MoodleDocs - User contributions [en]

Installing Moodle

2011-02-24T12:37:53Z

Topstone: link to other language pages

{{Template:Installing Moodle}}
'''First, don't panic!''' [[Image:F1 35px.png]]

This guide explains how to install Moodle for the first time. There are links to other pages that go into more detail and try to cover the majority of possible web server setups.

Second, you may want to consider reviewing [[Finding and Selecting A Web Host]] to consider whether you really want to install Moodle yourself. If you decide to move forward with an installation, please read all the installation documentation carefully.

Third, if you still have a problem for which you can't find the answer, please see the Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=28 Installation problems forum] where there are many people who can help you.

== Requirements ==

Moodle is primarily developed in Linux using [[Apache]], [[MySQL]] and [[PHP]] (also sometimes known as the LAMP platform). It is also regularly tested with Windows XP/2000/2003 (WAMP), Solaris 10 (Sparc and x64), Mac OS X and Netware 6 operating systems. Support for PostgreSQL, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server is also available.

The requirements for Moodle are as follows:

=== Hardware ===
* Disk space: 160MB free (min). You will require more free space to store your teaching materials.
* Memory: 256MB (min), 1GB (recommended). The general rule of thumb is that Moodle can support 50 ''concurrent'' users for every 1GB of RAM, but this will vary depending on your specific hardware and software combination.
** This includes hosting limits of PHP or MySQL on a hosting service.
** The capacity can limit the number of users your Moodle site can handle. See [[User site capacities]]

=== Software ===
Moodle requires a web server environment and will run in [[Apache]] and [[IIS]] easily. Moodle should run in any server environment that supports [[PHP]].

Moodle is written in the PHP scripting language. Currently, Moodle v 1.9.x requires a minimum of PHP v4.3.0 to run. Moodle 2.0 needs PHP v 5.2.8. There have been some issues with deprecated tags in PHP v 5.3.0 which have a negative impact on a number of PHP Apps, Moodle not exempted, so please ensure your PHP version is later than v 5.3.2 if using a v5.3.x. There has also been reported some issues installing Moodle with [http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk PHP-Accelerator]. See the PHP Moodle version requirements here [[PHP settings by Moodle version]] for more information.

Moodle will use MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL or Oracle as a database, but no others. There is some real issues in the interoperability interface of different databases, which complicates the whole issue. For version information, you can go to the [http://download.moodle.org/ Download page] and that will describe version requirements for available packages.

If you want to run Moodle on your own computer, please see [[Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP]] for step-by-step instructions for installation on most popular platforms.

== Download and copy files into place ==

There are two ways to get Moodle, either as a compressed package from http://download.moodle.org/ or via [[CVS for Administrators|CVS]].

After downloading and unpacking the archive, or checking out the files via CVS, you will be left with a directory called "moodle", containing a number of files and folders.

For the standard package, you can either place the whole folder in your web server documents directory, in which case the site will be located at '''<nowiki>http://yourwebserver.com/moodle</nowiki>''', or you can copy all the contents straight into the main web server documents directory, in which case the site will be simply '''<nowiki>http://yourwebserver.com</nowiki>'''.

:''Tip:'' If you are downloading Moodle to your local computer and then uploading it to your web site, it is usually better to upload the whole archive as one file, and then do the unpacking on the server. Even web hosting interfaces like cPanel allow you to uncompress archives in the "File Manager".

If you're interested, [[Moodle site moodle directory]] gives a quick summary of the contents of the Moodle folder, to help get you oriented.

:''NOTE:'' The "connectionless" nature of the Internet, HTML and server-side file generation allows you to simply copy over critical files without having to uninstall then reinstall. When you do this, go to the Administration > Notifications page to see if any change has been properly registered within Moodle. Time your upgrades to periods of minimal activity, safer that way.

== Setting-up your web server ==
You need to create a blank '''database''' for Moodle to use and finally create a '''directory''' on your hard disk for Moodle to save your materials and other files you upload into your courses before you can start the installation process.

=== Create empty database ===

You need to create an empty database (eg "''moodle''") in your database system along with a special user (for example "moodleuser") that has access to that database (and that database only). You could use the "root" user if you wanted to for a test server, but this is not recommended for a production system: if hackers manage to discover the password then your whole database system would be at risk, rather than just one database.

For more help with this see [[Create Moodle site database]].

If you are using a webhost, they will probably have a control panel web interface for you to create your database.

The '''[http://www.cpanel.com/ cPanel]''' system is one of the most popular of these.
To create a database using cPanel:

# Click on the '''MySQL Databases''' icon.
# Type '''moodle''' in the New Database field and click '''Create Database'''.
# Type a ''username'' and ''password'' (not one you use elsewhere) in the respective fields and click '''Create User'''.<br>Note that the ''username'' and ''database'' names may be prefixed by your cPanel account name and an underscore, and truncated to 16 characters. When entering this information into the Moodle installer - use the full names.
# Now use the '''Add Users to Databases''' button and give this new user account '''ALL''' rights to the new database.

=== Create the data directory ===

Moodle will also need some space on your server's hard disk to store uploaded files, such as course documents and user pictures. The Moodle installer tries hard to create the '''moodledata''' directory for you but if it fails then you will have to create a directory for this purpose manually.

<table style=background-color:lightCyan border=1 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0 ><tr><td>
'''Security warning''': For security purposes, it is '''CRITICAL''' that this directory is '''NOT''' accessible directly via the web. The easiest way to do this is to simply locate it OUTSIDE the web site root directory (it is the folder that the main part of your URL -that is, the part up to the first single / - points to; for example, in <nowiki>http://your.domain.com/moodle/admin/cron.php</nowiki>, it is <nowiki>http://your.domain.com/</nowiki>).

'''If you don't protect the data directory from direct web access, anybody will be able to impersonate any user of your Moodle site (including the admin user!!!), and all of your course materials will be available to the web at large.'''
</table>

See [[Creating Moodle site data directory]] for more information about security in creating a data directory in CPanel in webhosts.

=== Troubleshooting ===

If you run into problems when installing Moodle you might have to tweak some of the settings for your Apache server or your PHP installation.

* [[Installing Moodle/httpd.conf setup]]
* [[Installing Moodle/Creating custom php.ini files]] for details.
* '''Alternative to ''php.ini'' and ''httpd.conf'' files''': If you do not have access to your php.ini or httpd.conf files on you web host, see [[Create .htaccess file]].
* Warning: as noted at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=124441&parent=550026 some Moodle installers such as Ubuntu populate an Apache conf.d file with php directives. Before trying to change any php directives make sure that no php directives are set in any apache conf file, including files in /etc/apache2/conf.d or similar directory.

== Start Moodle install ==
There are two basic ways to install Moodle: Most Moodlers are used to the installer script but with Moodle 2.0 you may install it from the command line.

=== Install with installer script ===

To run the installer script (install.php), just try to access your Moodle main URL using a web browser, or access '''<nowiki>http://yourserver/install.php</nowiki>''' directly.

(The Installer will try to set a session cookie. If you get a popup warning in your browser make sure you accept that cookie!)

Moodle will detect that configuration is necessary and will lead you through some screens to help you create a new configuration file called '''config.php'''. At the end of the process Moodle will try and write the file into the right location, otherwise you can press a button to download it from the installer and then upload '''config.php''' into the main Moodle directory on the server.

Along the way the installer will test your server environment and give you suggestions about how to fix any problems. For most common issues these suggestions should be sufficient, but if you get stuck, check in the Installation Forum for more help.

==== Go to the admin page to continue configuration ====

Once the basic config.php has been correctly created in the previous step, trying to access the front page of your site will take you to the "admin" page for the rest of the configuration.

The first time you access this admin page, you will be presented with a GPL "shrink wrap" agreement with which you must agree before you can continue with the setup.

Now Moodle will start setting up your database and creating tables to store data. First, the main database tables are created. You should see a number of SQL statements followed by status messages. You should see <font color="green">SUCCESS</font> next to each one until you see "<font color="green">Main databases set up successfully</font>."

:''Tip:'' If you don't see these, then there must have been some problem with the database or the configuration settings you defined in config.php. Please see [[Install Moodle with installer script]] for more details and issues.

Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the "Continue" link.

You should now see a form where you can define more configuration variables for your installation, such as the default language, SMTP hosts and so on. Don't worry too much about getting everything right just now - you can always come back and edit these later on using the admin interface. The defaults are designed to be useful and secure for most sites. Scroll down to the bottom and click "Save changes".

Next you will see more pages that print lots of status messages as they set up all the tables required by the various Moodle module. As before, they should all be <font color="green">green</font>.

Scroll down the very bottom of the page and press the "Continue" link.

The next page is a form where you can define parameters for your Moodle site and the front page, such as the name, format, description and so on. Fill this out (you can always come back and change these later) and then press "Save changes".

Finally, you will then be asked to create a top-level administration user for future access to the admin pages. Fill out the details with your own name, email etc and then click "Save changes". Not all the fields are required, but if you miss any important fields you'll be re-prompted for them. You can change this information later via the [[User profile]].

'''Make sure you remember the username and password you chose for the administration user account, as they will be necessary to access the administration page in future.'''

:''TIP:'' If for any reason your install is interrupted, or there is a system error of some kind that prevents you from logging in using the admin account, you can usually log in using the default username of "'''admin'''", with password "'''admin'''".)

Once successful, you will be sent to the home page of your new site! Please note the [[Site administration block]] on the left with links. These items are only visible to you because you are logged in as the admin user. All your further administration of Moodle can now be done using this block.

=== Installing Moodle using command line ===
{{Moodle 2.0}}

[[Installing Moodle using command line]] is recommended only for experienced server administrators. Please note you have to execute the installation script as the same user used for apache. Command line installation is not compatible with Windows platforms.

