Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Les Ingleby -
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HI all,

Is anyone running 2.6 yet?

I am shocked to see that another major change has taken place which has increased my work load.

I truly feel that if any more poor decisions are made when it comes to managing users and courses then we may have to move to something more friendly.

I am now unable to bulk move any of my courses into other categories and it seems this must now be done on an individual basis. Why!!!! Coupled with the fact that he cohort feature is still poor and has been since moving from 1.9, I find myself having to import data into tables to bypass this horrible/restricted "add user" interface.

 

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回复Les Ingleby

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Mary Cooch -
Documentation writers的头像 Moodle HQ的头像 Particularly helpful Moodlers的头像 Testers的头像 Translators的头像

Good morning

To bulk move courses into another category, go to Site administration>Courses>Manage courses and categories.

Click on the category where your courses are (1 below)

Select the courses you wish to move (2 below)

From the dropdown, choose the category into which you wish to move them (3 below)

(Could you give some examples of where the cohort feature is poor please? It's by listening to users' experiences that things can get improved in Moodle.)

 

附件 bulkmovecourses.png
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回复Mary Cooch

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Les Ingleby -

Hi Mary,

Thank you for your reply. Firstly from above I understand that you can manage a course(s) in this way, it does look nicer but still lacks vital functionality.

We have a parent child course system (external database course setup) I would normally search the course code and would be given a list of the parent and it's child courses, I could then select the courses and move them into relevant categories. The problem I have is that the hidden category in which our courses are created holds 2370 courses and sometimes the child courses are not named the same as the parents, so the new filter criteria does not work for me. I don't have the time to search through 80 pages manually, I just liked to type in the code hit enter and get a list of the courses I wanted to see.

We heavily use meta linking on our courses, we do this to cut down on duplication of data on courses which have the same units etc, however since 2.0 we have a drop down list of 5000 courses and I have to painfully search through the list to find and link the courses. Why cant I just have a search box and find the course I want by its unique code?

Since 2.0 I have no way to add all of our 14,000 users to a single course as there are limitations (too many users), I am constantly asked to make sure all students have access to certain pages on our Moodle site and to date have been unable to make this happen, whereas in 1.9 I would select the user at the top of the list and hit shift select the user at the bottom of the page and add them all.

Moodle is now only part of my role and my time is spread thinly, I just feel these updates end up causing more problems for me than they resolve. Another example is a recent post of mine where I was unable to import data from LDAP and had to comment out a couple of lines of code, 2 weeks later and the problem is still there.

I feel very frustrated and just want my search boxes back. I would also like to express that these are my own views and not those of my organisation.

Thanks

Les

 

 

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回复Les Ingleby

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Bob Puffer -

Most administrators with which I'm familiar know how to use the User upload facility to mass enrol from a csv file

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回复Bob Puffer

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Les Ingleby -

But why upload from a csv when I can simply point to a table is a database, set a script to run via a cron job and everything is automated. Most administrators I know like to automate tasks.

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回复Les Ingleby

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Melanie Scott -

It sounds like you really liked the assign roles screen for enrolling people and don't like the new search enroll feature.  If you go to the enrollment method for the course, there is what I call a mutant person icon option for manual enrollments...this allows you to access old style adding.  There is a 100 entry limit (which I also don't like) but I get around it by searching for specific letter combinations (ab, ac, ad, etc) and it will pull people whose first or last names begin with those letters (make sure to turn off the search within feature or it will be harder) or by searching for specifics in the institution or department (if you use those fields).

My agency used meta course functionality extensively (in 1.9) also but we switched to using Cohorts and Cohort enrollment when we upgraded to 2.5.  We really like it.  I haven't looked at 2.6, but our staff (I manage the site and have about 45 people who request courses, manage enrollments, give course credit, etc) find cohorts much easier to comprehend and work with.  The same 100 search limit is also present in cohorts, unfortunately.  One of our staff members recently considered creating a series of cohorts, each with 100 people, so she could see all of them.  It's an idea.  With 14,000 people, that would be a bit unwieldy (I only have 6,500 and I wouldn't want to do it that way...we separate by facility).

