Note: You are currently viewing documentation for Moodle 3.1. Up-to-date documentation for the latest stable version of Moodle is probably available here: Derek Chirnside/forums and communication.

User:Derek Chirnside/forums and communication

From MoodleDocs

FORUM MODULE ENHANCEMENTS

In some respects, discussion on this issue has been very irrational, sporatic, littered with unfulfilled promises and shattered plans.

In an era of Facebook, Wordpress and Youtube it is difficult to teach efficiently with the lack of some basic functionality that other LMS's have had for (say) 7 years. eg

  1. subscribe at the thread level
  2. freeze threads
  3. sticky threads
  4. list attached files
  5. export threads
  6. push a single post out to users
  7. save drafts
  8. list posts by user

Here is a view: forums are pretty fundemental in Moodle. There is no equivalent to a Wall (in FB) a quality blog (like Wordpress) and the special equivalents in the verious flavours of Moodle: Joule, TotaraLMS, ELIAS etc - or the special communication enhancements in D2L, Haiku, Edmodo and Canvas etc. Moodle core lags behind.

See https://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Forum_requirements Forums were in the Moodle roadmap for over a year. Then they just disappeared. There are now three big groups with their own forum/communication channels:

  1. Advanced Forums (Moodlerooms) http://talentmgt.com/articles/view/moodlerooms_releases_joule_1.1
  2. [ForumNG] (Open University)
  3. TotaraLMS
. . . but there has only been one small fix on Forums in core Moodle (fixing the bug that made the Q&A forum unuseable) Tracker: xxx and one enhancement of indeterminate value: Blog-style forums

To take just one feature (subscription at the thread level), the latest word is: "I can absolutely guarantee that this feature will be in the rewrite of forum when it happens" (10 March 2011) referring to the request made in 8th July 2004. ie 7 years, and a lot of effort from coders (all documented on the tracker)

It's the old problem: limited resources and competing demands. I'd like to see more effort made to shepherd the coding done with people outside Moodle core, to focus effort, provide feedback.

Forum: listing of attached files

In some respects, Moodle does not have an easy to use file sharing functionality. (Database if not really easy enough for a basic user) Hence this suggestion for an enhancement.

Tracker: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-27062

Forum thread: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=175989#p772104

Forum/Groups: Allow "Create new discussion for each group"

Tracker item: Allow "Create new discussion for each group" to enable teachers to post the same question for each group with only one posting http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-19670

Forum: locking a thread/forum

  1. Forum Post: 2006 - http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=45359
  2. Documentation: https://docs.moodle.org/en/Forum_permissions
  3. Tracker item: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-12944

Forum: subscribe at the thread level

I notice in the tracker http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-1626 there is a request for the ability for notification (subscription) at the thread level, not just the forum level. It says it is in 2.0 in the tracker. What does this mean? Is this definite, since it is not mentioned in the roadmap? Is it too small an enhancement to justify comment in the roadmap? To what level of detail does the roadmap get maintained?

  1. Subscription at thread level: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=111313
  2. With code: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=115149
  3. Tracker, from 2006: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-7368
  4. Tracker, from 2004: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-1626

Forum: export posts at end of term

Tracker issue: https://docs.moodle.org/en/User:Derek_Chirnside

http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-19254

Forum: have ForumNG in core

Tracker issue: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-21538

ForumNG Pages