Moodle in English: Moodle Questionnaire

Hi, I hope im not breaking any rules here but im looking for some help...

My Name is William Holmes, currently studying MSc in Software Engineering (University of Limerick, Ireland). I am working on a research project comparing Moodle with other similar products. With the experience you have already had with Moodle I am sure your insight would be of great benefit.

If you have the time can you help me with the project an complette a questionnaire located at LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN

Thank you for your time and effort.

William Holmes, MSc Software Engineering, (student number : 0506958 )

(Edited by Martin Dougiamas - Friday, 16 June 2006, 09:23 PM)

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Thomas Haynes - Friday, 16 June 2006, 10:56 PM

Please don't cross post. One forum should get the post.

Having said that, I took the survey. "Egotistical" as a word choice in the motivation has negative connotations, and it may skew results...

Average of ratings: Very cool (1)

Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Art Lader - Friday, 16 June 2006, 10:57 PM

I chose egotistical, but it did make me wince a bit. Of course, in my case, it was possibly the right word!

-- Art

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Saturday, 17 June 2006, 3:20 AM

I dont claim to be a Psychologist, but I dont think Egotistical as a word has any connotations, maybe its just a personal perception of the term. Egotistical is a basic phycological term which address a persons own needs or interests. I thank you for your feedback but i feel that if "Egotistical" did have connotations, they would be both possitive and negative.

My project is a similar study of ...

Mark. E. Breuker, Johan. F. Hoorn. (2004). The e-learning hoax: Didactor versus Blackboard Technical Report. Vrije Universiteit, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Computer Science, Section Information Management and Software Engineering, subsection Human Computer Interaction, Multimedia and Culture De Boelelaan 1081a.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tim Allen - Monday, 19 June 2006, 9:37 AM

"I dont claim to be a Psychologist" - that seems clear!

If you get it wrong, how do you expect respondents to know it? The people taking the survey are certainly not psychologists, even if you had used the correct term, they would naturally respond to the general meaning of the term:

1.egotistical - characteristic of those having an inflated idea of their own importance

2.egotistical - characteristic of false pride; having an exaggerated sense of self-importance; "a conceited fool"; "an attitude of self-conceited arrogance"; "an egotistical disregard of others"; "so swollen by victory that he was unfit for normal duty"; "growing ever more swollen-headed and arbitrary"; "vain about her clothes"

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/egotistical

Every English dictionary you look up will have a similar definition.

The psychological term is "egoistic", a small but important difference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism

Researchers have to have attention to detail and an understanding of the research process. I hope this is not your day job.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 10:43 AM

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:5eYvD-Q66YgJ:www.cs.vu.nl/~jfhoorn/Requirements%2520Engineering/REPriorTR.pdf+The+e-learning+hoax

This is a link to a published academic paper using both terms, Altruistic and Egotistical.

Are you saying they made a mistake? (Doubtful). Or is it...

"Gain personal influence and understanding. (eg. Whats best for you)" you seem to have trouble with?

If you continue with your wonderful research you will find that both authors are well recognised in the software engineering community.

Read it, I think you will like it !

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tim Allen - Thursday, 22 June 2006, 2:59 AM

Yes, they made a mistake. I know they are recognized in software engineering, but even academics make mistakes, especially outside their own area (they are not philosophers, the field from which the term "psychological egoism" derives).

Anyway, the point is that the non-philosophical, general usage of "egotistical" always has a negative connotation, there is simply no question about that. And that is what the survey respondents will know rather than the technical meaning. Technical terms shouldn't be used in general surveys, especially if they are potentially misleading, such as when the term is the same as or similar to one used in general language usage but refers to something different!

Other references and a quotation:

Selfishness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egotistical

"General

In philosophy, the term egoism is usually related to "self-interest" rather than "selfishness." Professional writers are often careful to make a clear distinction between the words egoism and egotism, with the second referencing the character trait virtually everyone agrees is negative, and the first referring to the controversial, philosophical ideologies affiliated with the individual."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egotism

Of course, because your research is modelled on an article that uses that spelling then I understand that you used the same one. Also, the gloss beside the word, while a little vague, goes some way towards explaining the meaning of the term.

Tim.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Thursday, 22 June 2006, 10:23 AM

Ok thanks Tim.

I will obviously have to continue using it but you have raised a valid argument.

Maybe it was the "self-interest" which resulted in the term being used in the article.

I will talk to my supervisor.

I may even mention the negative consequences of using the term in my thesis just to clarify and any misunderstandings it may have given to the participants.