$cd /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli

More information about the options can be found using
$sudo -u wwwrun /usr/bin/php install.php --help

==Last tasks==

=== Set up cron ===

Moodle's background tasks (e.g. sending out forum emails and performing course backups) are performed by a script which you can set to execute at specific times of the day. This is known as a cron script. Please refer to the [[Cron|Cron instructions]].

=== Set up backups ===

Please refer to the [[Backup settings| backup instructions]].

=== Send a test email ===

Create a [[Manual_accounts|test user]] with a valid email address and [[message|send them a message]]. Do they receive an email copy of the message? If not then your email server and/or Moodle email settings may be misconfigured (see [[Email_processing|Email Processing]] for details.

===Create a new course===

Congratulations on setting up your Moodle site! You can now [[Adding/editing a course|create a new course]] and have a play ;-)

== See also ==
* [[Complete install packages]]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=28 Installation problems forum]
* [[Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP]]
* [[Upgrading Moodle]]
* [[Beginning Administration FAQ]]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=42688 Selecting a web host for Moodle] forum discussion
* [[masquerading|Masquerading]] - Running Moodle behind a masquerading/NAT firewall
* [http://ic.eflclasses.org/tutorials/settingupmoodleonhostingwitholdcpanel.swf Tutorial on choosing a host and setting up moodle via the old cpanel]
* [[Installation FAQ]]
* [[Finding and Selecting A Web Host]]
* [[experimental:Getting Help Installing and Managing Moodle]]
* [[Step-by-step Guide for Installing Moodle on Mac OS X 10.4 Client]]
* [[Installing Moodle on Windows Vista]]
* [[Step-by-step Installation Guide for Ubuntu]]
* [[RedHat Linux installation]]
* [[CentOS Linux installation]]

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[[ru:Установка Moodle]]
[[zh:安装Moodle]]
{{Review}}

Automated course backup

2010-09-09T03:22:33Z

Topstone: link to Japanese : "バックアップ (管理者)" -> "自動コースバックアップ"

Location: ''Administration > Courses > Backups''

The backups page enables administrators to configure automated course backups and a backup schedule.
Automated course backups runs the same functions as individual [[Course backup|course backups]]. It's a good idea to schedule backups for when your server isn't usually busy. Running the backup tool over all the courses can be processor-intensive, so you shouldn't run it when there are a lot of students trying to access the server.

In order to make scheduled backups, you have to set up CRON to run periodically. Please refer to the [[Cron|cron instructions]].

==Setting a backup schedule==

To set the backup schedule:
#Click the Active checkbox. This turns on the automated backup system.
#Click the days of the week to run the backup.
#Set the execution time for the backup process. For most servers, early morning will be the best time. Keep in mind the time zone your server is using.
#Set the "Save to..." path. If you can, choose a backup path on another machine or on a different drive than the one Moodle is on. You don’t want to lose your backups at the same time you lose your Moodle site if the drive fails. If you leave the field blank, then backup zip files will be saved in the backup folder of each course files folder.
#Click the "Save changes" button.

Once you've set up your backup schedule, Moodle will automatically create archives of all the courses on the server at the time you specified. Once the backup is complete, Moodle will send you an email describing the status of the backup.

Note: From 1.6 onwards, course backups automatically skip courses which are unavailable to students and have not been changed in the last month.

==Course versus site backups==

*Automated course backups are more expensive in terms of time and CPU usage. The recovery time to have your site running again is longer.
*Course backups are useful for obtaining "fresh" copies of courses to be re-used or distributed individually, however they should never be used as a primary backup system (unless your hosting doesn't allow the preferred [[Site backup|site backups]]).

==See also==

*[[Backup and restore FAQ]]

[[Category:Backup]]

[[eu:Ikastaroen_segurtasun-kopia_automatikoa]]
[[fr:Sauvegarde (administrateur)]]
[[ja:自動コースバックアップ]]

Filters

2010-09-09T03:04:20Z

Topstone: link to Japanese : "フィルタ (管理者)" -> "フィルタ"

Locations:
:Moodle 1.9 ''Administration > Modules > Manage filters''
:Moodle 2.0 ''Settings>Site Administration>Filters>Manage filters''

Filters allow for the automatic transformation of entered text into different, often more complex forms. For example the titles of [[Resources|resources]] can automatically become hyperlinks that take you to the relevant resource, URLs pointing to [[mp3]] files can become [[Flash]] controls embedded in the web page that let you pause and rewind the audio. The possibilities are endless and there are a number of standard filters included with Moodle and many more specialized filters available from the Moodle.org [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009 Modules and plugins database].

==Enabling filters==
[[Image:filters admin.png|thumb|Filters administration in Moodle 1.8]]
To enable a filter:
#Access Administration > Modules > Filters.
#On the filters administration page, click the eye icon opposite the filter you want to enable, so that it changes to an open eye.
#Use the up/down arrow icons to arrange the filters in the order in which they should be applied.

Certain filters have additional settings, which can be accessed via the links in the settings column.

==Common settings==

Notes:
:Prior to Moodle 1.9, common filter settings can be found in ''Administration > Appearance > Filter settings''.
:In Moodle 2.0, common filter settings can be found in ''Settings>Site Administration>Filters>Common Filter Settings''

===Text cache lifetime===

Text filters can take a lot of processor power to analyze. If you have a large number of courses, the filters may slow your system. The text cache lifetime determines how often the filters run. If you set them to run too frequently, your system may
slow down. If you set them to run too infrequently, analyzing new content will take too long and users will notice. You should experiment to find the correct amount of time for your server.

===Filter uploaded files===

This setting enables uploaded files (HTML and text only) to be processed by the filters system. You can choose to have none, only HTML or all files filtered.

===Filter match once per page===

This setting effects the glossary, activity and resource linking filters. If set to yes, only the first match on the complete page will be converted to a link. All others will be ignored.

===Filter match once per text===

This setting effects the glossary, activity and resource linking filters. If set to yes, only the first match in a discrete block of text will be converted to a link. All others in that text block will be ignored.

===Filter all strings===

If checked, headings and titles can be displayed in different languages using the [[Multi language content|multi-language filter]].

==Standard filters==

Filters included in the standard download are:

*Activity Names Auto-linking - This scans text for activity titles that exist in the same course and creates a link.
*[[Algebra filter|Algebra]] - This filter will convert algebra code into GIF images. It requires the [[TeX notation filter|TeX filter]] to be installed. Note also that your system must also include the following Perl module: HTML::Entities.pm
*Database auto-linking - As the name suggests, this filter enables automatic linking of [[Database module]] entries.
:''Note'': If entries are required before viewing, the database auto-linking filter should be disabled. This is because the database auto-linking filter can't determine whether a user has submitted the required number of entries.
*Email Protection - This filter scans the text for any email addresses. Where found they are changed (obfuscated) to reduce the chance of being added to a spammers list. However, as this filter is switched off by default, the site administrator may wish to enable this filter before importing user's email addresses.
*Glossary auto-linking - As the name suggests, this filter enables automatic linking of [[Glossary module]] entries. In addition to this filter, individual glossary entries should have the "This entry should be automatically linked" box checked.
*[[Multi language content]] - This filter enables resources to be created in multiple languages. It looks for <span lang="xx" class="multilang">...</span> tags which indicate that a text contains multiple languages. Then it selects and outputs the best language for the current user. The language of the resource will change when the user changes their selected Moodle language. Please note: going to the past, the multilang filter supported the <lang> tag. Then, officially, we changed it to the standard HTML <span> tag and the <lang> solution is now deprecated.
*[[Multimedia plugins]]
*Resource Names Auto-linking - The titles of [[Resources]] can automatically become hyperlinks that take you to the relevant resource within the same course.
*[[TeX notation filter|TeX notation]]
*Tidy - This filter checks whether HTML code is XHTML compliant, tidying where necessary. To make this filter work you need to have PHP compiled with the libtidy option; see http://www.php.net/tidy. The Using Moodle discussion [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=28418 Tidy Filter for Moodle 1.5] contains more details.
*Wiki Page Auto-linking - As the name suggests, this filter enables automatic linking between wiki pages, based on the name of the page. It does not, however, change the behavior of linking of pages by using CamelCase or [square brackets].
*[[Word censorship]] - This filter "blacks out" words found on a list.

==Non-standard filters==

Filters are one of Moodle's pluggable resources and may be added or removed simply by using a file manager to add or remove them from the ''/filters'' directory. Moodle detects those that are present and makes them available to use.

* [[Jmol filter|Jmol]] - for interactive 3D viewing of molecular structures
* [[Code Syntax Highlighting]] - for more readable excerpts of programming languages including [[PHP]], [[HTML in Moodle|HTML]], [[CSS]], and XML amongst many others
* [[HiddenText filter|HiddenText]] - for teachers who want to provide "hints" to students where the information is initially hidden but can easily be revealed by student in any time when he need.
* [[DocView filter|DocView]] - preview office documents (stored inside course's file repository) using one of the online document editing services (google docs, zoho, writely...). linked documents are opened inside a frame on the resource's page.

==See also==

*[[Filters FAQ]]
*[[Filters used on the Moodle.org forums]]
*[[Development:Filters]]
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=76206 Filter Demo's now online] forum discussion

[[Category:Filter]]

[[es:Filtros (Administrador)]]
[[fr:Filtres (administrateur)]]
[[ja:フィルタ]]

Calendar settings

2010-09-09T02:47:19Z

Topstone: link to Japanese : "カレンダー ( 管理者 )" -> "カレンダー (管理者)"

Location: ''Administration > Appearance > Calendar''

The days and events to lookahead settings are for displaying events in the [[Upcoming Events block]]. If the Upcoming Events block becomes too long you can reduce the number of days and events to lookahead.

==Importing multiple events==

Currently there is no way to import data to create multiple events. All events must be individually entered through the New Event button. Because the New Event data entry screen only allows drop down selection rather than typed entries, it is very difficult to design a macro for quick repeated input of New Events.

