OU blog

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Copyright 2013 The Open University

This is an alternative blog that you can install into standard Moodle.

It does not replace the standard blog, and operates alongside it. There are two modes of use:

1) As a course activity. In this case you can use it the same way as any other module. You can have course-wide blogs (everyone in the course posts to the same blog), group blogs, or individual blogs; the latter are useful for assessed activities (where the student is supposed to keep a journal which only they and their tutor can read).

2) As a replacement for standard Moodle personal blogs. In this case it would be a good idea to turn off the standard Moodle blog system, or it'll be very confusing. You then need to MANUALLY provide students with a link to mod/oublog/view.php which will automatically take them to their personal blog.

When using for personal blogs, one feature of interest may be moderated public comments; when you allow comments from people who are not logged in, all such comments are moderated.

Branch:

This is the MOODLE_24_STABLE branch. This branch is configured to match the latest stable branch at the Open University that uses Moodle 2.4. Once we stop using Moodle 2.4, there will be no more fixes in this branch (but of course anyone can fork the reposistory and make a fixed version).

Support:

We cannot offer direct support. Please do not contact me directly. If you need assistance, try the blog forum on moodle.org. (Remember to make clear that you are using OU blog and not the standard blog.)

Documentation: None.

Please feel free to contribute documentation in the relevant area of the MoodleDocs wiki.

Bug reports: Please report bugs using the GitHub 'Issues' tab. Before reporting a bug, please try the latest version to verify that the problem hasn't already been fixed. In each bug, please remember to give:

1. Exact steps to reproduce your problem, starting from creating a new blog with default or specified settings.
2. The oublog version you are using (from version.php or Modules admin screen). 3. The Moodle version you are using.

Reliability:

Please note that this code is tested on OU systems but we rely on the community for testing on other systems. Requires: Moodle 2.4+ Postgres / MySQL

Install:

Place the contents of this source tree into your Moodle installation so that within your Moodle root, this file is mod/oublog/README. Then visit the Moodle notifications page to install.

If you want the blogs to be searchable, you also need to install the local_ousearch plugin. (It is best to do this before using OU blog much, otherwise it takes ages to install as it builds indexes for everything.) When you install the ousearch plugin, a search box will automatically appear.