Google Summer of Code 2006

Google Summer of Code 2006

by Paul Shew -
Number of replies: 28
Google Summer of Code 2006 is currently accepting applications for mentoring organizations.
http://code.google.com/soc/

Last year there was discussion of Moodle trying to participate in 2006.
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=24888

Is this something that could benefit Moodle now?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Paul Shew

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Thanks, I already applied yesterday smile
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Nicolas Drosson -
Hi Martin,

I'm planning to realise an offline quiz module. Do you think, it could be a good project? I think gustav Delius could mentor me, if he has enough time (I should not need him a lot). I'm also adding some features to the actual quiz module (but those improvments are too small to be a real project).

Regards. Nico
In reply to Paul Shew

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Richie Foreman -
I don't know if this is relevant, but I was hired down at the district office for my school district while still in High School (I graduate in May 06).  I'm now working in collaboration with other Info. Sys. people on Moodle.  I'm known as the "Moodle Guy", I do a good (80-90%) portion of the development for my organization (Mesa Public Schools) and am in charge of "selling" moodle to the higher up people in the district, additional php development (custom modules, etc), server administration, and soon: moodle tech support.  We're purchasing a large dual processor server with all the trimmings, and are planning to add additional 1U application servers to scale to the demand for moodle.  I was hired as an intern scanning documents, and now I'm running the moodle install (5k-8k students projected) for a large school district (40+ elementary schools, 9(or 11)? junior highs, and 6 high schools).  Oh yeah, And I start college in July.  It's going to be a busy next 4 years for me.
In reply to Paul Shew

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
We got accepted, by the way, smile and I'm building up a list of student projects here:

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Student_projects

If you have some good ideas (or want to remind me of good ideas!), please post them here! I reserve the right to make the final decisions, as I'll be the one mentoring them.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Nicolas Drosson -
Hi Martin,

Don't you like my project of writing an offline quiz module or do you need more information on how I want to realize it? If you did not have time to look at it, please excuse this post...

Nico
In reply to Nicolas Drosson

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I don't really know much about it, sorry, it's not really high on my own list of priorities. I haven't heard a lot of people that need that feature.

Is there a specification anywhere? What does Gustav think? Does he have time? Perhaps you should contact me privately.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Ludo (Marc Alier) -
Hi Martin,
a proposal to make. I'm also volunteering for selecting the students )I allready have them) and to manage them.
------------
Mobile Moodle:
The proposal is to develop a gateway that allows to export some contents of the moodle course to a mobile device to be accessed offline.
The contents more easily exported will be:
- forums and news
- calendar events ( to be merged into the pda/cell phone schedule)
- any content with actually rss feed enabled would be easy to export.
and of course wikis ;)!!!
(internalmails)
Is yet to be studiend the possibility to post to forums offline and the syncronize ... etc
Client platforms:
j2me (I know java is evil and eats kids, bu j2me is to damm small and has not beed corrupted yet) superwaba and even .net for windows mobile devices...
The idea would be to assign a team of 3 developers each one in one platform working together with the server side part...
---------------------------
do you like it? do you buy it? smile
Ludo
ps. wiki is almost ready we only have to deal with the global variables issue and we are done...

In reply to Ludo (Marc Alier)

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by William Mudge -
Just want to cast a vote for this project. Quite a lot of demand for this capability where I'm working.

While a course in Moodle is usually focussed around the collaboration and interaction of the users, offline access via a PDA can turn a snapshot of a course into a very useful resource or reference tool.

Great idea!

(I'll keep an eye out for progress on this one, and lend what assistance I can (most likely just testing/documentation at this stage) as it progresses).
In reply to William Mudge

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Ludo (Marc Alier) -
Thank you william,
I'm willing to take this road within google soc or outside, but would be nice to get some cash for the students.
Regards
Ludo
In reply to Ludo (Marc Alier)

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Fatma Elsayed Meawad -
Hello Ludo,

We have been working on extending Moodle learning activities in the university of Glamorgan, uk. I am already ready with my prototype. So far, we extend forums, messages, quizzes, lessons, assignments, workshops,events, news and we are currently working on wikis. This is a big part of a research project here where we will provide a personalized access of this information to different learners. I will be interested in discussing ideas and sharing experiences. just let me know.

Peace,
Fatma
In reply to Ludo (Marc Alier)

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006-- WIKI PROPOSAL

by Ludo (Marc Alier) -
Hi Martin,
I've got another proposal:
Integration of moodle wiki and mediawiki ...
The main idea is to work in two lines :
- improve (df)wiki parser to meet current mediawiki markup dialect. ( I allready have the discussions implemented comming this week in dfwiki and two weeks in new wiki)
- import export tool ... to allow new wiki to import mediawiki backups ... and export in mediawiki format (last time I looked they are mysqldumps, so will be easy)
I hope someday moodledocs will be hosted by the moodle wiki module.
Well tha'ts it.
You haven't told me anything about the modible project. Dont you like it smile
Ludo





Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Ludo (Marc Alier)

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006-- WIKI PROPOSAL

by N Hansen -
I hope someday moodledocs will be hosted by the moodle wiki module.

Which wiki module are you actually talking about?
In reply to N Hansen

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006-- WIKI PROPOSAL

by Ludo (Marc Alier) -
For me there is ONLY ONE wiki module ... it was called dfwiki and has ben renamed to wiki. 
In reply to Ludo (Marc Alier)

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Matt Campbell -
I'd also be interested in such a possibility.  I've got a few teachers that are arguing that they need Blackboard Backpack (http://backpack.blackboard.com/Default.aspx) as a justification that they need to keep their Blackboard accounts - note that they are NOT currently using this feature, nor have we bought it.

