Social Comments
Matthias GrähnThe Social Comments block plugin for Moodle makes learning more engaging by adding the following features (among others):
- subscribe to an activity/ resource and get an email digest informing you about new comments
- create a collection of the most important comments and activities/ resources of a course by pinning them to the pin board (e. g. to go through them again before an exam)
- check the comments report to see the newest comments or search through all comments
This plugin is part of a collection of open source plugins, which all have the goal to improve the overall usability/ user experience of Moodle. Please find an overview of all used plugins in this video screencast (the Social Comments plugin is shown at 7:55min):
This plugin was developed by Synergy Learning and the initial version was financed by the Berlin School of Economics and Law. It is now maintained by the EDU-Werkstatt from Berlin on a voluntary basis (which we are very thankful for).
Useful links
Screenshots
Contributors
thanks so much! The EDU-Werkstatt ( https://edu-werkstatt.berlin/ ) was kind enough to take over the maintenance of this plugin and will keep it alive and kicking! Are you using the plugin now? We're always open for feedback! So please feel free to suggest improvements should you have anything...
Best
Björn
Congratulations on this excellent module. It allows for new engagement and interactions in the courses.
However, is it possible to integrate it on the Moodle home page to create a dynamic on this page?
thank you,
Philibert
PS: we are currently using Moodle 3.5 and we are unable to have this plugin on the home page
thank you for your kind words! I tried it myself and it didn't work for me either. I let Paul Steffen from EDU-Werkstatt ( https://edu-werkstatt.berlin/ ) know about it, because they are kind enough to maintain the plugin. We'll let you know!
Best
Björn
This is a small detail that does not detract from the qualities of this plugin that we use in our courses.
Philibert
Looks great! If a user pastes a link for picture or video, does it automatically show it or is it text-only? Thanks,
it's text-only!
Best
Björn
This is what I've been looking for. This is really helpful for my courses. Thank you.
However, there are two questions that I want to ask about this plugin.
1) Is there any way to automatically add social comments block to all modules that are available in my courses?
2) If I'm not mistaken, based on the screen capture videos above, user will get email notification if somebody reply their comment. But, when I tested it, there is no email sent to my email. Where can I find the guideline to tackle that problem?
Thanks
Thank you for your kind words!
1) You can make a block sticky as described here: https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Block_settings#Making_a_block_sticky_throughout_a_course
2) It's hard for me to tell what the reason is for you not getting an email notification. It could be your configuration as an instruction, the admin configuration or a technical problem. You'll find more on the topic here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=376606
Hope that helps! Should you have any further questions: I'll be on a (much needed) vacation until August 10th, but will respond when I'm back.
Have a great summer!
Best
Björn
This seems like a really useful plugin.
Are you planning on releasing a 3.9 compatible version soon?
Thanks,
Anu
The plugin might already work with version 3.9, but I haven't testet it. Maybe you have the capacities to do so?
But I also passed your comment along to EDU-Werkstatt ( https://edu-werkstatt.berlin/ ), who were kind of enough to take over the maintenance of the plugin
Best
Björn
Sorry for the trouble is fixed now with the new build for release v3.8.
Best Regards
Matthias
BUT it made the security report list a warning with ALL users now defined as "XSS trusted users", which is not so good. When I looked into the security settings, I saw that the capabilities socialcomments:pinitems, socialcomments:postcomments and socialcomments:subscribe are all listed as risky for cross-site scripting attacks. So I had to revert to the old commenting functionality. Any advice on how to handle this?