An entity posted in another forum concerns about slowness of their version 2.4.4. In side channel discussion and eventually permission to look over the Moodle instance, discovered the server had been a locally hosted server and RL remotely managed. Now that the relationship has ended and server is reponsibility of the entity, have discovered many residual addons, etc. from RL.
Now that you have the skinny, a question before the listing of RL items:
I see an ELIS core ... does this mean the entities Moodle is no longer a 'stock' Moodle and core files have been modified by ELIS?
Updates from/for ELIS are, of course, no longer forth coming.
The site also appears to have been migrated from 1.9.x to/through 2.4.x. Legacy files appear on the front page menu.
Listing:
ELIS
ELIS Core
elis_core
Add-on 2013051400 2.4.2.2 (Build: 20130522)
ELIS Report / rlreport
Class Completion Gas Gauge Report
rlreport_class_completion_gas_gauge
Add-on
Class Roster Report
rlreport_class_roster
Add-on
Course Completion By User Set Report
rlreport_course_completion_by_cluster
Add-on
Course Completion Gas Gauge Report
rlreport_course_completion_gas_gauge
Add-on
Course Progress Summary Report
rlreport_course_progress_summary
Add-on
Site Usage Summary Report
rlreport_course_usage_summary
Add-on
Programs Report
rlreport_curricula
Add-on
Individual Course Progress Report
rlreport_individual_course_progress
Add-on
Individual User Report
rlreport_individual_user
Add-on
Absence Report
rlreport_nonstarter
Add-on
Registrants By Course Report
rlreport_registrants_by_course
Add-on
Registrants By Student Report
rlreport_registrants_by_student
Add-on
Sitewide Course Completion Report
rlreport_sitewide_course_completion
Add-on
Sitewide Time Summary Report
rlreport_sitewide_time_summary
Add-on
Sitewide Transcript Report
rlreport_sitewide_transcript
Add-on
[pluginname,rlreport_user_class_completion]
rlreport_user_class_completion
Add-on
[pluginname,rlreport_user_class_completion_details]
rlreport_user_class_completion_details
Add-on
ELIS Core / Custom field types
ELIS Manual Fields
elisfields_manual
Add-on
ELIS Moodle Profile Fields
elisfields_moodle_profile
Add-on
ELIS Core / General plugins
User Activity ETL
eliscoreplugins_user_activity
Add-on 2013031500 2.4.2.2 (Build: 20130522)
Local plugins
Moodlerooms Framework
local_mr
Add-on 2010090201 2.4.0 (Build: 20130711) (RL: 2.4.1) Uninstall
Remote-Learner jQuery library
local_rljquery
Add-on 2013020400 1.9.1 (2.4)
Thanks, in advance, for any advice I can pass along to the entity.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
So, I guess no one has ever left RL? or entities that did basically started over (somehow/someway)?
I realize that time is money in biz, but there is also the thought that parting as 'friends' and maintaining 'customer relations' after severance of contract/agreement, etc. is a good thing - if it's still true that customers (even former) are the 'best advertising'. That applies to the folks at the 'top' of this relationship as well as the techies behind the scenes.
IMHO, RL should have either 'cleaned up' or provided former customer with information concerning the add-ons, etc.. Entities in K12 talk to one another. Right now, IF anyone asked me, I'd be glad to share the potential for a 'catch 22' IF going with RL.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi Ken -
Sorry, I did not see this post. Helen pointed me to it. I'm not clear on what your asking about here, so please feel free to ask questions and I will try to answer them.
As far as Remote-Learner installing code on client sites... We have a very well defined, strict policy and process on installing add-ons to a client site. In fact, we often have to convince our clients why it is a bad idea to install add-ons. But, we do allow them, and they are all clearly defined to the client - generally only installed when they request them.
One of the befits of using only add-ons is it is very easy to replace the codebase. So if they have decided to move to a standard, plain vanilla version of Moodle, it should really be as simple as replacing the codebase.
That said, what is the specific problem you are having?
mike
Thanks (to Helen also!) for reply.
The site in question was formerly remotely administered by RL. The entity has dropped the relationship and is now administering with local personnel.
The original question had to do with what one sees in a listing of modules/addons installed. It list several from ELIS, but they do not appear anywhere in the menus (site admin/course, etc.).
Right now the entity hasn't given me remote access via ssh so I can actually inspect the folders/files of the Moodle code directory. Only have Admin level from the Moodle UI.