The only other option is to directly connect to the central moodle [SQL] database and directly enter data into the events table. ''Great care'' needs to be taken with this approach as alterations to the data structure may cause your moodle site to crash!
To convert MS Excel dates to moodle Unix dates use: Unix date integer =((Excel date integer)-25569)*86400

==List format==
The calendar displays event lists one day at a time. There is no capacity to display a list of all site or course events over an extended period. To obtain date lists for publications, the only option is to link directly to the SQL database, select by the "courseid" and perform calculations to convert the UNIX "timestart" to a publishable date format:

Using a Microsoft Access query, collect data from the '''mdl_event''' table and create 2 calculated fields:

*'''calcdate''': DateValue("1/1/1970")+[timestart]/60/60/24+10/24
*'''daysavdate''': IIf([calcdate] Between #2/04/2006# And #29/10/2006#,[calcdate],[calcdate]+1/24)

Then, use additional calculated fields to separate the date, day of week and time (if needing to be formatted separately:

*Dte: Format([daysavdate],"mmm dd")
*DayName: Format([daysavdate],"ddd")
*Tme: Format([daysavdate],"hh:nn am/pm")

:''TIP:'' The dates for daylight saving need to be changed each year to match your location.
:''TIP:'' Very brief summary process for creating connection to moodle database in Windows environment: Install MySQL [[ODBC]] Driver 3.51 / Start settings control panel / admin tools/ Data Sources/ ODBC / add new service/ select MySQL ODBC driver/ follow prompts for User & password/ open access/ get external data/ point to MySQL ODBC connection

==Navigating months==
There is no easy way to jump to a specific month in the year other than to directly edit the URL variable for month "m=" : calendar/view.php?view=month&cal_d=1&cal_'''m=02'''&cal_y=2006

==Display Current Day Events==

Use link: http://moodle.org/calendar/view.php?view=day

==See also==

*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=52320 URL to show today's calendar] forum discussion

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Calendar]]

[[fr:Calendrier (administrateur)]]
[[ja:カレンダー (管理者)]]

Environment

2010-09-09T02:26:27Z

Topstone: link to Japanese ver. "環境" -> "動作環境"

Location: ''Administration > Server > Environment''

The environment page enables you to check that your site meets all system requirements for your current and future versions of Moodle. It is important to check system requirements prior to [[Upgrading|upgrading]].

Note: some of the PHP extensions are included as standard in later distributions of PHP, depending on platform:
* Iconv is included in PHP from 5.0 onwards on Windows [http://uk3.php.net/manual/en/iconv.installation.php]
* Tokenizer is included in PHP from 4.3.0 onwards [http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/tokenizer.installation.php]
* Ctype is included by default from PHP 4.2.0 onwards http://uk.php.net/manual/en/ctype.installation.php

==Moodle version 1.5.3==

*MySQL version - 3.23 or later is required
*PHP version - 4.1.0 or later is required
*The php_extension mbstring is recommended to be installed/enabled

==Moodle version 1.6==

*MySQL version 4.1.12 or later for sites that are exclusively [http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html Latin-1], 4.1.16 if you have other languages, or PostgreSQL 7.4.x or later
*PHP version 4.3.0 or later is required (but don't use versions 5.0.0 to 5.0.6 which were buggy)
*The php_extension iconv is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The php_extension mbstring is recommended to be installed/enabled

==Moodle version 1.8==

*MySQL version 4.1.16 or later is required, or PostgreSQL 7.4.x or later
*PHP version 4.3.0 or later is required (but don't use versions 5.0.0 to 5.0.6 which were buggy)
*[[admin/environment/unicode|Unicode]] is required
*The [[admin/environment/php extension/curl|php_extension curl]] is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The [[admin/environment/php extension/iconv|php_extension iconv]] is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The [[admin/environment/php extension/mbstring|php_extension mbstring]] is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The [[admin/environment/php extension/openssl|php_extension openssl]] is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The [[admin/environment/php_extension/tokenizer|php_extension tokenizer]] is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The [[admin/environment/php_extension/xmlrpc|php_extension xmlrpc]] is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The [[admin/environment/php_extension/ctype|php_extension ctype]] is recommended to be installed/enabled

==Moodle version 1.9==
===PHP ===
* PHP version 4.3.0 or later is required
* PHP Settings. Check these settings in your php.ini or .htaccess file (if you're using Apache). For settings which use ON/OFF as their values, you can substitute 1 for ON and 0 for OFF if you prefer.
** ''register_globals'' '''MUST''' be OFF
** ''safe_mode'' needs to be OFF.
** ''memory_limit'' should be at least 16M (32M is recommended for Moodle 1.7 and 40M for Moodle 1.8 or later). Large sites may need more than 128M. PHP 5.2.x requires higher memory_limit values than previous versions of PHP. 64bit operating systems require even more memory.
** ''session.save_handler'' needs to be set to FILES.
** ''magic_quotes_gpc'' should be OFF
** ''magic_quotes_runtime'' needs to be OFF.
** ''file_uploads'' needs to be ON.
** ''session.auto_start'' needs to be OFF.
** ''session.bug_compat_warn'' needs to be OFF.
* PHP Extensions and libraries
** The mbstring extension is recommended.
** The iconv extension is recommended.
** [http://www.libgd.org/ GD library] and the [http://www.freetype.org/ FreeType 2] library and extensions are needed to be able to look at the dynamic graphs that the logs pages make. (Freetype support is available as part of the GD extension for the 5.x versions of PHP).
** The mysql extension is required if you are using the MySQL database. Note that in some Linux distributions (notably Red Hat) this is an optional installation.
** The pgsql extension is required if you are using the PostgreSQL database.
** The curl extension is recommended.
** The tokenizer extension is recommended.
** The curl and openssl extensions are required for the Moodle network functionality.
** The xmlrpc extension is required for the Moodle network functionality.
** The ctype extension is recommended.
** Other PHP extensions may be required.

===Database===
* Database (pick one):
** MySQL 4.1.16 or
** Postgres 8.0 or
** MSSQL 9.0 or
** Oracle 9.0

===See also ===
*[[Upgrading to Moodle 1.9]]

==Moodle version 2.0==
=== Hardware ===
* Disk Space: 160MB min
* Memory (RAM): 256 min, 1GB reccomnded, 50 users per 1GB RAM

=== Software ===
* Web server software. Such as [[Apache]] or [[IIS]].
* [[PHP]] scripting language. The exact requirements for PHP in Moodle 2.0 are [[#php_requires|below.]]
<span id="php_requires">'''''</span>
===PHP Configuration ===
* Version: 5.2.8 or later, it will not support any earlier version.
** PHP Settings. Check these settings in your php.ini or .htaccess file (if you're using Apache). For settings which use ON/OFF as their values, you can substitute 1 for ON and 0 for OFF if you prefer.
*** ''register_globals'' '''MUST''' be OFF
*** ''safe_mode'' needs to be OFF.
*** ''memory_limit'' should be at least 128M. Large sites may need more than 128M. PHP 5.2.x requires higher memory_limit values than previous versions of PHP. 64bit operating systems require even more memory.
*** ''session.save_handler'' needs to be set to FILES.
*** ''magic_quotes_gpc'' should be OFF. Unlike earlier versions of Moodle.
*** ''magic_quotes_runtime'' needs to be OFF.
*** ''file_uploads'' needs to be ON.
*** ''session.auto_start'' needs to be OFF.
*** ''session.bug_compat_warn'' needs to be OFF.
** PHP Extensions and libraries
*** The mbstring extension is recommended.
*** The iconv extension is recommended
*** [http://www.libgd.org/ GD library] and the [http://www.freetype.org/ FreeType 2] library and extensions are needed to be able to look at the dynamic graphs that the logs pages make. (Freetype support is available as part of the GD extension for the 5.x versions of PHP)
*** The mysql extension is required if you are using the MySQL database. Note that in some Linux distributions (notably Red Hat) this is an optional installation.
*** The pgsql extension is required if you are using the PostgreSQL database.
*** The pdo and pdo_sqlite extensions are required for the (experimental) SQLite 3 database support.
*** The curl extension is recommended.
*** The tokenizer extension is recommended.
*** The curl and openssl extensions are required for the Moodle network functionality.
*** The xmlrpc extension is required for the Moodle network functionality.
*** The ctype extension is recommended.
*** Other PHP extensions may be required to support optional Moodle functionality, especially external authentication and/or enrolment (e.g. LDAP extension for LDAP authentication and the sockets extension for Chat server).

=== Database ===
* A working database server: [[MySQL]] or [[PostgreSQL]] are completely supported and recommended for use with any version of Moodle. MySQL is ''the'' choice for many people because it is very popular, but there are some [[Arguments in favour of PostgreSQL|arguments in favour of PostgreSQL]], especially if you are planning a large deployment.
** MySQL 4.1.16 or
** Postgres 8.0 or
** MSSQL 9.0 or
** Oracle 9.0
** SQLite 3 (experimental)

===See also ===
*[[Installing Moodle 2.0]]
*[[Upgrading to Moodle 2.0]]

[[Category:Environment]]
[[Category:Moodle 2.0]]
[[Category:Moodle 1.9]]
[[Category:Moodle 1.8]]
[[Category:Moodle 1.6]]

[[eu:Ingurunea]]
[[fr:Environnement]]
[[ja:動作環境]]

Category:Questions

2010-09-08T03:25:07Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of documentation pages about [[Questions]].

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Quiz]]
[[Category:Lesson]]

[[fr:Catégorie:Question]]
[[ja:Category:問題]]

True/False question type

2010-09-08T03:22:17Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

{{Questions}}
A student is given only two choices for an answer in this kind of question: True or False. The question content can include an image or html code.

When feedback is enabled, the appropriate feedback message is shown to the student after the answer. For example, if the correct answer is "False", but they answer "True" (getting it wrong) then the "True" feedback is shown.

Note that the True/False question type in a Lesson module is quite different. It is effectively the same as the Multiple Choice question type in a Lesson, but with only 2 responses. See [[Lesson_module#Multiple_choice]].

