Building a repository - technical solution???

Building a repository - technical solution???

by Timo Kozlowski -
Number of replies: 11

Hi everybody,

at our institution, we are in the process of implementing Moodle as our e-Learning plattform. One of our aims is to build an online repository, into which the teachers could save new learning activities that they made, so that other teachers could use them in their own courses later on.

The learning activities we would like to collect, will mostly comprise of ideas for forums, or chats, as well as images.

How would you set up such a repository technically? Would you use a solution within Moodle, enhance Moodle with a plugin, or use a totally external web applikation?

Right now, we are using Moodle 1.5.3. Updating to Moodle 1.6 is planned although unscheduled, yet. I read that there is such a functionality built-in, but I did not have the chance to test it, yet.

Any comment is appreciated!

Bye,
Timo

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In reply to Timo Kozlowski

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by Jan Dierckx -

The database module (available in Moodle 1.6) could certainly be used for collecting lesson ideas for forums / chats / images. A teacher or administrator designs a form using different ready made fields. Students or other teachers can then simply add data in a structured manner by filling in the form.

Examples of how it is used here on Moodle.org

Documentation about the module

It's not possible to automatically reuse already created learning activities this way. (having people reuse existing material from one central repository) Maybe someone else can shed a light on this.

If you are looking for other functions, the database module can be enhanced by adding preset templates or adding new field types to use in a template.

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In reply to Timo Kozlowski

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by Clive Gould -

At Bromley College we have gone down to free software route and chosen to implement an experimental repository using DSpace under Linux:

http://vle.bromley.ac.uk/dspace/

http://www.dspace.org/

My installation blog for DSpace can be found at:

http://www.linuxtraining.org.uk/blogger.html

The other alternative appears to be Hive which is supposed to integrate fully with Moodle, but currently is too expensive for us.

http://www.harvestroad.com/products/hive.cfm

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In reply to Timo Kozlowski

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by Martín Langhoff -
The OSLOR project has put together one such setup, based on Moodle 1.6 and EPrints, both with minor customisations.

I suspect we should have a mini-howto to cover getting these installed and going. For the time being, I can give you some links.

The patched Moodle 1.6 is a work-in-progress, based on the 1.6.x branch. You can follow it here: http://git.catalyst.net.nz/gitweb?p=moodle-r2.git;a=shortlog;h=mdl-repository

There is a link to 'snapshots' where you can download it from, and a link to an RSS feed to keep track of changes.

The eprints code is here: http://git.catalyst.net.nz/gitweb?p=eprints.git;a=summary

Cheers!
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by Timo Kozlowski -
Thanks a lot! I will take a look at the given links.

Timo!
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by Geoffrey Rowland -
Picture of Plugin developers

Thanks Martin !

I'm sure this will be of great interest to many in the Moodle community who wish to 'dip their toes' into federated repositories, metadata etc. Looking forward to the mini-howto wink (although I appreciate from your presentations at the recent MoodleMoot, how busy you are!)

Geoff

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In reply to Geoffrey Rowland

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by Geoffrey Rowland -
Picture of Plugin developers
OK Martin, I give in  sad.

I have managed to get a basic 'default' Eprints repository going (Eprints 2.3.13.1 on CentOS 3.7, Perl 5.8 & MySQL 3.23) but have absolutely no idea how to install your modified OSLOR version from: http://git.catalyst.net.nz/gitweb?p=eprints.git;a=summary

I have installed your patched Moodle 1.6 from: http://git.catalyst.net.nz/gitweb?p=moodle-r2.git;a=shortlog;h=mdl-repository and all seems to be working fine. However, I see from the OSLOR repository configuration interface (Administration>Configuration>Repository>Add Repository) there are 4 text fields to fill in.

Name:
Path:
Release:
Components:

What values should go in these mixed in order to connect to Eprints ?

Of course, I may well have overlooked the appropriate documentation, but any clues, hints, pointers etc gratefully received!

Regards

Geoff
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In reply to Geoffrey Rowland

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by colin alteveer -
(I believe) i have gotten a version of the modified ePrints going here, but i too am confounded by the configuration inside of Moodle. How's that howto going =o)?
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In reply to Geoffrey Rowland

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by colin alteveer -
Turns out i had a default version of ePrints running, not yours. I noticed that your snapshot is an already installed version, and i am having a lot (a lot!) of dependency errors. i also noticed that in the SystemSettings.pm you are running it with 1.3(true?)... What can i do to run it with Apache 2.0, or am i screwing something else up?

c
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In reply to colin alteveer

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by Martín Langhoff -
We've had lots of problems with Apache2 taking ages to start and behavind oddly both with vanilla ePrints and ours. We haven't gotten to the core of that problem (seen on Ubuntu Dapper and Debian Sarge/Etch).

Having worked a lot on mod_perl in the early apache 1.3 transition and the perl 5.005 to 5.6 transitions, I would be conservative and use 1.3.x. mod_perl is devilishly good, and horribly hard to compile just right.

OTOH, quite a few people are using it with Apache2 and the (experimental IIRC) mod_perl available for it.
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by colin alteveer -
Martin,

  do you have an answer for geoffrey's question about the moodle configuration block? ie:

"Name:
Path:
Release:
Components:"

 and what is supposed to go in there?

  Colin
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Building a repository - technical solution???

by colin alteveer -
Another aspect that we discussed at some point during email correspondence, Martin, was the idea of a fetcher for objects that contained SCORM API's for the sake of avoiding cross-site scripting issues. i believe you mentioned that perhaps you had already written one/and or were working on one?

  Colin
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