Structure Moodle site to minimise course maintenance - changing syllabi
by eamonn toland - Monday, 12 September 2011, 06:15 PM
[I am currently using Moodle 1.9]
I am teaching maths in a system where the syllabi are changing on a phased way over 3 years.
This is a bit challenging but I will try to explain the situation as clearly as I can.
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Focusing on the senior cycle:
the Senior cycle is 2 years long with an exam at the end.
The Senior cycle has an ordinary syllabus and exam, and a higher level syllabus and exam.
So let's call these exams SrO, SrH.
Both syllabi are changing in a phased manner, introducing new topics to replace older sets of topics over 3 years.
In 2012, each senior cycle syllabus will see 2 new topics, T1 and T2.
In 2013, each senior cycle syllabus will see 2 new topics, T3 and T4.
In 2014, each senior cycle syllabus will see a final new topic, T5.
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We are building courses for the new topics only, incrementally as the new topics come on stream. So right now we have courses for T1, T2, T3 and T4.
Here's how I am thinking of managing the situation to minimise duplication of courses, but allowing a single point of entry for SrO2012 students, and another single point of entry for SrO2013 students (Let's just talk about SrO level, but the same ideas will apply to SrH level.)
As of right now:
SrO2012 students can login, click on a SrO2012 category, and will be presented with a course for T1 and a course for T2 only (as T3 and T4 are not relevant for them).
SrO2013 students can click on a SrO2013 category, and will be presented with a course for each of T1, T2, T3, and T4.
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The main thing is, I don't want to create duplicate courses for each topic. So I want Sr2012 and Sr2013 people logging on to the same course if it is common to both, and partaking in the same discussions etc.
I know that Moodle doesn't allow a course to be in more than one category. So I am creating the T1 and T2 courses within the SrO2012 category.
I am creating the T3 and T4 courses within the SrO2013 category. I am then creating a dummy T1 and a dummy T2 course within SrO2013 category. These courses will have a label with java script to automatically redirect to the actual T1 and T2 courses.
This way, SrO2012 people have their own point of entry, and so do SrO2013 people. But where the courses overlap, they take the same course and participate in the same discussions.
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Is this the best way to handle this?
Is there something I could be doing with Groups or Metacourses to handle this better?
I am sorry that this is complicated, it's just the way the syllabi are changing. Thanks for reading this far and hope someone can advise me as I am only in my first week of using Moodle.
Many thanks.