Forum

Hi Kevin,

Forums are great tools for developing/displaying higher order learning..but on a course by course basis there seem to be some quality issues. Too many forums seems to be a bad thing. After a couple of years the forum posts mature and a Unit/module leader is often better off forming "time released FAQ's" which are well aligned to (and tested against) learning outcomes.  Also means less work for the guy ;).

This is undergarduate/postgrad incidently.

The main means of student communication nowadays seems to be texting over mobile phones. Given the choice of using ten fingers on a keyboard (high energy) or a single thumb (low energy) many prefer the latter.. I have seen students text each other across a lab because they didn't want to stand up..lol 

Hi,

To cross populate you need someone who knows a little about databases. There are different ways but simplying exporting the usernames/passwords from the phpbb to a file then importing into Moodle (or vice versa) is a reasonble a way forward.

PhPBB is opensource and well tested. On many webhosts you can install directly from the control panel - it's provided for free. This way I would prefer if you've little experience because occasionally PhPBB needs a security patch which need to be installed. Its easy to do but if your webhost does it for free (or gives you notice that it needs to be done) its better. There are many "hacks" - alterations to the code that extend the functionality (see phpbbhacks.com)- I use these but really you shouldn't need them

Vbulletin needs a licence fee of over $100 and a support contract of about $30/year. It offers the same things really but a lot of webmasters I know use it simply because it takes the stress out of updates etc. VBulletin tends to have a little more functionality as a standard.

There are many free themes for both and many services which allow you to get a Corporate theme for your board. 'Skinning' a theme is not too difficult - slightly harder than making a theme for Moodle.

You can transfer data between phPBB and Vbulletin. So a reasonable way forward is to install PhPBB- use it to see if its what you want then make a decision at that point. You will also have a better understanding of how PHPBB works and that maybe enough to give you confidence to use it.

In use these boards have a lot of power.They have been forcably "evolved" through the internet (built by 16 year olds FOR 16 year olds) and are both easy to use and very complete in thier prowess.

e.g: Setting passwords to forums, even topics, mass emails to groups, advanced editing functions, banning (for time periods eg. a few hours to infinite) , creating stickies, activity logs of individuals, IM systems, poll creation, word filters, hiding areas from some groups, pre-authorisation of avatars, users, signatures, uploading of files in predefined formats etc etc.

Virtually every permutation of what you might want. This comes at a price of needing to learn how to use it. Moodle is a pushover in this respect.

There are very full forums offering advice on PhPBB and Vbulletin. These boards are the main stay of the Internet. You can often get a response about an issue in minutes... and of course if you use the search function your problem has almost certainly been covered before.

Most important of all these boards DEFAULT TO A NON-SUBSCRIPTION TO THREAD status.....

Let us know how it goes on...