Thanks for your Help Tim.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tim Allen - Thursday, 22 June 2006, 12:46 PM

No problem William, I hope your research goes well. I am about to start some research myself to complete my Masters course.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Martin Dougiamas - Saturday, 17 June 2006, 10:18 PM

I think it's pretty clear now that this project is a fake, if the spamming and poor scholarship weren't enough already.

First the form submits to a lapdancing site, and secondly the domain is registered by Termights Night Klub.

http://whois.domaintools.com/moodleproject.com

I've deleted his posts and closed his account.

Thanks to those of you who sent me the background research on this.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Jan Dierckx - Saturday, 17 June 2006, 11:12 PM

(sigh)
now we will never know whether his motives to collect the email adresses were mainly ...

egotistical
altruistic

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Saturday, 17 June 2006, 11:31 PM

I think that was very unfair to pull ALL the posts about the questionnaire. I created all the websites and own the hosting for the domains. I work for Termights night Klub Limerick (ireland). The only reason im hosting the website there is to save on cost!!

If you have any quetions about who i am... Im a student at University of Limerick. William Holmes student number 0506958 email .. 0506958@student.ul.ie

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Saturday, 17 June 2006, 11:46 PM

I can assure you that my dissertation is real..

An Empirical investigation of the effect of changing goals on requirements priorities; A replication of Hoorn and Breuker’s study.

The only reason i ask for an email address is to enable a reply to say "Thank You" BUT if you prefer i can remove the email input box.

what more can i do ?

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Martin Dougiamas - Sunday, 18 June 2006, 1:21 PM

I'm sorry for you if this is a real project, but we all get spammed a lot these days, and there is a lot of duplicity out there. The sum total of all your actions in this episode did not inspire trust. I even tried to phone you first but the contact phone number you gave your DNS registrar only a few days ago is not working.

I'm also not pleased about even the domain you registered and the way it steals graphics and trademarks without permission, making it look like an officially-supported Moodle project. As others have said, getting your web form on an official University server is the best idea for a University project. If it's real and useful research I'd probably have even hosted it for you on moodle.org and advertised it for you. We like and want to help research, but we hate spammers.

The poor scholarship refers to this background, but also the fact that most of the things in your questionnaire list are ALREADY in Moodle in some form, so I get the impression you don't know much about it (making the results worthless). You've provided no information about your project and how the data will be used. Your spelling and grammar errors everywhere don't help the "fake" impression either.

In short, I think you made a lot of mistakes here. I would advise that you actually try to find out about a community before spamming all their forums. We are real people here, not software objects

A post explaining your project in detail and asking for advice on how to get it "out there" is all it would have taken. I suggest you treat all this as a learning experience on your way to becoming a good researcher, relay it all to your project supervisor and get more advice from them about the directions for your project.

Cheers

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Monday, 19 June 2006, 4:44 AM

Will do Matrin,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Thanks for the advise.

(still looking for those spelling mistakes!)

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tim Allen - Monday, 19 June 2006, 9:13 AM

For a start, there are two in your post right there.

ADVICE/ADVISE

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by N Hansen - Monday, 19 June 2006, 8:13 PM

Tim-You missed the most obvious spelling error:

Matrin

tongueout

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Samuli Karevaara - Monday, 19 June 2006, 8:17 PM

Tim mentioned two spelling errors

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Kristyn Rose - Monday, 19 June 2006, 9:23 PM

I thought maybe I could be of help here, as I'm an editor. I didn't find as many spelling errors as I did punctuation, grammar, and capitalization errors. I'm sure you want your survey to appear as professional as possible, so I listed the errors below.

On the opening page:

"So... Here is a little bit about what is about to happen...": Sounds unprofessional and is very bad grammatical form. Don't use the "..." like this. It should be more like, "The questionnaire is conducted as follows," or some such. Just a suggestion.

"My Name is....": The word "Name" should not be capitalized.

On the survey page:

"No Duplicate Entires Allowed : Each Requirement Must Have a Different Priority": Why is this sentence in Title Case? Don't capitalize each word. Also, no space before the colon.

"customisable": This spelling error occurs twice on this page, leading me to believe it's not a typographical error. While words like "prioritise" have more than one spelling (the "-ise" is the British spelling, while here in the USA it's "-ize"), that's not the case with "customisable." It should be "customizable."

Last page:

"Thank you again and i wish you all the best in the future": The "i" should be capitalized.

All pages:

"Any Information received....": "Information" should not be capitalized.

By the way, Tim is mostly right about the use of "advise" in your other post. While it is a properly spelled word, it's improperly used. You mean "advice" the noun, not "advise" the verb.

I also suggest making sure that your invitations to your survey (like your initial post here) appear professional and free from errors.