Hoping this is helpful.

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回复Melanie Scott

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

AL Rachels -
Core developers的头像 Particularly helpful Moodlers的头像 Plugin developers的头像 Testers的头像

Hi Melanie,

In reference to the 100 entry limit you mentioned, have you tried changing the site Maximum users per page setting? It is at Site Administration > Users > Permissions > User Policies > Maximum users per page.  The default setting is 100. I run a small site, but know that when I change this setting as needed, I can see ALL my students in the list.

HTH,

AL

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回复AL Rachels

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Les Ingleby -

Hi Al,

I have spent days and tried many ways to have this up the number of users, I remember when this feature was added, unfortunately it was no use to me, changed the value to 1000 and still "too many users"

 

Les

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回复AL Rachels

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Melanie Scott -

Brilliant!  I didn't notice that option before.  It doesn't seem to impact cohorts but it is terribly useful for manual enrollments and groups.  When I couldn't find it, the other admin (more techy than me) said he didn't think there was a way to change it.  That will make a bunch of people happy here.  Thanks.

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回复Melanie Scott

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Les Ingleby -

Hi Melanie,

The assignment of student roles is not really the main focus for my concern, the external database enrollment works well for me and I do use the manual user enrollment to add in the odd user here and there.

The meta course does work well but who adds drop down list when your dealing with so much data? (this goes against any usability I know or have read about). Each course has a unique code and I miss being able to enter the code select the course and add via meta link - now it just takes me longer to search through the course list and find the course I am looking for.

The main issue with 2.6 for me is the removal of most of the options to enable me to manage courses effectively. For example I would search from the main page the course code I wanted to see, I would then be presented with a list of courses (parent+child) then I would select "manage courses" then I could manage my courses and move them into the relevant categories. Now I cant.

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回复Les Ingleby

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Les Ingleby -

Attached is an example, the list box has now gone and it seems that if I would like to move these courses into different categories then I must drill down into each course individually (much easier than selecting check boxes and moving in bulk!!!)

附件 Untitled.jpg
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回复Les Ingleby

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Mary Cooch -
Documentation writers的头像 Moodle HQ的头像 Particularly helpful Moodlers的头像 Testers的头像 Translators的头像

Ah - I have just worked out why your screen doesn't look like mine in an earlier post, and yes, it's because you are showing the Search results screen, presumably as you said before, because you have to search through your many courses. So it seems that when courses are displayed from there you can't move them ... do look in the tracker (it's for new features as well as bugs) and I will look there also.

EDIT: I just searched the tracker and I can't immediately find it reported so it might be worth your reporting it. (If I have made a mistake then blame me微笑) So here is the 2.5 view when you search courses and find them...

and here (as with Les)  is the 2.6 view when you search for courses:

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回复Les Ingleby

Re: Moodle Usability - Getting Worse

Pieter van der Hijden -

Les, just dropping in, I did not use meta courses any more since the cohort showed up. So, I focus here on bulk operations on courses, course codes and categories: did you explore the new Moodle 2.6 "upload courses" feature? Although, there are some issues yet, I used it already successfully with CSV files for:

  • quick update of all course titles in order to have any strange abbreviations removed etc.
  • quick update of all course titles in order to let them always start with the course code, e.g. course code E101, old course title "Electronics part I", new course title "E101 - Electronics part I".
  • enforcing that all my classes have their accompanying Moodle course by bulk creation of new courses (only the missing ones) according to a pre-fab course model
  • checking and repairing my course building (categories) by automatically moving each course to the required category (if it is not already there)
  • moving obsolete courses to the "archive" or "wastebasket" (categories) where I can deal with them adequately
  • adding certain course elements (e.g. a complex grouping structure, the self enrolment method) to a long list of courses in one go

It should be possible as well to add a specific cohort to a certain course via the CSV file. However, there is an open issue there, that hopefully will be solved ASAP. If you are interested, please vote for https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-43127. 

One thing that I still have to figure out (or that I will place on my wishlist, if I do not succeed) is to sort courses all over the place automatically.

All the best.

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