Combination of Enterprise and Independent Learners

Combination of Enterprise and Independent Learners

by Kim Prince -
Number of replies: 4

I am working for a training organisation who are planning to offer their content to self-learners, and to employees of large corporations.  Admin users from large organisations would require their own login to administer training courses and monitor training, but for their employees only.

It is easy enough to see how I could achieve this with a headless LMS, but I would prefer to use Moodle, if possible.

One particular challenge I see is that the learner could belong to multiple organisations simultaneously, and also have their own training that they undertook (and paid for) by themselves.  Accordingly, the learner must be able to selectively disclose parts of their training history and current certifications to different employers.

Does Moodle lend itself well to this combination of enterprise-and-independent learners?  Where has it been done before?  What components or plugins should I be focusing on?  Is Moodle ever used as a headless LMS?

I am sorry that this question is so broad.  Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.
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In reply to Kim Prince

Re: Combination of Enterprise and Independent Learners

by Mark Johnson -
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Hi Kim, This isn't really a development question, you might want to ask for this thread to be moved to the Comparisons and advocacy forum, and/or speak to a Moodle Partner (disclosure: I work for a Moodle partner).

It sounds like what you're talking about is a form a multi-tenancy, which I believe is implemented in Moodle Workplace, but not currently the open source Moodle LMS.

In reply to Kim Prince

Re: Combination of Enterprise and Independent Learners

by Colin Fraser -
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It's been a while since I looked at this, but from memory,
Step 1. Create a single database. This includes all Users, all Organizations, all Independent Users, and populated by all the courses to satisfy the requirements for each of them.
This is the tricky part.
Step 2. Create a number of different Moodles one for each different Organization and Independent group.
    • Each Moodle can be served from the same server and the database can either be on the same server or a different server, there shouldn't be any difference, but... maybe a separate server would be in the best interests of the clients.
    • Each Moodle is aimed at the database, but as permissions are granted within each Moodle there is no crossover permissions. The only issue that may occur is if a course needs to be edited to meet a common or standard changing requirement. If an Enterprise wants to include something that other Moodles do not need, then a separate course can be made.  
    • Each Moodle requires its own cookie label, eg. ent_001, ind002, ent_003 and so on. This allows any user to be able to access any of the Moodles simultaneously, a handy trait.

This is by no means a complete description, but it is something that has been discussed before and should provide an outline for what you are describing here. Others more familiar with this concept may want to chime in here and discuss this in greater detail. There is an alternative, but it could mean your Moodle becomes overloaded depending on how big your eventual client database is or security permissions are a bit dodgy or some such. 

Good luck.  

In reply to Colin Fraser

Re: Combination of Enterprise and Independent Learners

by Mary Cooch -
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Moving to the Comparisons and Advocacy forum as requested...
In reply to Kim Prince

Re: Combination of Enterprise and Independent Learners

by Ravi Murugesan -
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Check out IOMAD: "An open-source multi-tenancy solution with Moodle under the hood"
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