Is there a place for discussion about logs aka reports and where this is going in future versions of Moodle?
Somehow I get the feeling I am going to rediscover how to use SQL to extract the data I need. That is not going to be pretty
Best
Hi Chris,
Personally I am quite frustrated when I realize the amount of log information that is available in the database and how little it is possible to retrieve through the current Reports module available in Moodle. What I would like to have is a fully customizable reports interface, in which I could select all the log info I need to create my own reports, without of course the "horror" of extracting data through SQL commands.
Any takers?
Joseph
Joseph,
Well stated. It has to be fully customizable because of the wide range of users Moodle has attracted and the various ways a course can be set up. I think it should also have several methods of output (Print, CSV, document, spreadsheet and database).
Just as one information example, here is what I did. I was asked how many credit hours were completed in the last fiscal year (7/1/05 to 6/30/06) on one of our two production Moodles. What I personally wanted to know was how many different students completed 1 or more courses a fiscal year. These would be fairly common questions for executive summaries used to justify any program.
Our courses (Moodle 1.54, Linux) generally take 3 to 12 hours to complete and are always open. Our older courses were put together differently than our newer ones (I won't bore everyone with the details). I ended up using 1 of 3 different types of Moodle reports-logs for each course and doing a copy and special paste into an Excel worksheet. UGH (Northern New Hampshire expression of mild horror)! Took me about 3 hours for 10 courses and roughly 1000 completions for 4000 credit hours that spanned 2 fiscal years to create a unique database for each course. It will probably take me 1 more hour to determine how many unique students over all and by fiscal year, completed courses.
Having got "the answer", I then ventured into my 1.63 localhost's database. I did a dump into an Excel Spreadsheet. Interesting. Wonder what the log.php file looks like to a newbie?
A long time ago, when I had more braincells, I use Access to deal with an ODBC compliant manufacturing (MRP/ERP) program when a customer wanted custom reports and additional databases. It was always a pain to set it up, but once linked, either myself and/or the customer with some Access skills could have fun data mining.
Best to all
I'm looking for a reporting feature as well...posted in another post.
Hi all,
maybe a suggestion: Agata.
I tried it sometime ago and it works fine on Moodle database and it is fully configurable with menu. It works outside Moodle, but it use PHP and it license is GPL. Probably a good starting point to build a block or a module.
I hope it may help,
Bernard
maybe a suggestion: Agata.
I tried it sometime ago and it works fine on Moodle database and it is fully configurable with menu. It works outside Moodle, but it use PHP and it license is GPL. Probably a good starting point to build a block or a module.
I hope it may help,
Bernard
Bernard,
Thank you very much for the Agata link. With all due respect to MS, I would still rather have an open source approach. I got a Window 1.7 Agata version linked to a localhost 1.63 that has been tweaked by certificate and scorelock.
Now to see if I can remember my inner and outer joins, and I guess more importantly define a couple of "ideal" reports before I start thrashing around in really deep water. My skills are such that I really do have to KISS when it comes to this sort of thing.
I like the idea of a Moodle page where the user can define 5 to 10 variables to generate a report, as a starting point for expanding Moodle's report potential. But that is way over my head. So I will devote some time today to a blank piece of paper and creating a few example reports.
Lori has a related post here.
Best - Chris
Thank you very much for the Agata link. With all due respect to MS, I would still rather have an open source approach. I got a Window 1.7 Agata version linked to a localhost 1.63 that has been tweaked by certificate and scorelock.
Now to see if I can remember my inner and outer joins, and I guess more importantly define a couple of "ideal" reports before I start thrashing around in really deep water. My skills are such that I really do have to KISS when it comes to this sort of thing.
I like the idea of a Moodle page where the user can define 5 to 10 variables to generate a report, as a starting point for expanding Moodle's report potential. But that is way over my head. So I will devote some time today to a blank piece of paper and creating a few example reports.
Lori has a related post here.
Best - Chris