then.
- Moodle 2+ has a lack of some plugins available for 1.9. But not so big a problem with a starting off in 2+. You don't know what you haven't got. The book (a non core modue) is working for 2+.
- The basics seem to be sorted, especially with the video work currently headed for the weekly release soon.
Gradebook: no experience in this.
Conditional release: seems to be working. But I have not seen this used at a large scale.
Navigation: some issues around navigation can be solved by a Menu block
Other things to consider: Speed. File picker. Repositories.
Good luck.
Hi Terri - the decision to go with Moodle 2 is a calculated risk (like everything else). However, we consider Moodle 2 to be a beautiful, modern system; and as such is the future LMS for our Polytechnic (32,000 students).
We started designing in 1.9 without incident; but soon realised that conversion to Moodle 2 can be messy. We now prefer to start with Moodle 2 and design directly in the production environment.
Furthermore, we need to develop add ons for the LMS to monitor and flag participation (or rather, non-participation). This will be much easier to achieve in Moodle 2 with its built-in conditional logic. Moodle 1.9 is inadequate in this respect.
Students also enjoy Moodle 2 for its file management. It is highly significant that a student can maintain a Flickr, Picasa, DropBox account as a file repository that can be easily referenced in Moodle 2 across all their Courses.
We are optimistic that the release of Moodle 2.1 will demonstrate maturity and stability at the enterprise level.
Thank you Derek, Don and Paul.
Terri
Are starting to use Moodle for the first time? If so, then no question you should begin with 2.0 (or 2.1 scheduled for end of June). If you go straight to 2.0 (and LaTrobe University is doing that right now with their whole student body) you will avoid the headaches of upgrading and moving data from 1.9 to 2.0.
If the Book module and Feedback module are already in Moodle 2.0, you should have little problem. Our Sharing Cart and Project Course Format plugins are due for updates in May. We are also waiting to hear about some drag-and-drop Question type plugins that should be coming soon.
Martin reported at the MoodleMoot Japan that HQ is now using a "swarm" style of programming management. This means they work on major issues as a whole team until completed, then move on to another major feature. This way they can fix a release date more reliably than if they worked in parallel with each person doing separate jobs that may not get completed in time. So I feel confident you will see a 2.1 release in June/July.
That should be Scrum not swarm.
Thanks, Tim, got it, "scrum", a rugby word. More explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_%28development%29
According to this article, the scrum roles include:
- Scrum Master: that would be Martin?
- Product Owner: that would be me and a million others
- Team: that would be other HQ developers
I like how the processes of Daily Scrum and Sprint Planning Meeting work. Gives me an image of high collaboration, and may be fitting to a social constructionist perspective.
Don: You say: "I like how the processes of Daily Scrum and Sprint Planning Meeting work"
Who looks after the big picture and long term goals?
-Derek
Well, it is not clear how religiously Moodle HQ are following the Scrum gospel.
Anyway, I would say that Martin is product owner. It is his role to represent the voice of a million Moodle users in the planning process.
I believe they are recruiting, or have recruited, someone to fill the role of scrum mater, but it has not been announced yet.
The team is indeed the HQ developers.
There are two added complications to the classic Scrum picture.
First, not all the Moodle developers in the world work for Moodle HQ. There is lots of other development going on.
Second, as well as the fortnightly spring cycle, there is also the weekly cycle of integrating and testing contributions and HQ patches to make the weekly builds.
The key organising point is the Tracker. Each item in the project and sprint backlog is recorded as a tracker issue. It is also how non-HQ developers feed their changes into the system. Votes on tracker issues are one of the ways Martin listens to the millions of Moodle users.
To reply to Derek, I would say that the big picture emerges over time. Particularly, I would guess, via Moodle Moots. I would guess that every time Martin has to prepare a keynote explaining what has been done recently, and what is coming soon; then present it; and then listen to the feedback; that provides a good opportunity for reflection on the big picture.
The other point to make is that Moodle has been set up in such a way to de-emphasise the need for a big picture. We intentionally have modules and plugins so that lots of innovation like certificate and questionnaire and forumng can take place separately. If something gets done that is very good, the decision to then include it in Moodle core is something that can be decided later.
Tim you wrote this a few years ago
Any thoughts on how this has evolved since then?