Curated list/Forums

Forums

Progress is happening on this topic. If we are a genuinely constructive LMS, then the functionality to empower forums in Moodle needs to be good,

• We considered ForumNG but rejected it. https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-21538 and https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDLSITE-1910
• We considered Advanced forums but this also was rejected.
• Now we are doing a gradual redesign. The link to the tracker EPIC: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-39707

Random List

1. Permalinks DONE
2. Subscribe by thread DONE https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-1626

Some other Work In Progress or potentially WIP

Word count (an Atto Issue as well)

1. Word count: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-44245. Damyon Wiese just published a plugin doing this: https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=atto_count
2. Live word count: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-46169

Drag and drop images into forum

Possibly an editor question. In progress. Tracker item: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-43996

1. There has been some debate about this (see Single click file upload for instance)
2. Reason why this is significant: this is one of the most common things that we do: make posts and need images. If adding images is a slow process (as it is at the moment) it can have a large overhead if you are doing a lot of pages/posts/questions etc.

Sticky posts

WIP https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-372

Basic Teacher type activities for a forum

You want to see who has not posted

Probably this is a simple report.

Export forum content

This would be quite good to enable archiving.

Tracker: Ability to export forum content at the end of the term

Post personal reply to a student

This is really part of a wider question: how to communicate one on one with your students. Many people use quickmail (no audit trail), regular email (a pain), Messages (Clunky, no attachments, no audit trail).

• Threads: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=173381

Tracker

• Autocreate a group for each student in the course and the group name set to the first and last name
• https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-27223 (closed)
• The latest tracker item: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-47161 And this has code.

Work arounds

• Plugin: Dialogue module The downside of this is that it is a new tool for people to get their head around. The upside is it is very powerful. It is well maintained.
• Use a database
• Use groups of one. Huge maintenance issue here, and can you imagine renaming 20 groups for each person in your class? And what happens if a person comes late?
• The official MoodleHQ view seems to be "use messaging"
• Quickmail is flexible, but no audit trail

OTHER FORUM FUNCTIONALITY

Like button

Tracker: Like button

List all the attachments in a forum

A basic need for teachers and students sometimes. 150 posts . . "Where was that attached file?"

• Feature creep: "Download all attachments to a forum"

Using forums

You want to engage with several posts at once

At the moment, the instant you click to make a Reply to a post, you loose visibility of the thread. Reply in place would be good.

• Tracker: Edit in place

Forum Locking

Tracker: [1]Forum locking]

Anonymous posts

WIP Tracker: Anonymous Posting

Reply by email

WIP Tracker: Forum: Reply by e-mail

Moderation of posts by Teacher

Tracker: Forums: Add field for Teacher to approve post

Save draft

Tracker: Give users the ability to save draft versions of forum posts

Analytics: analysis of discussion

Tracker: Forum: Report for analysis of discussions

Cruising highly rated posts

Tracker: Add an option into forums to cruise high ratings