They also didn't bring up the fact that Blackboard Backpack only works on XP SP2 and that it costs $49.95 per student.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Christian Bokhove -
Getting RQP working again, so Moodle can cater for intelligent feedback on mathematics questions.
In reply to Christian Bokhove

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Jeff Forssell -
I'm very interested too in " intelligent feedback on mathematics questions."

So I tried searching for what is RQP in moodle
without success (though I somehow got to http://docs.moodle.org/en/RQP_question_developer_docs
But didn't feel very enlightened. A google search named "Remote question protocol" which seemed possible, And one of the links went to Gustav Ds place. I was impressed before when I tried the STACK demo there. I have even downloaded STACK and the stuff it needs, but haven't found the opportunity to knit it together. (Or should I upgrade from 1.6 beta 1 to beta 3 after trying out PHP adm plugin to back up first .......... )

I have some feature requests in about the numerical questions and have found that the engine supports feedback for different intervals though the interface doesn't (one can add them by hand in an exported XML and reimport). Paolo is working on fixing the unit feature on Numerical questions, so it least doesn't give "right" for no unit when one should be given. I would like there to be differentiated feedback for errors in number and unit (and preferably support for SI prefixes and multiple strings for equivalents like g gr gram grams or J Ws kgm/s^2 etc)

I assume you are intersted in algebraic expressions as well as numerical.

I don't know how close STACK is (though Gustav seems too burdened to expect anything soon.) I don't know what RQP is. I tried checking your site, but my Nederlands comprehension is dead. (Is there any English version I've missed?)

What people would be interested in specifying what kind of intelligent feedback on mathematics questions we want in Moodle for a possible Google Sommar Project?
In reply to Jeff Forssell

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Jeff Forssell -
I've noticed that several people in the quiz forum have suggested that searchable quiz bank (and additionally a labels feature (also known as tags or keywords) would be useful) could be a suitable Google Summer Code project(s).

But when I check this thread, I don't see it mentioned, so I thought I ought to put it in here.  There! I did it. approve

In reply to Jeff Forssell

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Christian Bokhove -

RQP is broken from version 1.5.+ Moodle onwards. That's why I want it working again. Gustav says it should work again in 1.6 final release. I hope so, it has something to do with the SOAP connection.

RQP is a XML dialect that could be used in the quiz module for remote questions. RQP can communicate with a RQP enabled server. STACK is a RQP enabled program. The RQP dialect works much the same as the XML used in STACK itself.

I haven't found any time to make an English version. I would love to get RQP and thus feedback in the quiz module for maths questions, working again.

In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Joan Codina Filba -
Ajax techniques applied to moodle interface,
basically I think that the most most important places where to apply are:
  •  When editing a course. To be able to move and change status (visible/not visible) of elements, and also copy them.
  • In places where the "Table class" is used to show data, that allows sorting or search for different elements, this could be done on the client side, avoiding reloads of the data every time
  • Forums, allowing from the general view of the forum to expand a single thread, this could be done in two steps, first one showing only the first message and second one showing the complete discussion. Only one discussion should be open at once (or not) and are loaded as needed.
  • A "gantt" chart of course activities, with  start/due dates that could be dynamically be adjusted
I'll could also have some students working on these subjects
Joan Codina

In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Urs Hunkler -
Picture of Core developers

What about creating and programming a new admin interface. The project could be to create a new interface for the "Variables" page with tabs, submenus or whatever will optimize the handling of this huge amount of information. Perhaps with optional hooks for AJAX technology to make it more attractive for students to work on.

The Moodle developers can then use this as a standard for all other admin pages.

In reply to Urs Hunkler

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Yes, thanks for that reminder, I'll add it to the list. The admin page is woeful.

I actually started paying someone to work on exactly this last November but I think it got a bit much for him and it didn't get anywhere. Hopefully we can find someone else to commit to it.
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Daniel Denev -

Dear Martin,
May be i have to write to you ealy.
For last two ears, i translate Moodle 1.6dev
on Bulgarian, I translate LAMS 2.0 on Bulgarian
I translate WeLOAD on Bulgarian, I finished
LAMS/Moodle integration. I ceded many and many
new modules. WeLOAD I integrated into Moodle 1.6
too. I write new logick. Where I cam upload the
translation of Moodle 1.6 dev (lang pack)?
I translated and all additional modules in Moodle.
I ask in Bulgarian section of moodle to permit me but... ???
Please give me a chanse. e-Learning is my life.
I work very hard 2 years. I can send you many papers
tracking my work.

With respect: Daniel Denev
Bulgaria, 5000 Veliko Turnovo
daniel_i_denev@abv.bg

In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Urs Hunkler -
Picture of Core developers

Martin, if this project will catch some students I would be interested in Co-Mentoring together with you.

Urs

In reply to Urs Hunkler

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Joan Codina Filba -
I'm teacher of computer science students, maybe one of them could apply for the ajax project, and I would like to be also co-mentor, in order to be more involved in their work
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Edgar Sanchez -
hi,i am a studient & i am interested in these projects

Ajax Course Format

Admin page cleanup

how could I apply in 1 of these projects?
regards

In reply to Edgar Sanchez

Re: Google Summer of Code 2006

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
You need to apply via Google, when it opens for applications.

If any projects don't get taken by students coming through the Google scheme then they'll be up for grabs by anyone.