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| {{Update}}{{About Moodle}}
| | #redirect [[:Category:New features]] |
| Moodle is an active and evolving product. This page lists just some of the many features it contains:
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| == Overall design ==
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| Moodle's overall design:
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| * Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities, critical reflection, etc)
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| * Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning
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| * Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface
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| * Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one database (and can share it).
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| * Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for initial table definition)
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| * Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility to guests.
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| * Courses can be categorised and searched - one Moodle site can support thousands of courses
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| * Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data validated, cookies encrypted etc
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| * Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
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| == Site management ==
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| *Site is managed by an [[Administrator|administrator]] user
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| *Site is defined during setup. Defaults can be edited during setup or globally accepted
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| *Site can be modified by a robust [[Site administration block]].
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| * Plug-in [[Themes|"themes"]] allow the administrator to customize the site colors, fonts, layout etc to suit local needs
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| * Plug-in [[:Category:Contributed code|activity modules]] can be added to existing Moodle installations
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| * Plug-in language packs allow full localization to any language. These can be [[Language editing|edited]] using a built-in web-based editor. Currently there are language packs for over [http://download.moodle.org/lang/ 70 languages].
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| * The code is clearly-written PHP under a GPL license - easy to modify to suit your needs
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| == User management ==
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| ===Overview===
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| * Goals are to reduce admin involvement to a minimum, while retaining high security
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| * Supports a range of user [[Authentication|authentication]] mechanisms through plug-in authentication modules, allowing easy integration with existing systems.
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| ** [[Email-based self-registration|Standard email method]]: students can create their own login accounts. Email addresses are verified by confirmation.
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| ** [[LDAP authentication|LDAP]] method: account logins can be checked against an LDAP server. Admin can specify which fields to use.
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| ** For example, [[IMAP authentication|IMAP]], [[POP3 server|POP3]], [[NNTP authentication|NNTP]]: account logins are checked against a mail or news server. SSL/TLS certificates are supported.
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| * Students are encouraged to build an online [[Edit profile]] including photos, description. Email addresses can be protected from display if required.
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| **Every user can specify their own timezone, and every date in Moodle is translated to that timezone (e.g. posting dates, assignment due dates etc)
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| ** Every user can choose the language used for the Moodle interface (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese etc)
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| ===Enrolment===
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| *After a user has been authenticated by the site or allowed in as a guest, they are [[Enrolment|enrolled]] in courses.
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| * Teachers can add an "[[enrolment_key|enrolment key]]" to their courses to only allow certain students to enter. They can give out this key face-to-face or via personal email etc
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| * Teachers can [[Students#Manual_enrol|enrol students manually]] if desired
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| * Teachers can [[Students#Manual_unenrol|unenrol students manually]] if desired, otherwise they are automatically unenrolled after a certain period of inactivity (set by the admin)
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| *There are many [[Enrolment_plugins]]
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| **Includes: LADP, IMS, Paypal, [[Moodle Network]] to name a few
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| **Any [[External_database|External database]] that has least two fields can be used as an external authentication source
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| **Flat file or CSV files can automatically authenticate and enroll students in specific courses
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| * Each person requires only one account for the whole server - each account can have different access
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| * [[Metacourses|Meta courses]] get their enrollment information from 1 or more other courses.
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| ===Roles ===
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| * [[Roles]] that combine specific permissions for specific participants can be defined for each course
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| * An admin account controls the creation of courses and creates teachers by assigning users to courses and giving them a role in that context
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| * New roles can be created, copied from existing roles and edited. Some standard roles include:
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| ** Course creators can create courses, teach in them, and assign others to teacher roles.
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| ** Teachers are a role in a specific course.
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| ** Non-editing teacher roles are available for adjuncts, and part-time tutors.
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| ** Students can participate and view activities but not create them
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| ** Guests are view only users.
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| == Course management ==
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| ===Overview===
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| * Typically, a teacher has full control over all [[Course settings|settings]] for a course.
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| **This can include assigning other teachers roles with less privileges
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| * Choice of course formats settings such as by week, by topic or a discussion-focused social format
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| * Individual [[Course_settings#Force_theme]] and layout can be created for any course.