==Question set-up==

#Select the question category
#Give the question a descriptive name - this allows you to identify it in the question bank.
#Enter a question in the 'question text' field.
#Select an image to display if you want to add a picture to the question. For the student, it appears immediately after the question text and before the choices.
#Set the 'default question grade' (i.e. the maximum number of marks for this question).
#Set the 'Penalty factor' (see [[True/False_question_type#Penalty_factor|Penalty factor]] below).
#''Moodle 1.7+:'' If you wish, add general feedback. This is text that appears to the student after he/she has answered the question.
# Select the correct answer - true or false.
# Finally, provide feedback for each of the answers 'true' and 'false'.
# Click 'Save changes' to add the question to the category.

=== Penalty factor ===

The 'penalty factor' only applies when the question is used in a quiz using adaptive mode - i.e. where the student is allowed multiple attempts at a question even within the same attempt at the quiz. If the penalty factor is more than 0, then the student will lose that proportion of the '''maximum''' grade upon each successive attempt. For example, if the default question grade is 10, and the penalty factor is 0.2, then each successive attempt after the first one will incur a penalty of 0.2 x 10 = 2 points.

[[fr:Question vrai ou faux]]
[[ca:Tipus_de_pregunta_de_verdader/fals]]
[[de:Wahr-Falsch-Fragen]]
[[ja:○/×問題タイプ]]

Administrator do's and don'ts

2010-03-02T18:31:51Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

Don't use the files area in the main Moodle site course to restore course archives. You can destroy the front page very easily. You will be much better off to set up a special course just for that purpose!

: Why? How? --[[User:David Mudrak|David Mudrak]] 09:43, 10 September 2008 (CDT)
:: Accidentally restoring a faulty course archive to your main site course will break the whole site for everyone. Also -- by default, all users have access to the files in the main site course. If your course archive contains any confidential information, you're potentially exposing it to all site users. We have hidden test courses that we use to host the course archives we're going to restore. --[[User:Donna Hrynkiw|Donna Hrynkiw]] 13:11, 17 November 2008 (CST)

'''For a much more complete set of Administrator's do's and don'ts, you may want to consider [[Beginning Administration FAQ]].'''

[[ja:管理者が「やるべきこと」と「やってはいけないこと」]]

[[Category:Administrator]]

{{stub}}

Development:JavaScript guidelines

2010-02-19T11:34:47Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

{{Moodle 2.0}}

These guidelines can only be applied fully from Moodle 2.0 onwards, because they rely on our new API to facilitate use of JavaScript.

When writing JavaScript for earlier versions of Moodle, please try to follow these guidelines in spirit and use the '''require_js''' function in place of $PAGE->requires->js/yui_lib.

==General principles==

===Moodle should be usable without JavaScript===

Everything in Moodle should work with JavaScript turned off. This is important for accessibility, and in line with the principles of [[Development:Unobtrusive_Javascript|unobtrusive JavaScript]] and [[Development:Progressive_enhancement|progressive enhancement]].

===Minimise inline JavaScript===

Almost all JavaScript code should be in separate .js files. There should be the smallest possible amount of JavaScript inline in the HTML code of pages.

The only <script> tags in the HTML should be
# <script src=... tags to include the necessary .js files.
# Simple function calls to trigger initialisation. For example <script type="text/javascript">initialise_my_widget('some', 'data', 123);</script>.
# Variable definitions to transfer data from the PHP code to JavaScript. For example <script type="text/javascript">var moodle_cfg = {"modpixpath":"http:\/\/tim.moodle.local\/moodle\/mod","sesskey":"ZVNQiq7pHu","developerdebug":true};</script>.

You should not use old-fashioned onXXX="event_handler" attributes in the HTML. Use Modern DOM events. The YUI events library makes this easy.

=== JavaScript libraries ===

* The official JavaScript library for Moodle is [[Development:YUI|YUI]]. That may not be your favourite, but it's the one that was chosen after careful research, so live with it.

* Moodle also has its own JavaScript library code, principally in lib/javascript-static.js.

* Moodle uses the '''TinyMCE''' HTML editor.

===When to include the JavaScript===

As per [http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html Yahoo's best practice guidelines], load and execute the JavaScript as late as possible, ideally the script tags should be the last thing before the </body> close tag. (This is the default behaviour with Moodle's JavaScript handling functions.)

Since everything should work without JavaScript, load and initialising your scripts only after everything else on the page has loaded should not be a problem and will increase the perceived page-load performance for users.

===Minimise the number of .js files===

Try not to use too many different .js files. Each separate file that the browser has to load incurs an overhead.

On the other hand, organise the JavaScript logically to ease maintenance, and don't include large amounts of irrelevant JavaScript code. Code that is loaded but never used is a waste of time.

So, if you are writing a new module that needs its own JavaScript, try starting with with a single file mod/mymod/mymod.js. If you find that you are writing a lot of JavaScript that is only needed when the teacher edits your module, but is not needed by students, then consider splitting that code into a separate file like mod/mymod/edit.js, and only including it where needed.

==How to achive these general principles in Moodle==

The rest of this page explains how you can achieve the above goals.

===Getting Moodle to load your JavaScript files===

Everything required by the current page is tracked by the $PAGE->requires object, which is an instance of the [http://phpdocs.moodle.org/HEAD/moodlecore/page_requirements_manager.html page_requirements_manager] class. You use it like this:

<code php>
$PAGE->requires->js('mod/mymod/scripts.js');
</code>

By default, this will put the <script> tag that loads the script at the end of the <body> tag, as recommended. If you really must load the script sooner, use one of the following
<code php>
// Load the js file from head.
// (This will throw an exception if head has already been output.)
$PAGE->requires->js('mod/mymod/scripts.js')->in_head();

// Loads the js file as soon as possible (from head, if that has
// not been output yet, otherwise output the script tag right here.)
echo $PAGE->requires->js('mod/mymod/scripts.js')->asap();
</code>

$PAGE->requires keeps track of which files have been included, so even if two different pieces of code request the same library, it is only loaded once.

===Getting Moodle to load YUI libraries===

Because YUI is the official JavaScript library for Moodle, there is a short cut syntax for loading the YUI libraries.

<code php>
$PAGE->requires->yui_lib('autocomplete');
</code>

This knows about the dependencies between the JavaScript libraries, so the above code will actually load the five libraries yahoo, dom, event, datasource and autocomplete. It will also load the required CSS file autocomplete/assets/skins/sam/autocomplete.css.

Because some YUI libraries rely on associated CSS, and because CSS can only be included in the <head> section of the HTML, you should try to call $PAGE->requires->yui_lib before <head> is output, if at all possible. If your code does try to require a YUI library after the header has been printed, and if that YUI library requires some CSS, and exception will be thrown explaining the problem, so you will know it happened.

===JavaScript coding style===

Moodle JavaScript code should should follow the same [[Development:Coding_style|coding style as Moodle PHP code]], allowing for the differences between PHP and JavaScript.

For example, all the rules on ''function_names'', ''class_names'' and ''variablenames'' apply. You should document your code with [http://jsdoc.sourceforge.net/ JSDoc] comments. Layout your JavaScript expressions and statements like the equivalent PHP ones.

Normally, your .js files should simply define things like functions, classes and variables. When the file is loaded, no JavaScript code should actually be executed that has any effect unless it is the sort of code that can safely be executed once per HTML page. This is so that it plays nicely with the require_once-like behaviour of $PAGE->requires->js.

Try to add as few things as possible to the global JavaScript name-space - use a few objects in the global name-space with properties and methods.

(An extreme example of this practice is the YUI libraries which only add a single YAHOO object to the global scope and put everything inside that. Moodle code does not need to go to that extreme - and do not add Moodle-specific code to the YAHOO namespace!)

===Activating your JavaScript===

Since your .js files should not actually do anything when they are loaded, you need some way to trigger them into action. Normally the best way to do this is to put a simple inline script in the HTML that just calls an initialisation function. Typically, you want the HTML page you generate to look like this:

<code xml>

<script type="text/javascript">
init_my_script('perhaps some data', 'for example', 'mything');
</script>
</code>

The best way to generate this initialisation script is to use another feature of $PAGE->requires:
<code php>
$PAGE->requires->js_function_call('init_my_script',
array('perhaps some data', 'for example', 'mything'));
</code>

Once again, by default the <script> tag will be generated at the end of the HTML, but you can change that with modifiers like ->asap() or ->on_dom_ready() (which uses the YUI onDomReady event). Note that the data passed from PHP to JavaScript is automatically escaped using json_encode, so you can pass arrays, objects, and strings containing special characters without worrying.

===Getting more variables from PHP to JavaScript===

The arguments you pass to the initialisation function are one way to get specific data from your PHP code to your JavaScript. However, when you need to initialise several things on the page and they all need the same data, there is a better way:
<code php>
$data = array(
'value1' => $value1,
'value2' => $value2,
);
$PAGE->requires->data_for_js('mymod_config', $data);
</code>

If you do that, then in JavaScript, mymod_config.value1 will contain the value of the PHP variable $value1.

===Getting language strings from PHP to JavaScript===

One type of value you frequently need to get from PHP to JavaScript is the translation of some language strings into the current language. Because this is a common requirement, there is a special syntax for this:
<code php>
$PAGE->requires->string_for_js('tooltip', 'mymod');
</code>
If you make this call, then the JavaScript variable mstr.mymod.tooltip will hold the value of get_string('tooltip', 'mymod').

===Different in content when JavaScript is on or off===

Remember the overriding principals that everything should work with JavaScript off, and we should adopt a [[Progressive enhancement]] approach. However, there are valid reasons why sometimes you need different content with JavaScript is on or off. We can break it down into three cases:

====Content that should only be visible with JavaScript off====

An example of this is the automatic search when you are looking for a user to assign a role to. With JavaScript on, the search automatically starts after a delay. With JavaScript off, we want an explicit Search button visible.

