Can anyone suggest a portal that integrates well with moodle? That is, one that would allow someone who is logged in to the portal to use their same userid & password to access moodle (I don't mind if they need to log in twice, but I'd like to have the same login name/pass for both parts of the site.
The idea here is that the main Portal would provide a publically accessible site for a Public Broadcasting station, but individual departments at the station could go in and update their newest "features" and "polls" and "forums" etc. Additionally, those who are "supporters/members" of the PBS station would have the ability to log in if they wished and be able to access special news/announcements/events just for members. Also, these same members would be able to enroll in special moodle-delivered classes on topics of interest to them.
The portal needs to be HIGHLY customizable on the visual end of things... I have a certain layout that I need to build for the main site pages. I've already built this entirely in XHTML & CSS but with static content. I want to be able to easily drop in a few things to make the content be dynamic but keep the interface looking the same.
Is there a definitive best choice for this? Currently, I'm looking at Joomla. I heard a mention of postnuke, but I don't know much about it. Are there other wise options?
Thanks very much.
Have you thought of using Moodle AS the portal. I have posted this before at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=42378&parent=195581
We decided to use Modle itself and have acheived great success.
We decided to use Modle itself and have acheived great success.
Thanks, Julian... I'll give that possibility more thought, but my first inclination is to say that I'd prefer to use something designed for the portal purpose... Especially allowing multiple authors through the organization to edit small specific parts of the website (with support for an approval process)... Much of moodle seems to have a specifically educational feel... like "enrolling" to discussion areas and the like. While I think about that possiblity, though... Anyone else have suggestions?
Hi Andrew,
Joomla (or Mambo, from which Joomla is a fork) are OK portals - although personally I find the backend interface quite confusing. I use Etomite (www.etomite.org), which is extremely easy to customize, and has a really simple editing interface.
Moodle can read an external database for its list of users (set up in Admin>Authentication, so you can make sure people have the same usernames/passwords, by allowing the portal to manage the users.
I hope that helps.
Mark
Joomla (or Mambo, from which Joomla is a fork) are OK portals - although personally I find the backend interface quite confusing. I use Etomite (www.etomite.org), which is extremely easy to customize, and has a really simple editing interface.
Moodle can read an external database for its list of users (set up in Admin>Authentication, so you can make sure people have the same usernames/passwords, by allowing the portal to manage the users.
I hope that helps.
Mark
Thanks, Mark...
Besides log-in, then, is there anything else that could function very well between the two systems? For example, pulling a list of available courses from moodle into the portal for display?
Maybe all of these concerns are pretty irrelevant and almost anything would be a find choice?
-Andy.
Besides log-in, then, is there anything else that could function very well between the two systems? For example, pulling a list of available courses from moodle into the portal for display?
Maybe all of these concerns are pretty irrelevant and almost anything would be a find choice?
-Andy.
Hi Andrew,
I'm sure you could, using a bit of custom-built PHP. Although it's starting to feel as if you'd be better off using Moodle as your portal, as Julian suggested. I can't see anything in your original message that Moodle wouldn't be able to handle.
Mark
I'm sure you could, using a bit of custom-built PHP. Although it's starting to feel as if you'd be better off using Moodle as your portal, as Julian suggested. I can't see anything in your original message that Moodle wouldn't be able to handle.
Mark
I'm using PostNuke as a portal for our school site, and then linking it to Moodle. Moodle has a great calendar module, but the problem is, the Moodle calender has different information than PostCalendar.
So I need to maintain two different Calendars. While postnuke is flexible, I need something easier to maintain. Postnuke is really meant for geeks and is not easy to administer out of the box.
So I was thinking of running two instances of Moodle. How many people do this? Any problems with this setup?
Seventeen French Universities have integrated Moodle with uPortal. Information is available at the ESUP Portail project www.esup-portail.org. They have included a number of standard portlets into the uPortal deployment. (See also www.ja-sig.org).
The team has also developed a Help Desk that likely will evolve into academic support application for faculty and tutors; the State University of New York is investigating this alternative for supporting their on-line students. Aubry Pascal has an excellent paper for his EUNIS 2006 presentation. It can be seen at perso.univ-rennes1.fr/pascal.aubry/presentations/helpdesk-eunis2006/helpdesk-eunis2006-article.pdf
You may also want to add library access (including Google) from the CREE project at the University of Hull www.hull.ac.uk/esig/cree/.
Caution: This becomes an enterprise portal and takes more effort that having a simple portal that "connects" to Moodle for single signon.
The ESUP team has been exceptionally productive. I suggest you review their work as an example of how a college or university can plan for the future and then, through cooperation, achieve a high level of functionality and integration.
The team has also developed a Help Desk that likely will evolve into academic support application for faculty and tutors; the State University of New York is investigating this alternative for supporting their on-line students. Aubry Pascal has an excellent paper for his EUNIS 2006 presentation. It can be seen at perso.univ-rennes1.fr/pascal.aubry/presentations/helpdesk-eunis2006/helpdesk-eunis2006-article.pdf
You may also want to add library access (including Google) from the CREE project at the University of Hull www.hull.ac.uk/esig/cree/.
Caution: This becomes an enterprise portal and takes more effort that having a simple portal that "connects" to Moodle for single signon.
The ESUP team has been exceptionally productive. I suggest you review their work as an example of how a college or university can plan for the future and then, through cooperation, achieve a high level of functionality and integration.
Shouldn't there be a way to login to a portal, then goto Moodle and base the Moodle security on the existing cooking from the portal? This way it simply logs the user in?
In response to Will Muenchow's question:
As I understand the ESUP Portail integration, the user only logs on to the portal and through the use of JA-SIG's CAS, is automatically "logged on" to any subsequent application including Moodle. Presentations and some documentation is available at www.esup-portail.org. For specific information, you may want to e-mail directly to Alain Mayeur at the University of Valenciennes in France (alain.mayeur@univ-valenciennes.fr). He is another very helpful and very effective, but over-burdened, IT leader.
As I understand the ESUP Portail integration, the user only logs on to the portal and through the use of JA-SIG's CAS, is automatically "logged on" to any subsequent application including Moodle. Presentations and some documentation is available at www.esup-portail.org. For specific information, you may want to e-mail directly to Alain Mayeur at the University of Valenciennes in France (alain.mayeur@univ-valenciennes.fr). He is another very helpful and very effective, but over-burdened, IT leader.