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| * Flexible array of course [[Activities|activities]] - Forums, Quizzes, Glossaries, Resources, Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, Workshops
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| * [[Groups]] - teacher(s) and students can be placed in one or more groups
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| * Recent changes to the course since the last login can be displayed on the course home page - helps give sense of community
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| * Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
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| * All [[Grades|grades]] for Forums, Quizzes and Assignments can be viewed on one page (and downloaded as a spreadsheet file) in a [[Gradebook]].
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| * Full user logging and tracking - [[Reports|activity reports]] for each student are available with graphs and details about each module (last access, number of times read) as well as a detailed "story" of each students involvement including postings etc on one page.
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| * Mail integration - copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be mailed in HTML or plain text.
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| * Custom [[Scales|scales]] - teachers can define their own scales to be used for grading forums and assignments
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| * Courses can be packaged as a single zip file using the [[Backup]] function. These can be restored on any Moodle server.
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| * Specific course activities and resources can be [[Import course data|imported]] from another existing course
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| === Assignment Module ===
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| * [[Assignment module|Assignments]] can be specified with a due date and a maximum grade.
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| * Students can upload their assignments (any file format) to the server - they are date-stamped.
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| * Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of lateness is shown clearly to the teacher
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| * For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade and comment) on one page in one form.
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| * Teacher feedback is appended to the assignment page for each student, and notification is mailed out.
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| * The teacher can choose to allow resubmission of assignments after grading (for regrading)
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| * Allowing resubmissions can allow the teacher to progress monitor student projects/assignments as they evolve.
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| * Advanced assignments can allow multiple files to be uploaded. This could keep together preplanning maps, outlines, research papers and presentations. (Not for beginners)
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| === Chat module ===
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| * The [[Chat module]] allows smooth, synchronous text interaction
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| **They can be limited to group members or roles, or be for anyone in the course
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| * Includes profile pictures in the chat window
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| * Supports URLs, smilies, embedded HTML, images etc
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| * All sessions are logged for later viewing, and these can also be made available to students
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| === Choice module ===
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| * The [[Choice module]] is like a single question poll. Can either be used to vote on something, or to get feedback from every student
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| * Teacher sees intuitive table view of who chose what
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| * Students can optionally be allowed to see an up-to-date graph of results
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| === Forum Module ===
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| * Different types of [[Forum module|forums]] are available, such as teacher-only, course news, open-to-all, and one-thread-per-user.
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| * There are several options for emailing forum posts to members of the course.
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| * All postings have the authors photo attached.
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| * Discussions can be viewed nested, flat or threaded, oldest or newest first.
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| * Robust subscription methods for each forum
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| **Individual forums can be subscribed to by each person
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| **Teacher can force subscription for all members of the course, either initially or permanently.
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| * Groups features allow options for more entry and viewing limitations for students.
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| * The teacher can choose not to allow replies to their posts (announcements.
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| * Discussion threads can be moved between forums or split by the teacher.
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| * Attachments can be made to posts and shown as part of message.
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| * Forum ratings can be used, these can be restricted to a range of dates.
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| ===Glossary Module===
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| *The [[Glossary module]] is one of the modules that best illustrates the way that Moodle can fundamentally improve upon the experience of a traditional classroom
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| *When students contribute to a course in a public place like the glossary, their ideas are given weight and attention and often result in a greater pride or ownership of the assignment
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| *Allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary
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| *Student entries can be previewed by instructors before publishing
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| *Entries can be searched or browsed using alphabet, category, date, and author
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| *A glossary of terms can be easily referenced by students
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| *Almost any module of Moodle can be set to hyperlink - automatically - to any word or phrase that is stored in or added to the glossary
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| *Glossary items can be grouped in categories
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| *Participants can comment on glossary entries
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| *Entries can be rated using teacher-defined scales
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| *Glossaries can be easily exported and imported via xml
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| *Glossaries can be fully searched
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| *Glossaries can be viewed with different display formats
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| === Lesson Module ===
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| *A [[Lesson module|lesson]] is a single activity where a series of pages are presented to the student.
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| *Pages can allow students to make choices by their answers to questions or by selecting a button with a description.