To handle this case, Moodle automatically add a class 'jsenabled' to the body tag using JavaScript. So you just need to add a rule like
<code css>
body.jsenebled .mywidget .submitbutton {
display: none;
}
</code>
to the stylesheet, and the button will be invisible if JavaScript is enabled.

An alternative strategy is to remove the particular bits of HTML from the page using DOM methods. However, if your JavaScript is only loaded at the end of the page, it may take some time for the extra content to disappear, which leads to a disconcerting flicker in the page.

Yet another approach is the old-fashioned <noscript> tag.

====Content that needs to be visible right away when JavaScript is on====

An example is the <nowiki>[+] or [-]</nowiki> icon that can be used to expand/collapse each block if JavaScript is on.

We can divide this into two subcases:

=====Content generated by PHP code=====

Where the HTML for the JavaScript only widget is generated by PHP, we can make it invisible when JavaScript is off using just CSS:
<code css>
.mywidget {
display: none;
}
body.jsenabled .mywidget {
display: block;
}
</code>
However, it could be argued that this approach is not really progressive enhancement.

=====Content generated by JavaScript code=====

This is more in keeping with progressive enhancement, and this is the way that the expand/collapse block icon is handled.

We build the icon using DOM methods. The only problem is that as the JavaScript is loaded in the footer, there is a small delay before the icons appear. Since when the icons appear, they do not cause other content on the page to move around, that is OK. Also, this delayed appearance is becoming more common on the web. For example, on http://twitter.com/, some things only appear a moment after the main part of the page has finished loading.

However, it the delayed appearance is really a problem, then the only solution is to embed the JavaScript that generates the extra content in the middle of the HTML, using $PAGE->requires->js_function_call(...)->now();.

====Content that only appears when the user does something, when JavaScript is on====

An example of this is something like file picker dialog that appears when you add an image to some content in the HTML editor, or the one that pops up when you click 'Add new question' in the quiz editing interface.

We have the same two sub-cases:

=====Content generated by PHP code=====

In this case, you need to make sure the content is always covered by a display: none; rule in the CSS, but then when the user takes an action like clicking a button to reveal the extra content, you need to override that class name some how, perhaps my adding or removing a className using JavaScript.

=====Content generated by JavaScript code=====

In this case, there is no problem. When the use triggers the extra content to appear, it is constructed using DOM methods. There may be a tiny delay, but the chances are that it will hardly be noticeable to the human eye.

In the content generation may be slow (perhaps because it is waiting for an Ajax request) then you should display a progress icon. See, for example, the loading of the tooltip for help icons.

===Don't break XHTML strict!===

Remember that all Moodle output must be [[Development:XHTML|XHTML strict]], and that means that the HTML output must be well-formed XML. Inline JavaScript is a great way to break that. (JavaScript uses the < and & symbols that must be escaped in XML.) Therefore any JavaScript inline in the HTML should be escaped in a CDATA section:

<code xml>
<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[

// Your JavaScript code goes here.

//]]>
</script>
</code>

Of course, if you are following the above guidelines and putting most of your JavaScript in separate .js files, and using $PAGE->requiers->js_function_call/string_for_js/data_for_js for the rest, then you do not need to worry about this section.

==Testing==

JavaScript support varies a lot between browsers. JavaScript needs to be tested in IE, Firefox and Safari. Ideally, Moodle will support [http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/ all the browsers that YUI does].

==See also==

* [[Development:Coding|The rest of Moodle coding guidelines]]
* [http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ YUI documentation]
* [[Javascript FAQ]]
* [[Development:Unobtrusive Javascript]]
* [[Development:JavaScript functions]]
* [http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html Yahoo's Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site]
* [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=106312 Forum thread for discussing this proposal]

[[Category:Coding guidelines|JavaScript guidelines]]
[[Category:Javascript|JavaScript guidelines]]
[[Category:AJAX|JavaScript guidelines]]

[[ja:開発:Javaスクリプトガイドライン]]

Course backup

2009-08-13T15:51:59Z

Topstone: update link to es:

{{Course admin}}
A course can be saved with some or all of its parts by using the course backup. Typically, the site administrator will set a schedule of site wide backup for all courses. A teacher with editing privileges can create a backup or download an existing backup for safe keeping, or for use on another Moodle site.

==Creating a course backup==
[[Image:Course_backup.jpg|thumb|Creating a course backup - page 1]][[Image:Course_backup_s2.jpg|thumb|Creating a course backup - page 2]][[Image:Course_backup_s3.jpg|thumb|Creating a course backup - page 3]]
To create a course backup:
#Click Backup in the [[Course administration block]].
#Select your backup options (Page 1)
##Choose the activities and resources you want to include, the default is everything.
###The Include All/None links at the top will check or uncheck all the boxes in a column.
###Use the individual boxes to select or unselect specific parts of the course for the backup.
##Select course options desired at the bottom (see Backup options below)
#Click the Continue button to start the backup process.
#On the next page (Page 2)
##You can edit the default backup filename at the top of this page (uses format:backckup-COURSESHORTNAME-DATE-TIME.zip).
##You will see the backup details, a list of files and user data that Moodle will include in the backup
#Click the Continue button at the bottom. Or if this does not look right, use cancel to exit the backup process or use your back browser arrow to return to the initial course backup page.
#On the next page (Page 3), the progress of the backup is displayed.
##You should see the message "Backup completed successfully" at the bottom of the page.
#Click the Continue button.
#You will then be taken to the backupdata directory.
##You may click on a filename to download any backup file to your computer.
## Later this area can be reached by the Course administration block by using the Restore link or looking for what is usually called the backupdata folder under the Files link.

==Backup options==
* User data -consists of all student files, submissions, forum postings, glossary entries, etc.
* Metacourse - If you are backing up the content of a [[Metacourses|metacourse]], you may enable this option so that relations between the courses will be exported and the restore process will try to rebuild them in the destination server.
* Users - Whether you want to backup the content concerning all the registered students in your site, only course students or no students at all. By selecting "none", the backup process will not backup user data
* Logs - This backs up all course activity logs.
* User files - This backs up all student submissions for assignments and other file uploads.
* Course files - This backs up any file stored in the [[Files|files]] area for the course.

==Creative uses==
The backup and restore processes can offer the teacher and administrators many creative solutions.
*Duplicating courses or specific activities in one course to another course (similar to Import)
*Updating a production Moodle site course, with material from a localhost site course
*Transferring a course to a new Moodle site.
*In earlier versions of Moodle, a way of rolling a course forward without past student activity
*Creating a blank activity, save just that activity and then restore it to the course or another course one or more times.
:''Note:'' The Moodlesite may automatically make and delete backups. For example, it may backup each individual course daily, but not keep any of these backups longer than 5 days. Manual backups by the teacher are usually not effected by this process.

==See also==

*[[Restore]]
*[[Backup settings]] - for administrators
*[[Backup and restore FAQ]]
*[[Roll courses forward]]
*[[Front Page]] trick to backup Front page in earlier version of Moodle
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrdM_KOr530 Creating course backups video]
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=59581 Location of Backup Files] forum discussion

[[Category:Backup]]

[[fr:Sauvegarde de cours]]
[[es:Copia de Seguridad del Curso]]
[[ca:backup/backup]]
[[ja:コースバックアップ]]
[[de:Kurssicherung]]

Can not log in

2009-08-12T13:13:09Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

If you are having problems logging into a Moodle site then you should check a couple of things.

==Correct username and password==
Have you typed the Username and Password in correctly, exactly as it was given to you?
:Example: your name is Chris Smith'''e''', but the username you were given is
::csmith
::chris.smith

:Example: your name is Chris O'Brien, but the username you were given is
::cobrien

*Solutions: Look closely. Or ask your teacher or site administrator to change your user name. Or ask them to login using the name and password you were given.

==Case sensitive==
Remember that the username and password can be case sensitive.
:Moodle is different than
::'''m'''oodle
::m'''OO'''dlE

==Alpha or numeric==
Remember to look closely at what you were given.
:moodle is different than
::mood'''1'''e (number one instead of L)
::m'''00'''dle (number zero instead of O )

Solutions: use a view zoom feature to increase the size of the fonts so the difference between a O and 0 or l and 1 can be seen.

==Caps lock key on==
Is the Caps-Lock key on your keyboard ON? You could be typing CHRIS instead of chris.

*Solution: check the caps-lock light on your keyboard.

==Cookies==
Cookies must be turned on in your browser.

*Solution: this setting sometimes can be found in your browser menu bar under tools>options>privacy.

==Correct Moodle==
Are you on the right Moodle? Many Moodle login screens look the same.

*Solution: look at the URL address bar in your browser.
:<nowiki>http://localhost </nowiki> is different than
:<nowiki>http://ProductionMoodle.org</nowiki>

==Do you have an user name==
Has someone with authority issued you a Username and Password?

*Solution: Try lost password link or contact your teacher or site administrator.

==Lost password link==
You may be able to follow the 'lost password' link in the log on block of the 'send me details via email' button.

==Be kind==
Sometimes mistakes happen. Tell your site administrator you went over this checklist and you could not login.

==See also==
*[[Administration_FAQ#I_have_forgotten_the_admin_password | Administration FAQ - Forgotten the admin password]]
*[[Beginning Administration FAQ]]
*[[Log in]]
[[ja:ログインできません]]
[[ru:Проблемы с авторизацией]]
[[zh:不能登录]]
[[de:Probleme beim Anmelden]]
[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Student]]
[[Category:Administrator]]

Category:Student

2009-08-12T13:09:44Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of documentation pages for '''students'''.

[[fr:Catégorie:Étudiant]]
[[ja:Category:学生]]

Category:XMLDB

2009-07-03T16:48:25Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of '''XML database''' documentation pages.