I must also add that "borrowing" the Moodle graphics and look wasn't at all professional. It really does make it look like your survey is Moodle-sponsored. That alone seems deceptive and could call your motives into question. You should avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Thanks!

Kristyn

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Monday, 19 June 2006, 11:40 PM

I have to say that I do appreciate the criticism and “advice”.

I have amended the website (you may need to refresh the page http://www.moodleproject.com).

I have removed the Moodle logo.

I have also taken your punctuation, grammar advice and amended my text.

I am going to stand firm on customisable . ( Ireland )

Thanks again.

(And if you haven’t already guessed I’m dyslexic and trying the best I can!)

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Kristyn Rose - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 12:43 AM

You can stand firm on that spelling, but it doesn't make it correct. I searched several "World English" dictionaries before saying the spelling is wrong. So, my assessment was not based on just American English spellings. I searched no fewer than five dictionaries (including the Oxford English Dictionary's thorough and definitive listings), and not a single one listed "customisable" as a word or even a variation on "customizable."

That aside, however, it's not really a question of which word form you personally prefer, but which one is correct to your users. They are the ones who absorb the impression your site/survey leaves of yourself and your work. As you've seen here, that impression is all-important in some instances, and often determines the acceptance or rejection of your work.

The insistence on using an incorrect word will stick in the mind of those who know better and will reflect badly on you and your study.

So, take whatever stand you like. I'm not arguing the correctness of the word, as I've proven it for myself through appropriate research. However, realize that even your word choice is a reflection of you and the quality of your work, in the eyes of users who understand what's correct.

Thank you!

Kristyn

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tony Wilmore - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 6:22 AM

I respect your knowledge and expertise as an editor, but just for the record, in the UK, the spelling 'customisable' is in widespread use despite the Oxford English Dictionary choosing to prefer 'customizable'. The publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press even use 'customisable' on their own website...

http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780198320722
Quotation: "Accompanied by an e-Resource Bank giving 100s of customisable resource sheets..."

Another reference, from the website of the UK government...
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/docs/resources/web_guideline_handbook/pdf/wgl_2-4.pdf
Quotation: (page 2) "Any font sizes defined in the Cascading Style Sheet must be customisable by the end user – do not hard code. Any colour used must be customisable by the end user."

English is a living, evolving language and it seems that customisable/customizable is one of those words over which there is not universal agreement as to the correct spelling, at least in the UK and Ireland.

The lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary must be somewhat miffed that much of the UK population is ignoring their edict regarding the spelling of this word which is, it seems, itself customisable!

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 6:43 AM

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Kristyn Rose - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 9:07 PM

In my job, we use such reference resources as the definitive and final "call" on what we use or don't use in our published materials, both on the Web and in print. We do not use popular usage as a guide. As I stated previously, seeing such a spelling on any material would stick in my mind as an error and would alter my impression of the producer of that material. I have a hard time believing I'd be alone in that.

That said, I'll also repeat that I'm not going to sit here and argue the usage of a single "s" or "z". It's a silly thing to debate. I simply replied to the student's claim that he couldn't find any errors in his questionnaire, stated the errors I saw, and my support for what I said. I did not, as others seem to think, pick on errors in a post (other than to clarify the "advice/advise" thing).

As I said then, I'm not wasting time on debating this, for several reasons. I've supported my statements and the student can do whatever he wants. Quite honestly, I really don't care much what he chooses because I'm one of those who regards the questionnaire with some suspicion. Issues other than grammar, etc., have tainted my impression. Also, I just don't have any more time to waste, as we're trying to launch Moodle at our campus, literally as we speak.

So I'm moving on from this discussion. Thank you and good luck!

Kristyn

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tony Wilmore - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 10:27 PM

My aim was illumination rather than argument. Like you, I'd rather not debate trivialities. I merely drew attention to a curiosity of the English language regarding the word in question, mainly because you asserted your version of correctness so forcibly to the student. My point is that the student's judgement call regarding 'customisable' is entirely justified.

The BBC's policy is to use 'customisable' rather than 'customizable'. A search of the BBC website turns up 4 pages of results containing the word 'customisable' and only a single result for 'customizable', which happens to be a page which contains blurb written by Microsoft for its Publisher software.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tony Wilmore - Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 2:09 AM

Hi, Kristyn...

... I almost forgot. I'd like to wish you every success with the launch of Moodle at your campus! Enjoy the ride.

Respect,
Tony

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Kristyn Rose - Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 9:08 PM

Thanks for the well-wishes

"Ride" is right! We have encountered some turbulence recently. Not from the technical side, but from individuals who (in my humble opinion) balk at change.

