Features
From MoodleDocs
Moodle is an active and evolving product. This page lists just some of the many features it contains:
Overall design
- Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities, critical reflection, etc)
- Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning
- Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface
- Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one database (and can share it).
- Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for initial table definition)
- Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility to guests.
- Courses can be categorised and searched - one Moodle site can support thousands of courses
- Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data validated, cookies encrypted etc
- Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
Site management
- Site is managed by an admin user, defined during setup
- Plug-in "themes" allow the admin to customise the site colours, fonts, layout etc to suit local needs
- Plug-in activity modules can be added to existing Moodle installations
- Plug-in language packs allow full localisation to any language. These can be edited using a built-in web-based editor. Currently there are language packs for over 60 languages.
- The code is clearly-written PHP under a GPL license - easy to modify to suit your needs
User management
- Goals are to reduce admin involvement to a minimum, while retaining high security
- Supports a range of authentication mechanisms through plug-in authentication modules, allowing easy integration with existing systems.
- Standard email method: students can create their own login accounts. Email addresses are verified by confirmation.
- LDAP method: account logins can be checked against an LDAP server. Admin can specify which fields to use.
- IMAP, POP3, NNTP: account logins are checked against a mail or news server. SSL, certificates and TLS are supported.
- External database: any database containing at least two fields can be used as an external authentication source.
- Each person requires only one account for the whole server - each account can have different access
- An admin account controls the creation of courses and creates teachers by assigning users to courses
- A course creator account is only allowed to create courses and teach in them
- Teachers may have editing privileges removed so that they can't modify the course (eg for part-time tutors)
- Security - teachers can add an "enrolment key" to their courses to keep out non-students. They can give out this key face-to-face or via personal email etc
- Teachers can enrol students manually if desired
- Teachers can unenrol students manually if desired, otherwise they are automatically unenrolled after a certain period of inactivity (set by the admin)
- Students are encouraged to build an online profile including photos, description. Email addresses can be protected from display if required.
- Every user can specify their own timezone, and every date in Moodle is translated to that timezone (eg posting dates, assignment due dates etc)
- Every user can choose the language used for the Moodle interface (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese etc)
Course management
- A full teacher has full control over all settings for a course, including restricting other teachers
- Choice of course formats such as by week, by topic or a discussion-focussed social format
- Flexible array of course activities - Forums, Journals, Quizzes, Resources, Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, Workshops
- Recent changes to the course since the last login can be displayed on the course home page - helps give sense of community
- Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
- All grades for Forums, Journals, Quizzes and Assignments can be viewed on one page (and downloaded as a spreadsheet file)
- Full user logging and tracking - 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.
- Mail integration - copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be mailed in HTML or plain text.
- Custom scales - teachers can define their own scales to be used for grading forums and assignments
- Courses can be packaged as a single zip file using the Backup function. These can be restored on any Moodle server.