[[Category:Developer|XMLDB]]

[[fr:Catégorie:XMLDB]]
[[ja:Category:XMLDB]]

Development:Database Schema

2009-07-03T16:41:54Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

The files available here are in [http://fabforce.net/dbdesigner4/ DBDesigner4] format. DBDesigner4 is a schema drawing program released under GPL.

The database schemas have been put together by [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=11101&course=11 Alberto Giampani], [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=192442&course=11 Dario Toledo] and [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=305352&course=5 Isaac Cueto]. We are also discussing a means of creating them automatically from the new XMLDB definitions with an XML transform.

Discussion of the database schemas happens either in the forum of the relevant module, or in the [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=45 Databases forum].

=Moodle 1.8=

http://moodle.org/file.php/5/moddata/forum/28/376698/moodle_1.8_data_structure.rar

=Moodle 1.7=

http://moodle.org/file.php/11/moddata/forum/110/268325/db-edudist-Moodle-1.7_.rar

=Moodle 1.5.3=

http://moodle.org/file.php/11/moddata/forum/110/267644/Db-Edudist-Moodle1.5.3-xml.rar

[[Category:XMLDB]]
[[Category:Developer]]
[[ja:開発:データベーススキーマ]]

Category:Tags

2009-06-10T03:02:18Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of documentation pages about [[Tags]], part of the [[Student_projects/Social_Networking_features|Google SOC Social Networking project]].

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Administrator]]

[[fr:Catégorie:Tags]]
[[ja:Category:タグ]]

Category:Glossary

2009-04-04T18:50:37Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of articles related to the [[Glossary module]].

[[Category:Teacher]]

[[es:Categor%C3%ADa:Glosario]]
[[eu:Kategoria:Glosategia]]
[[fr:Catégorie:Glossaire]]
[[ja:Category:用語集]]

Category:Calendar

2009-04-04T18:48:53Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of documentation pages about the [[Calendar|calendar]].

[[Category:Teacher]]

[[fr:Catégorie:Calendrier]]
[[ja:Category:カレンダー]]

Category:Formslib

2009-04-04T18:44:57Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

Category for Formslib related documentation.

[[Category:Developer]]

[[ja:Category:Formslib]]

Attendance activity

2009-04-04T18:34:04Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

There are two version of the '''attendance''' module: from [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=18237 Dmitry Pupinin] and from [http://human-logic.com/ Human Logic].
Both published in the Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?f=125 Attendance module forum].

At this time Dmitry's version is more stable and useful.

[http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=1062 Download daily build of Dmitry's version]

==Installation by Moodle Administrator==

To install Dmitry's version of the attendance module, follow these directions (provided by [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=40637&course=5 Richard Webb] in [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=79134#p436449 this post]). Installation can only be completed by a user having write access to the file structure on the computer hosting Moodle and with administration rights for your installation of Moodle.

===Language Files===

Moodle has a general language folder with subfolders for installed languages, and language files within these subfolders. This structure allows Moodle to efficiently work in an unlimited variety of languages with relative ease. Every block and module in Moodle has its own language strings that must be defined in a language file with a name specified by the block or module. "In the old days" (meaning prior to Moodle 1.9) the language files for each mod or block were copied into the appropriate subfolders in the <code>moodle/lang/</code> folder. This still works, but can be tedious and is not the preferred method anymore.

Newer versions of Moodle (1.9 and up) allow you to keep the language files with the mods and blocks so they are self-contained and you don't have to do so much work with language files. Older versions of the Attendance module did not have all language files correctly placed resulting in tags that say <nowiki>[[attendance]]</nowiki>. As of June 20, 2008, the problem has been resolved. If you are having problems with the language files for the Attendance module, it is recommended that you download the latest version and replace your current installation as described below.

'''Additional Language Considerations'''

You might consider editing the <code>block_attendance_for_v19/mod/attforblock/lang/en_utf8/attforblock.php</code> language file and replacing each occurrence of 'Attendances' with 'Attendance'. Some dictionaries say that attendances is the plural form of attendance while others say there is no plural form.

Note that the '''date format''' is controlled by the language file you install. If you prefer Month/Day/Year format, for example, you will want to use the US_en language file found in the block folder.

You can easily edit the date format yourself, if you so desire. These strings show the M/D/Y format.

$string['strftimedm'] = '%%m.%%d';
$string['strftimedmy'] = '%%m.%%d.%%Y';
$string['strftimedmyw'] = '%%m.%%d.%%y (%%a)';
$string['strftimeshortdate'] = '%%m.%%d.%%Y';

===Mod and Block Installation===

If you look at your Moodle installation, you will see that among the many subfolders in the Moodle folder you have folders named <code>blocks/</code> and <code>mod/</code>, matching the two folders in the <code>block_attendance_for_v19/</code> folder. Installation is completed by copying the contents of the <code>block_attendance_for_v19/blocks/</code> folder into your <code>moodle/blocks/</code> folder (so you have a <code>moodle/blocks/attendance/</code> folder with all of the files and subfolders copied as well) and likewise copying the contents of the <code>block_attendance_for_v19/mod</code> folder into your <code>moodle/mod/</code> folder. On a Unix system, something like <code>/var/www/moodle19/blocks$ sudo cp -r ~/moodle-modules/attendance/blocks/* . </code> does the job and similar for the mod directory. Don't forget to <code>sudo chown -r <user>:<group> attendance</code> to the same parameters as the other block directories (do a <code>ls -l</code> to remind yourself).

Once you have completed the installation, you need to log into Moodle as the administrator and go to the admin page. This will set up the Attendance database structure.

==Using Attendance in a Class by a Teacher==

===Adding Attendance Activity===

After the attendance block and module have been properly installed, you (the teacher) must add attendance as an activity to each course you wish to keep attendance in. This is done by first ensuring that you are in the edit mode and then selecting, "Attendance" from the "Add an activity..." pull-down menu. Note that you may only add the attendance activity once per class and it may be located in any of the section blocks. Because attendance is for the entire course, it seems logical to put it in the top box (the one that always shows).

Once you have added the attendance activity, you are ready to start using the attendance module. However, the section link that was just added in the preceding paragraph is the "clunky way" to work with the attendance module. In fact, it is recommended that you simply hide that link! That way students won't see it cluttering up the section block where you placed it. Of course, we DO want students to be able to view their attendance records, just not with that link. There is a second, better, way to accomplish this. Select "Attendance" from the pull-down menu in the "Blocks" block. This will create a block with teacher options to take attendance, report on attendance, or change the attendance settings. The same block will instead have an attendance report for students.

===Setting Attendance Categories and Grading Options===

Now it is time to set your attendance options. Select "Settings" from the attendance block. This brings you to the letters, descriptions, and grade (points) to assign for the four attendance options. By default these are Present, Absent, Late, and Excused. You may prefer to change the descriptions (e.g., change the word Late to Tardy), change the order, or change the way points are counted so make appropriate changes here to the names, order, and grades. Be sure to click the "Update" button when you are done.

===Adding Sessions===

Next it is time to add sessions. Note that there is a restriction here. You can only have one session per day. Since you can only have one attendance activity installed (which means that you cannot have a lab attendance activity and a lecture attendance activity) and can only have one attendance session per day, if you have more than one class session per day you will have to be creative in taking attendance. And if you have more than seven class sessions for a single class in a week--then you are overworked!

To add class sections, click the "Add" tab (second from left) at the top of the page (if you left the attendance page, select any of the three links from the attendance block to return to the attendance page and gain access to the "Add" tab). You have two options here, to add a single session or to add multiple sessions. The single session is self-explanatory as well as time consuming to use when you have many class sessions so I will go straight the more useful option, how to add multiple sessions.

Under the "Create multiple sessions" label choose the date for the first session you wish to add followed by the date for the last session you wish to add. Next select the days of the week on which the class meets. The final option, frequency, may look confusing but it is actually straight-forward. If your class meets every week (the normal situation) then you want a frequency of 1 week which is the default. If your class meets every other week, then you want a frequency of 2 weeks, and so on. When you click the "Add multiple sessions" button, your sessions will be created and you will see a message indicating this.

===Taking Attendance===

Now head to the attendance tab. Here you see the list of all attendance sessions you have added. You can delete an individual session by clicking the X to the right of it. (Personal note, it sure would be nice if there was an option to select a few sessions and delete them all at once--I use the multiple sessions option to put my sessions in for the entire semester and then have to go and remove sessions for vacation days one at a time.) You can edit a session (change the date or add a description) with the standard hand icon to the right of the session, or you can take attendance for a session by clicking the green radio button to the right of the session. Sessions where attendance has already been taken do not have the green button, but instead the description is a link that takes you to the screen to modify the attendance record for that session.

You will note that when taking attendance the column headings for attendance state are links. If you click one of these column headings, all students will have their status changed to the status you selected. Thus, if everyone is absent (God forbid!), you merely click the '''A''' and it will change everyone's status to absent. If Little Johnny is the only student absent, you would logically click '''P''' to set everyone to present and then go down to Little Johnny and change his status to '''A'''. Enter remarks as appropriate (e.g., the reason for an absence if known or the minutes late if someone is tardy) and click OK to complete taking record.

===Reports===

Finally, you have the reports. This is, again, obvious. One of my colleagues prefers to take record on paper and transfer it to Moodle. She suggested printing the monthly report before the start of the month and then taking record on this report. It has an added advantage because you have each student's picture with the record sheet. Of course, that is only useful for students who actually put photos of themselves in for their picture.

A final note here. If you added the attendance block as recommended, you may wonder what it looks like for students. It is completely different--showing a summary of their attendance record and having a single link for them to view the details of their personal attendance. Another reason why I think the attendance block should always be added when you use the attendance module.

==Give advice to developer==
Have idea about new features? You need something? Please write at [[Attendance module requests]] page!

==See also==
* [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?f=125 Attendance module forum]
* [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=1062 Download Dmitry's version] of module
* [[Attendance block]] page

[[Category:Contributed code]]
[[Category:Teacher]]

[[ja:出欠]]

Category:Contributed code

2009-04-04T18:31:57Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of documentation pages about contributed code.