The only serious problem they have is with Quizzes. Server times out on the health tool and on the quiz upgrade helper. Since I don't have command line access and the person with whom am communicating does but is in the 'learning mode', thought I'd ask if any of the RL/ELIS addons could be safely removed.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
ELIS is a series of plug-ins and shows up in various places in the site - blocks, repositories, local plug-ins, auth plug-ins... The main part of ELIS - Program Management - has its own block that displays more of its functions. If you look in the various plug-in areas, you'll find them.
ELIS doesn't do anything to the quizzes. So odds are good that removing or changing ELIS will have little or no impact on the quiz data problem.
mike
I also noticed you said that "[u]pdates from/for ELIS are, of course, no longer forth coming"... ELIS is completely open source and we publish and distribute all code updates as they are released internally, to the github account Tim mentioned. We do not hold anything back, and the release schedules to the community match our own internal schedules. There is no reason that you cannot update and maintain the ELIS add-ons by yourself.
Regards,
Mike Churchward
Thanks, Mike.
Like I said ... am doing the 'leg work' for a gent who has been tagged as the Moodle Server Administrator ... new to ISD and job. Don't know if they upgraded via git or not.
Thanks, Tim for info and link.
This is a currently functioning (although it might be barely) so learning how to add the git repo will have to be done very carefully, I would think.
I see there is an elis.reporting but that repo on git site says:
This repository is now obsolete and has been replaced by a new repository:
and provides a link to: https://github.com/remotelearner/moodle-block_php_report
Looks like I'll have to suggest the entity first sets up a sandbox which is a snapshot of their current site so they can find out what works and what doesn't during this transition.
That's IF they wish to keep the ELIS stuff ... they've not said nor asked any questions about why this or that report is missing sooooo?????
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Something you might want to consider doing sooner, rather than later:
Work out how to take a copy of everything (code, moodledata + database) onto another server. See Moodle migration. Not only does that show you have a complete back-up, and know how to use that back-up to get create a working Moodle site again, but it then also gives you a copy of the site where you can experiment with things like code updates before you do them for real on the live site.
Well, reporting is only part of what ELIS offers. But certainly, they are also free to remove it.
mike
At least some of the ELIS code is publicly available: https://github.com/remotelearner
You have all the code and data on the server. You need to use git or something to work out exactly what code you have.
And just to clarify Tim's comment... All of the ELIS code is publicly available there.
;)
OH, yes, both of you are saying the same thing ... I understand. Code is there (although not in a nice neat little .zip installer - or could you provide links to them).
What I was really interested in was assisting this entity in getting their site onto git. Know how to 'git' the core code, but since the ELIS stuff is not part of core, would be nice to know (at least one example) of how one might 'git' those parts of ELIS via git. Just one example ... am pretty good at 'monkey see, monkey do'. ;)
ELIS addons are not anywhere to be found from the teacher/admin user perspective in their current site ... even though those are listed in mods/blocks/addons. Entity may not want to use it so removing/or just hiding may not be a big issue in continued use of current version, but know that there is potential for future issues which might arise on their next upgrade (and break the site).
Is there any support page for continued use of ELIS anywhere (other than Moodle Partners forum)? If there is, I can't seem to find it. Link please. Is it to be improved/supported non-commercially? Or is the git repo the only thing there is?
Since the entity has brought Moodle back inside and dropped remote support it might be too tall a task for the person tagged as the true Moodle Server Administrator to continue to offer anything related to ELIS due to lack of support/documentation, etc..
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Replying own post ... how sick is that? ;)
Just to follow up ... the entity mentioned finally contacted and asked for assistance in cleaning up their Moodle. Very interesting/challenging project. Unfortunately, the now departed Moodle server/Operating system Admin person took approaches that left folders 'missing' and data in the DB.
By now, the data folder too large to put on any sandbox server with existing functioning moodles (509Gig). Able to migrate a copy of the site code to a Virtual apache 'sandbox' implementation on same server, used a copy of the DB, AND use the same moodledata directory with 'special symlinks' to the largest of the real moodledata folder. Caching proved to be an issue, but once that was sorted out, had the ability to work in the sandbox copy and remove ELIS without touching the production site - in use like you wouldn't believe!
Through a combination of table study (use of Webmins limited MySQL tool) and behavior of Moodle observation, have been success in eradicating ELIS from the entities Moodle site and the site is easily updated via git. Hint for anyone else stuck with something like this ... version 2.6.x removes folders now.
Ken
