I'm evaluating Moodle's features on behalf of a client and was wondering if somebody could help me by telling whether or not Moodle supports the following features (without custom code):
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In reply to Charles Campbell
Re: Help Evaluating Moodle Features and Capabilities
by Howard Miller -
This is a classic "I've never seen Moodle, can't be bothered to try it or read about it but here is my specification". However...
A lot of your requirements don't mean anything to me but it sounds more like some sort of course/staff/resource management system rather than Moodle which is more about delivering courses. For example, what do "stock levels" have to do with online learning?
In reply to Charles Campbell
Re: Help Evaluating Moodle Features and Capabilities
by Howard Miller -
Just thinking, I am aware I might have come over as a bit abrasive but I'm assuming you're getting paid for this and asking us to do this for free. But anyway...
Here's my view...
If you come here with a big, "blue sky" list of requirements completely unconnected to Moodle then the answer to "will Moodle do that?" will almost without fail be "no". I would have thought that to be pretty self evident.
If however, you decide that you would like to use Moodle for your basic course delivery and then have other requirements that it does not immediately do then you will be able to ask more targeted questions that are relevant to Moodle use. We will try to think of ways that these things could be done.
But as it stands, the answer is an unfortunate no. But please don't go back and say Moodle is useless
For people who arrive later than this thread, I ask the same questions as Howard, sometimes more specific, than Howard's, farther down this thread.
My rhetorical purpose, however, is, I think, different.
I am pointing out, below, that, if you don't know how to ask the question, you will not get a satisfactory answer. People who live in different LMS/VLE, whatever you want to call them, don't necessarily know how to ask the question.
My example is about inputting due dates to a viewable calendar. We used a csv file in the early 2000's for WebCT. I put that question to people about Moodle and got "No, you can't do that." But, they didn't know to tell me that due dates are *built into* Moodle activities and will be picked up by the calendar.
You need to be able to say what you want to happen, not what you knew how to do in a previous LMS/VLE/whatever.
Quite so... but a list like the OP's is nearly impossible to answer because every single bullet point is a discussion all by itself.
As I said, if it's a yes or no answer that is needed then the answer is going to be no.
Unless you are quoting for a tender, in which case the answer is 'yes' and we'll worry about how to do it later
What resources have you used so far? (To ensure we don't duplicate the research you have already done)
After hours of clicking through the online demo and hunting through some of the online documentation, I figured it would be easier just to post my requirements and see if the community could help. I took this same approach with evaluating JoomlaLMS and their help desk sent me back a very helpful reply indicating each requirement that JoomlaLMS could and could not accommodate. And yes, I understand although Joomla is open source, JoomlaLMS is a paid/commercial component so they have paid staff who are suppose to answer my questions...
Based on the online demo I've determined that Moodle is capable of:
- providing a publicly searchable course catalog that would not require a username/password to search and access
- keeping a record of all actions in the Action Log
- providing a calendar of all online classes
- allowing teachers to create quizzes/exams
But as mentioned before, its difficult for me to (quickly) determine if Moodle can:
- Track the teach schedules and pass/fail rates of instructors
- Associate physical locations with the courses
- Facilitate capturing teach evaluations
- Ability to alert multiple stakeholders when a student has registered for a class
- Provide the ability for authorize users to approve student requests for class participation
- Provide the ability for students to request to participate in upcoming classes
- Provide the ability to check-in students indicating they have participated or attended.
Any help is appreciated.
What resources have you used so far?
Edit: After posting, the original post and followups appeared. I'm covering some territory already covered above.
I've worked on several of my uni's LMS search committees going back to the early 2000's. Sorry to say this bullet list is not specific enough for me to respond.
But as mentioned before, its difficult for me to (quickly) determine if Moodle can:
- Track the teach schedules and pass/fail rates of instructors < -- this seems to be 2 very different requirements: schedules means what? If you use the gradebook, you can certainly determine pass v. fail
- Associate physical locations with the courses <-- This is pretty much a site admin level issue that I've never even thought of attempting, though Moodle has some capacity to track IPs, which are physical locations, but the question really is why do you want to do this? (E.g. chat sessions or some such)
- Facilitate capturing teach evaluations <-- need more information. what does "teach evaluations" mean?
- Ability to alert multiple stakeholders when a student has registered for a class <-- Yup. It's an issue of "roles" in the Moodle sense of that word.
- Provide the ability for authorize users to approve student requests for class participation <-- Yup. Again, "roles," not that I know how it is done, but I've seen enough help item subject headers suggesting it can be done. Ooops, what does "requests for class participation" mean?
- Provide the ability for students to request to participate in upcoming classes < -- does this mean request to enroll?
- Provide the ability to check-in students indicating they have participated or attended. < -- Does this mean provide a certificate indicating completion of a course? Then, yes. Does it mean something else?
My experience with LMS search committees is pretty much the questions I asked above. As we moved from one LMS to another, we did not have enough familiarity with each LMS to phrase the question in a way that the LMS could answer. E.g., In 2001 WebCT, we could upload a csv file to fill the WebCT calendar with due dates. When we looked at Moodle, we were told by a local group that uploading a csv to the calendar was not possible. But, we didn't know how to ask the obvious question: how do due dates get into the Moodle calendar? We were WebCT centric and didn't have the language for the question.
In reply to Charles Campbell
Re: Help Evaluating Moodle Features and Capabilities
by Howard Miller -
Seeing as we now have a more manageable list of questions, I'll add my $00.02 if it helps.
I suspect some background information about what you wanted to do with Moodle would help a lot to give some context. It doesn't sound like a straightforward teaching situation.
- Track the teach schedules and pass/fail rates of instructors. Unsure what 'teach schedules' means. It sounds like you need to have detailed reports on your teaching staff. This doesn't exist but the data exists and a custom report wouldn't be the end of the world to develop.
- Associate physical locations with the courses - there's nothing built in but it really depends on what you want to achieve. It's easy enough to stick a label at the top of a course saying "This is taught in Room 1234" or whatever.
- Facilitate capturing teach evaluations - Again, more information about 'teach evaluations' is required. Have a look at the 'feedback' module though
- Ability to alert multiple stakeholders when a student has registered for a class - rather depends on how you define 'stakeholders'.
- Provide the ability for authorize users to approve student requests for class participation - I assume this is related to the point below
- Provide the ability for students to request to participate in upcoming classes - not really but there are plugins (like https://moodle.org/plugins/block_cmanager) which might help or provide the basis for some custom development
- Provide the ability to check-in students indicating they have participated or attended. - Again, there are optional plugins for this kind of thing. For example, https://moodle.org/plugins/block_attendance