Contributed code, or "contrib" for short, is understood to be all code contributed to Moodle which is not included in the standard Moodle distribution. Code included in the standard Moodle distribution is known as "Core" code and is stored in the [http://cvs.moodle.org/moodle/ moodle cvs folder]. Contributed code is usually stored in the [http://cvs.moodle.org/contrib/ contrib cvs folder].

==See also==

*[[Installing contributed modules or plugins]]
*[[Contributed code FAQ]]
*[[Development:Guidelines for contributed code]]
*[[Development:contrib]]
*[http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009 Modules and plugins database]

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Developer]]

[[eu:Kategoria:Kode ezestandarra]]
[[ja:Category:ブロック ( 非標準 )]]

Category:Environment

2009-02-10T14:20:56Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of Moodle [[Environment|environment]] documentation pages.

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[ja:Category:動作環境]]

Category:Security

2009-02-10T14:19:19Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of pages about [[Security|Moodle security]].

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[eu:Kategoria:Segurtasuna]]
[[ja:Category:セキュリティ]]

Category:Administrator

2008-12-26T07:13:49Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

An index of documentation pages for '''administrators'''.

[[es:Categoría:Administrador]]
[[fr:Catégorie:Administrateur]]
[[ja:Category:管理者]]
[[ru:Категория:Администратору]]
[[pl:Kategoria:Administrator]]

Installations 1000 plus

2008-11-08T02:06:36Z

Topstone: /* Japan */ Osaka International University

This page has descriptions and links by country to Moodle sites with between 1000 and 5000 users.
{{Template:Large Installations}}

==Australia==

*Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College - [http://montenet.monte.nsw.edu.au MonteNet] is used as our colleges student intranet and e-learning portal. Currently running 1.6dev with a few extra custom features thrown in.

*Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College - [http://compass.monte.nsw.edu.au Compass] takes moodle and uses it for a purpose that is a little outside the square. Compass is used as the staff intranet. Each course is refered to as a "Space" and is used by each departmentr to store meating minutes, agendas and teaching documentation. Communications tools such as forums allow to facilitate better teacher communication and the events are used to keep the teachers events online and targeted (e.g. year 9 teachers all know when excursions are on, all english teachers know when reports are due, etc).

*Vermont Secondary College - [http://moodle.vermontsc.vic.edu.au] is used as the college intranet, portal and eLearning since 2004. There are approximately 1500 users consisting of teachers and years 7-12 students. Although using Moodle is an option, over 180 courses have been created across all learning areas and staff administration. All events within the college are constantly being added to the calendar to inform the school community.

*Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview - [http://www.riverview.nsw.edu.au ] - Jesuit College in Sydney, Australia, with 1,600 students. Adopted Moodle in 2007.

==Belgium==

*[http://www.ritacollege.be Sint-Ritacollege] We are a school for 12-18 year old students. Currently our database contains about 1600 active users and 130 courses. Always running latest Moodle code since version 1.0.8.

==Catalonia==

*[http://www.iesterrassa.cat/ IES de TERRASSA ] - [http://moodle.iesterrassa.cat MOODLE de l'IES de TERRASSA] - Institut d'Enseyament Secundari de Terrassa. Tenim més de 1300 usuaris.

==Croatia (Hrvatska)==

*Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb - [http://omega.ffzg.hr Omega sustav ucenja na daljinu] is used as our faculty-wide e-learning system. Currently running 1.8.2 stable with more than 4400 users and 300+ courses. LDAP authorization.

==Czech Republic==

*Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno - [http://www.phil.muni.cz/elf/ ELF], 16,000+ users total, 4,000+ active users in Spring Term 2006, 600+ courses; using Moodle from April 2003.

==Finland==

*Tampere Polytechnic or Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu ([http://www.tamk.fi www.tamk.fi]), is a around 5000 student college or "a university of applied sciences" located at Tampere, Finland. Our moodle installation hosts around 2500 active students.

==India==
* [http://www.doeaccmantra.com DOEACCMantra] is a website for [http://www.doeaccmantra.com DOEACC] students currently (as of July 2007) having 44 courses, 4928 users and 5965 posts.

==Italy==

* University of Rome "Roma Tre" - [http://ltaonline.learning.uniroma3.it/ Laboratorio di Tecnologie Audiovisive] hosts two faculties with more than 1600 students.

==Japan==

* Future University-Hakodate - [http://vle.c.fun.ac.jp/moodle/]

* Kyoto Sangyo University - [http://www3.kyoto-su.ac.jp/index-e.html] First university in Japan to completely host all courses in Moodle.

* Osaka International University - [http://moodle.oiu.ac.jp/] Over 3000 users.

* Sapporo Gakuin University - [http://elearning.sgu.ac.jp] About 40 active courses using Moodle, plus 150 courses using it for attendance taking. Over 3000 registered users. Now using LDAP, so all 5000 students can login with their standard school ID and password. 1000 students take an English placement test using Moodle upon entrance to the school.

==Netherlands==

* We are a 5000 people school, one server, 9 locations and using Moodle for almost three years now: https://studiewijzerplus.nl Every schoolyear we start again with counting the number of users and the automatic counter (thanks Penny!) is now pointing at 3103

==Norway==

* ASP Hedmark - [http://pdl.asp-hedmark.no/ pdl.asp-hedmark.no] Region with 20 primary and lower-secondary schools have an installation with something above 2000 users. PDL=Platform for Digital Learning.

== Russia ==
*Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) - distance education programme [http://www.globalcompetence.ru Management of Global Processes]

==Spain==
*[http://www.cicei.com CICEI] - Center of Innovation for the Information Society. We have a production [http://cursos.cicei.com Moodle server] having currently 1,042 users in 72 courses covering a wide range of applications (as of February 6, 2006).

==Switzerland==

*[http://moodle.fri-tic.ch/ Centre fri-tic] - Center for ICT Integration of Canton de Fribourg. Currently running 1 moodle for teachers and students from k-12 to High school, with more than 2000 users and about 130 courses. The [http://www.fri-tic.ch/ Centre fri-tic] is also hosting 9 other moodle installations for specific schools.

==United Kingdom==

* [http://moodle.altoncollege.ac.uk/ Alton College] - a Beacon sixth form college with over 2,500 active users.

* [http://egglescliffe.org.uk/ Egglescliffe School and Sixth Form] - a specialist arts school with over 2,000 active moodlers and 345 courses whose usage was the basis of this [http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,,1583832,00.html Guardian article]

* [http://vle.gloscol.ac.uk/ Gloucestershire College] - a general FE college in the south west, with nearly five thousand users and nearly eight hundred users, we have presented at many Moodle events in the UK.

* [http://learn.gold.ac.uk Goldsmiths College, London] - over 2,500 active users. See also this [http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2004/timetable/abstract.php?abstract_id=270 presentation at a 2004 conference].

* [https://moodle.plumsteadmanor.com/ Plumstead Manor School] - A specialist Sports, Performing arts and Vocational secondary school in South East London. 1,700 active students.

* [http://www.thanet.ac.uk/ Thanet College] - a "medium sized general FE college", using Moodle as documented in [http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=13423 this Ferl case study]

* [http://www.westnotts.ac.uk West Nottingahmshire College] - an FE college in the East Midlands.

* [http://www.lifeintheuk.org Prepare: Life in the United Kingdom Test] - a free website dedicated to Life in the UK Test.

==United States of America==
*[http://www.glyphdoctors.com Glyphdoctors] is a site with over 1200 registered users (as of Feb. 2006) on a shared server host, [http://www.opensourcehost.com Open Source Host]. It will offer online courses in Egyptology and Egyptian hieroglyphs to the general public. Currently, there is one free public course available and a course in Egyptian hieroglyphs under beta testing with a small number of students.

*[http://moodle.mcm.edu/ McMurry University]has several Moodle instances, the first begun as a pilot project in June, 2005. McMurry is a small (1400 FTE) undergraduate-only institution affiliated with the United Methodist church. Currently the main instance supports 1700 users (650 active), some 60 instructors, and approximately 180 active courses.

* [http://ahshornets.org Aiken High School]has over 2000 registered users in grades 9 - 12 (Feb. 2006).

* [http://academies.culver.org/moodle The Culver Academies] has over 1000 registered users in grades 9 - 12. The school has been using Moodle in the classroom since the 2002-2003 school year. Administratively we have a Moodle "course" for faculty-only announcements and materials.

* [http://online.warner.edu Warner Southern College] began using Moodle in early 2005 as an experiment to move from a simple webboard system into a full learning management system. The experiment went extremely well and a full transition to Moodle was accomplished in the fall term of 2005. Currently, Warner Southern College has one Moodle instance running with over 1200 registered users (500+ active students, 50+ instructors, 80+ courses and two system administrators) offering associate, bachelor and master of arts degree programs for both traditional site based and full online students. Warner Southern College is a small institution affiliated with the Church of God and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

* [http://moodle.westshore.edu West Shore Community College] currently has just under 2,000 registered users in its database and began as a potential alternative to our Blackboard system. Our site has been active for 3 years and we are now fully migrated to Moodle as our sole LMS. The transition was slow (and a bit painful at times), but now that we're here, things have gone quite well.

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[ja:ユーザ数1000名以上]]

{{Template:Large Installations}}

Question bank

2008-10-07T13:00:50Z

Topstone: adjust links

{{Questions}}
{{Moodle 1.6}}This feature allows a teacher to create, preview, and edit questions in a course question bank, a database of questions. These questions can then be used in [[Quizzes]] and through the export process in a Lesson. The teacher enters the question bank by creating or editing a quiz activity or through the Administration block [[Image:Question Icon Administration Block.JPG]]

The initial Question Bank page has tabs that allow you (as teacher) to edit questions, [[Question categories|categories]], [[Import questions|import questions]] and [[Export questions|export questions]].
[[Image:Question_bank_tabs.gif|frame|center]]
==Select a category==
Questions are organised into categories. Initially each course has only one category called "Default". It is good practice to create more categories to organize your questions. You can create a hierarchy of categories because you can create subcategories inside parent categories. To add or edit categories click on the "[[Question categories|Categories]]" tab.