I mentioned in another post that our university is currently gathering information on open source course management systems, as possible replacements for high-cost systems. Moodle is in the top three the committee is examining. However, our division has already committed to Moodle for our courses. We have converted online college-level courses to Moodle and that's the portion we're launching. Next, we'll start re-developing courses in Moodle.

Hopefully, we can smooth out the bumps and go "live" soon!

Thanks!

Kristyn

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 7:29 AM

Hi Kristyn,

I was just wondering, on your questionnaire you ask for five features of Moodle you find most useful or helpful, does the questionnaire have some sort of validation which only allows five features to be selected and processed?

I did have a look at some online questionnaire facilitators but they did not have the required validation I needed, hence I created my own.

Thanks.

(I know you are only trying to help and I appreciate it!)

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Kristyn Rose - Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 9:15 PM

Hi William,

Let me make sure I understand what you're asking. You want to know if the survey tool I used, SurveyMonkey, allowed me to restrict the number of options a respondent could choose, right? I don't *think* it allows that restriction. I can restrict to one choice only, but not to five.

I plan on manually checking to see how many each person chose, though. That's manageable in a small survey like mine (only 15 respondents so far). If this was a more robust project, I would have chosen a tool that allowed more control, like that. However, my survey exists only to answer a particular question posed by a specific committee on our campus. They asked what five features faculty and students like best about Moodle. It seems that no data exists on that, so I posted my small survey to the forum. It'll probably close with about 20 responses, making it hard to generalize.

So, it sounds like SurveyMonkey probably wouldn't suit your needs. I'll use it for a larger project later this summer, about how women utilize online learner communities. I don't need the controls to be very complex, though, and it's less time-consuming for me than building my own.

Thanks!

Kristyn

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by N Hansen - Sunday, 18 June 2006, 8:02 AM

You could have registered the web site in your own name, not your Termights club. You could have requested a page at your university too.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Sunday, 18 June 2006, 2:26 AM

Thank you for the apology Jan.

And by the way my personal dissertation motives are Altruistic.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tony Wilmore - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 7:05 AM

Although I missed the posts which have apparently been deleted, I'm going to strike a positive note by praising the student's polite perseverance in the face of criticism. Everyone should be allowed to make mistakes as part of the learning process, especially so if one struggles with dyslexia. Good luck with your studies, William.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Hideto Harashima - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 3:30 AM

I’d like to join Tony in asking people to become more lenient with errors in spelling and word usage found in postings. I don’t think I’m dyslexic myself, but I’m a non-native speaker of English. If Moodle community starts purging non-standard English out of forums, it’s a sign of exclusion, rather than inclusion and multiculturalism. (Think of what Moodle 1.6 incorporated Unicode for. )

I think the kernel of William’s impropriety is, as Martin D. already voiced, the fact that he uses moodleproject.com as the domain for his survey site. This naturally hints that the site is sponsored or endorsed by moodle.org, although the site displays a disclaimer of this not being the case. I’d say, the burden of making the site non-misleading is on William’s shoulders. IMHO, it is important to respect others’ rights and feelings in order to be understood and accepted in intercultural communities.

Cheers, and good luck with your research, William.

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by William Holmes - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 7:39 AM

Thanks Tony, <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The Moodle community so far has been extremely helpful.

I have become scared to post my questionnaire link on other website forums relating to “Course Management Systems”.

I’m hoping to email the forum(s) administrator(s) with the following email (do you think it’s appropriate?)…

My Name is William Holmes, currently studying MSc in Software Engineering (University of Limerick, Ireland http://www.ul.ie). I am working on a research project comparing Moodle with other similar course management products. If you have the time can you help me to put a small post on your social forum asking for some help to complete a questionnaire located at http://www.moodleproject.com

The website is being hosted by surfscool.net which is my own personal website.

http://whois.domaintools.com/surfscool.net

My Thesis is ..

An Empirical investigation of the effect of changing goals on requirements priorities; A replication of Hoorn and Breuker’s study.

Just so you are aware..

This website and questionnaire is not affiliated with the Moodle Organisation. The information collected from this questionnaire will only be used for academic research purposes and will not be available to any third parties.

Thank you for your time and effort.

William Holmes, MSc Software Engineering, (student number : 0506958 )
info@moodleproject.com
0506958@studnet.ul.ie

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Re: Moodle Questionnaire

by Tony Wilmore - Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 2:07 PM

In my very humble opinion, your proposed email message looks fine. But bear in mind that as a web developer I don't claim to be a member of the academic intelligentsia!

Others may be more qualified to comment...

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