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| **This allows for a simple slide show type of presentation, with questions.
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| **It allows for a branching, adaptive presentation based upon a student's specific choice.
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| **Navigation through the lesson can be straight forward or complex, logical or random.
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| *[[Jumps]] are associated with each choice that link to other lesson pages.
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| **Jumps can be to a specific page or to a random page or a page not seen by the student.
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| *Choices that are answers to questions and can be scored and given individual feed back.
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| **Question pages include Multiple choice, Multi-answer, T/F, numeric, short answer and essay.
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| *[[Adding/editing a lesson|Lesson settings]] offer the teacher many options such as:
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| **Different scoring and grading potentials
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| **Lessons can build upon each other through conditional dependencies upon one another
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| **Student attempts, time limits, minimum score and retakes can be set
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| **Students may see progress bars, running score, reinforcement to student questions
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| **Password, start and end times, and other restrictions can be placed on students.
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| *Pages can be created one at a time or [[Import questions|imported]].
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| === Quiz Module ===
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| * Teachers can define a [[Question bank|database of questions]] where they can add these questions to a course quiz or have the questions shared over the Moodle site.
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| ** Questions can be stored in [[Question categories|categories]] for easy access, and these groups of questions can be "published" to make them accessible to any quiz on the site.
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| * [[Quiz module|Quizzes]] are automatically graded, and can be re-graded if questions are modified
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| * There are many [[Adding/editing a quiz|quiz settings options]], such as:
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| ** Quizzes can have a limited time window outside of which they are not available
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| ** At the teacher's option, quizzes can be attempted multiple times, and can show feedback and/or correct answers
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| ** Quiz questions and quiz answers can be shuffled (randomised) to reduce cheating
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| ** Quizzes can be attempted multiple times, if desired
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| ** Attempts can be cumulative, if desired, and finished over several sessions
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| * Questions allow HTML formatting, images and has a [[HTML editor|friendly tool bar]].
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| * Questions can be [[Import questions|imported]] or [[Export questions|exported]] in many file formats.
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| * There are more than 10 question types, each with different scoring methods, such as:
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| ** Multiple-choice questions supporting single or multiple answers
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| ** Short Answer questions (words or phrases)
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| ** True-False questions
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| ** Matching questions
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| ** Random questions
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| ** Numerical questions (with allowable ranges)
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| ** Embedded-answer questions (cloze style) with answers within passages of text
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| ** [[Questions linking to files|Embedded descriptive text and graphics]] is possible in questions
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| === Resource Module ===
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| * [[Resources]] can display of many types of media content files by a single link on the course page, such as:
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| ** Word, Powerpoint, Flash, Video formats, Audio formats
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| ** Internal web pages (HTML formatted) can be created with [[HTML editor]] tool
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| ** Internal text pages (no formatting)
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| **Files can be stored locally or the link point to remote locations
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| * [[Files]] can be uploaded and managed (zipped, unzipped, renamed, moved) in the course
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| ** Folders can be created and managed in the course and students given a link to the folder.
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| * External content on the web can be linked to or seamlessly included within the course interface.
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| ** External web applications can be linked to with data passed to them
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| === Survey Module ===
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| * Built-in [[Survey module|surveys]] (COLLES, ATTLS) have been proven as instruments for analysing online classes
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| * Online survey reports always available, including many graphs. Data is downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV text file.
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| * Survey interface prevents partly-finished surveys.
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| * Feedback is provided to the student of their results compared to the class averages
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| === Wiki Module===
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| *[[Wiki module]] is a series of web pages that anyone can add to or edit
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| *It enables document pages to be authored collectively
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| *Supports groups
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| *There are many [[Wiki administration|teacher based editing tools]].
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| === Workshop Module ===
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| * [[Workshop module]] allows peer assessement of documents, and the teacher can manage and grade the assessment.
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| * Supports a wide range of possible grading scales
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| * Teacher can provide sample documents for students to practice grading
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| * Being redone for Moodle 2.0
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| [[es:Características]]
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| [[fr:Fonctionnalités]]
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| [[pt:Características do Moodle]]
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| [[de:Funktionalität]]
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| [[ru:Возможности]]
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