Pcast settings

RSS in Pcasts

If RSS feeds are enabled, you will see three additional fields under the pcast setup page:

Enable RSS

This turns RSS on or off. When set to “No” the RSS feed is disabled. When set to “Yes” the RSS feed will generate a list of episodes.

Number of episodes

This number sets the number of episodes to be listed on the RSS feed. If this number is set to 5, then episodes will be sent to subscribers. The sorting of the episodes are controlled by the RSS sort order setting.

RSS sort order

This controls which episodes will be listed on the RSS feed. If this is set to 'Newest episode first' the the episodes are listed from newest to oldest. If it is set to 'Oldest episode first' the the episodes are listed with the oldest episodes at the top.

When RSS is enabled for your pcast, an orange RSS button appears on the main page (in the settings block). When a user clicks on the RSS button, they see the XML code displayed, needed by the news-reader.

iTunes

If both RSS and iTunes are enabled, you will see 6 additional fields in the pcast setup page.

Enable RSS for iTunes

This control allows the pcast module to create a .pcast file so the iTunes application (Created by Apple Computer) can subscribe directly to the podcast episodes.

Subtitle

This is the subtitle for the podcast. This is an iTunes specific field

Author

The field allows the author to be configured for the podcast. Only users who have the 'mod/pcast:manage' capability will be listed.

Keywords

These are keywords describing the podcast. This is an iTunes specific field

Category

This is the classification of the podcast. This is an iTunes specific field.

Explicit content

This is used to identify if the content of the podcast. This is an iTunes specific field.

Pcast posting options

Allow user comments

This option only appears if the commenting system is enabled. This allows users to comment on the individual episodes.

Allow users to post episodes

If this option is set to 'Yes', then students or other users who have the 'mod/pcast:write' capability can add episodes to the podcast. If the option is set to 'No' then only teachers or other users who have the 'mod/pcast:manage' capability can add episodes.

Require approval for episodes

If this setting is enabled, then all episodes must be approved before they are displayed.

Display author names

If this setting is enabled, then each episode will display the name of the author next to it.

Display names of viewers

If this setting is enabled, then each episode will display the number of views and the users who viewed them.

Allow episode categories

If this setting is enabled, then each episode can be categorized using an iTunes category.

Podcast image

This advanced feature allows the RSS feed to show a custom image in place of the standard moodle logo.

Site administration settings

The pcast module has additional settings which may be changed by an administrator in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Pcast.

Enable RSS Feeds

This setting enables the RSS options for all instances of the pcast module on the moodle site.

Enable iTunes RSS

This setting enables RSS iTunes options for all instances of the pcast module on the moodle site. This setting requires 'Enable RSS Feeds' to be enabled.

Use Media Filter

This setting uses allows the moodle media filter to play supported formats when the individual episodes are viewed. If this setting is set to 'No' then only a download link will be displayed for the media files.