General help

We run nine schools in one Moodle system on one database. So we need only one server, one backupsystem.
Instead of categories we use the word locations, but the overview pages of Moodle become very overcrowded, so we have to find a solution for that:

There is (on this moment) no need to see the courses of the other locations from a user point of view.

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What you can decide to do is run on one server and one database 3 different schools in separeted Moodles: the only thing you have to do is

1. change for every school the prefix for the database in the config
    $CFG->prefix    = "mdl_";  
2. consider to give each school their own datadir  (not necessary, but see at the end)
   $CFG->dataroot  = "....................\moodledata";

You then have three separated database sets in one database.

If you use email authentication - if you lock all the courses with a key then that is very secure - you are ready now. (We use one central LDAP, but I can imagine that schools find it hard to share taht...)

Start on each school Moodle with their own config....

You then can tune every school (even the themes)  separated from the others, but still can live with one server and one brute force backup facility.

(Inside Moodle 1.3 you then can automate the creation of school specific backups, one for each school, sent to the location they prefer. Very handy when the want someday to setup their own servers...separate therefor the moodledata dirs..)

Make every school a Course Category and make sure all the courses have course keys. Then it is just the user management to figure out.

The easiest way to do what you wish to do is to have multiple installs of Moodle. Can you clarify why you would want to host them on only one install of Moodle. Is it because you only have one computer, or one hosting account?

If that is the case, you can solve you problem with multiple installs of Moodle on the same machine or the same hosting account. It really is not difficult to set up, hardly more difficult than setting up Moodle in the first place. If you like I can write you up a howto. The multiple sites will look something like this:

http://yoursite.com/siteone
http://yoursite.com/sitetwo
http://yoursite.com/sitethree

If it's because you want to share courses data, you should probably still use multiple installs of moodle, and then move data between the sites by using the backup and restore function in the courses.

cheers
Lawrence

Hi James
The issue becomes a Risk Management problem when dealing with multiple schools is a privacy issue. In Australia it is a key concern when palnning systems. 

Recommendations.....  Each school has a seperate install of moodle where the authentication is done via a LDAP server at each school. This enables each school to control student access and maybe use th same database for internal administrative purposes within each school.

The next stage would to have a central development moodle install that would permit central collaboration of courses between all schools in the design and development of shared resources.  A central database could be used to allow teacher s/ facilitators  to work on collective projects.in this central development moodle.  The developed courses could then be backed up and restored to the individual school installs as required.  It  also means that courses can be updated as needed within  the central development moodle.

This process would have the benefit of reducing development and deployment costs across all schools in the consortium.

Fell free to contact me if you want further clarification or explanation.
Cheers
Chris A - Cj for short