The question editing screen shows the questions from the currently selected category. You choose this category from the '''Category:''' drop-down menu. Using the tick box below that menu you determine whether to also show the questions from all subcategories.

===Categories are shared in contexts since Moodle 1.9===

{{Moodle 1.9}}Since Moodle 1.9 there are separate question category trees in each different 'context' in which questions are shared. The contexts available to you depend on whether you access the question bank from an activity or from a course and depend on the permissions assigned you for access to questions. See [[Question contexts]] for more information on these contexts.

==Add a new question==
# Click the ''Questions'' tab to access the Question Bank page, if not there already.
# From the '''Category''' drop-down menu, select a category you want to add a question to.
# The page will change to show the questions already in that category
# Select the question type you want to create from the '''Create new question''' drop-down menu.
# Fill in the form for the question type you are creating. Each [[Question types|question type]] has its own form and has its own options.
# Click ''Save Changes'' at the bottom of the form.

==Preview, Edit, Delete, and Move==
The first column in the list of questions contains a number of icons and a selection box.

Clicking on the '''Preview''' icon will open a preview window in which you can test the question. The '''Edit''' icon allows you to edit the question via the same form that you used to create it. The '''Delete''' icon deletes the question, provided it is not already in use in some activity. The selection box allows you to select a subset of questions that you can then move to another category using the controls below the list of questions.

{{Moodle 1.9}}As of Moodle 1.9 the '''move''' icon allows you to move one question at a time.

==Tips and tricks==
*Put the answer into the question name so you can quickly see the answers when students are asking for answers. This is especially useful if you're dealing with large sets of questions! (No option yet for viewing category or answer of question in the list of questions.)
*Export questions in GIFT or Moodle XML formats, then import them into a Lesson. (Future versions of Moodle will make Question bank available to both Lesson and Quiz activities.)
*Remember that while some of the same question types can be found in both the Quiz and Lesson modules, they can be very different. Scoring and grading each student's choice is more robust in a Quiz. On the other hand, each Lesson question answer also has a [[Jumps|jump]] associated it.
*Use GIFT or other export modes to print questions and answers in a category. Hint, clever use of word processor macros, using search and replace, can tidy up a GIFT file for printing.

==See also==
For info on question sharing relevant to versions of Moodle before Moodle 1.9 see :

*[http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&advanced=1&f_46=Question+Type&f_98=Third-Party Third-party question types]
*[http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&advanced=1&f_46=Question+Import/Export+Format&f_98=Third-Party Third-Party question import/export formats]
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=58774 Sharing Question Databases] forum discussion
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=33335&parent=154984 Media in Quiz questions] forum reply

For info on Question bank changes from Moodle 1.9 see :

* [[Question_Engine_Changes_in_Moodle_1.9]]

[[es:Banco de Preguntas]]
[[eu:Galdera-bankua]]
[[fr:Questions]]
[[ja:問題バンク]]
[[zh:题库]]
[[ca:Banc_de_preguntes]]

Installations 1000 plus

2008-09-29T13:27:03Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

This page has descriptions and links by country to Moodle sites with between 1000 and 5000 users.
{{Template:Large Installations}}

==Australia==

*Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College - [http://montenet.monte.nsw.edu.au MonteNet] is used as our colleges student intranet and e-learning portal. Currently running 1.6dev with a few extra custom features thrown in.

*Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College - [http://compass.monte.nsw.edu.au Compass] takes moodle and uses it for a purpose that is a little outside the square. Compass is used as the staff intranet. Each course is refered to as a "Space" and is used by each departmentr to store meating minutes, agendas and teaching documentation. Communications tools such as forums allow to facilitate better teacher communication and the events are used to keep the teachers events online and targeted (e.g. year 9 teachers all know when excursions are on, all english teachers know when reports are due, etc).

*Vermont Secondary College - [http://moodle.vermontsc.vic.edu.au] is used as the college intranet, portal and eLearning since 2004. There are approximately 1500 users consisting of teachers and years 7-12 students. Although using Moodle is an option, over 180 courses have been created across all learning areas and staff administration. All events within the college are constantly being added to the calendar to inform the school community.

*Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview - [http://www.riverview.nsw.edu.au ] - Jesuit College in Sydney, Australia, with 1,600 students. Adopted Moodle in 2007.

==Belgium==

*[http://www.ritacollege.be Sint-Ritacollege] We are a school for 12-18 year old students. Currently our database contains about 1600 active users and 130 courses. Always running latest Moodle code since version 1.0.8.

==Catalonia==

*[http://www.iesterrassa.cat/ IES de TERRASSA ] - [http://moodle.iesterrassa.cat MOODLE de l'IES de TERRASSA] - Institut d'Enseyament Secundari de Terrassa. Tenim més de 1300 usuaris.

==Croatia (Hrvatska)==

*Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb - [http://omega.ffzg.hr Omega sustav ucenja na daljinu] is used as our faculty-wide e-learning system. Currently running 1.8.2 stable with more than 4400 users and 300+ courses. LDAP authorization.

==Czech Republic==

*Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno - [http://www.phil.muni.cz/elf/ ELF], 16,000+ users total, 4,000+ active users in Spring Term 2006, 600+ courses; using Moodle from April 2003.

==Finland==

*Tampere Polytechnic or Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu ([http://www.tamk.fi www.tamk.fi]), is a around 5000 student college or "a university of applied sciences" located at Tampere, Finland. Our moodle installation hosts around 2500 active students.

==India==
* [http://www.doeaccmantra.com DOEACCMantra] is a website for [http://www.doeaccmantra.com DOEACC] students currently (as of July 2007) having 44 courses, 4928 users and 5965 posts.

==Italy==

* University of Rome "Roma Tre" - [http://ltaonline.learning.uniroma3.it/ Laboratorio di Tecnologie Audiovisive] hosts two faculties with more than 1600 students.

==Japan==

* Kyoto Sangyo University - [http://www3.kyoto-su.ac.jp/index-e.html] First university in Japan to completely host all courses in Moodle.

* Sapporo Gakuin University - [http://elearning.sgu.ac.jp] About 25 active courses using Moodle. Over 1000 registered users. Now using LDAP, so all 5000 students can login with their standard school ID and password.

==Netherlands==

* We are a 5000 people school, one server, 9 locations and using Moodle for almost three years now: https://studiewijzerplus.nl Every schoolyear we start again with counting the number of users and the automatic counter (thanks Penny!) is now pointing at 3103

==Norway==

* ASP Hedmark - [http://pdl.asp-hedmark.no/ pdl.asp-hedmark.no] Region with 20 primary and lower-secondary schools have an installation with something above 2000 users. PDL=Platform for Digital Learning.

== Russia ==
*Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) - distance education programme [http://www.globalcompetence.ru Management of Global Processes]

==Spain==
*[http://www.cicei.com CICEI] - Center of Innovation for the Information Society. We have a production [http://cursos.cicei.com Moodle server] having currently 1,042 users in 72 courses covering a wide range of applications (as of February 6, 2006).

==Switzerland==

*[http://moodle.fri-tic.ch/ Centre fri-tic] - Center for ICT Integration of Canton de Fribourg. Currently running 1 moodle for teachers and students from k-12 to High school, with more than 2000 users and about 130 courses. The [http://www.fri-tic.ch/ Centre fri-tic] is also hosting 9 other moodle installations for specific schools.

==United Kingdom==

* [http://moodle.altoncollege.ac.uk/ Alton College] - a Beacon sixth form college with over 2,500 active users.

* [http://egglescliffe.org.uk/ Egglescliffe School and Sixth Form] - a specialist arts school with over 2,000 active moodlers and 345 courses whose usage was the basis of this [http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,,1583832,00.html Guardian article]

* [http://vle.gloscol.ac.uk/ Gloucestershire College] - a general FE college in the south west, with nearly five thousand users and nearly eight hundred users, we have presented at many Moodle events in the UK.

* [http://learn.gold.ac.uk Goldsmiths College, London] - over 2,500 active users. See also this [http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2004/timetable/abstract.php?abstract_id=270 presentation at a 2004 conference].

* [https://moodle.plumsteadmanor.com/ Plumstead Manor School] - A specialist Sports, Performing arts and Vocational secondary school in South East London. 1,700 active students.

* [http://www.thanet.ac.uk/ Thanet College] - a "medium sized general FE college", using Moodle as documented in [http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=13423 this Ferl case study]

* [http://www.westnotts.ac.uk West Nottingahmshire College] - an FE college in the East Midlands.

* [http://www.lifeintheuk.org Prepare: Life in the United Kingdom Test] - a free website dedicated to Life in the UK Test.

==United States of America==
*[http://www.glyphdoctors.com Glyphdoctors] is a site with over 1200 registered users (as of Feb. 2006) on a shared server host, [http://www.opensourcehost.com Open Source Host]. It will offer online courses in Egyptology and Egyptian hieroglyphs to the general public. Currently, there is one free public course available and a course in Egyptian hieroglyphs under beta testing with a small number of students.

*[http://moodle.mcm.edu/ McMurry University]has several Moodle instances, the first begun as a pilot project in June, 2005. McMurry is a small (1400 FTE) undergraduate-only institution affiliated with the United Methodist church. Currently the main instance supports 1700 users (650 active), some 60 instructors, and approximately 180 active courses.

* [http://ahshornets.org Aiken High School]has over 2000 registered users in grades 9 - 12 (Feb. 2006).

* [http://academies.culver.org/moodle The Culver Academies] has over 1000 registered users in grades 9 - 12. The school has been using Moodle in the classroom since the 2002-2003 school year. Administratively we have a Moodle "course" for faculty-only announcements and materials.

* [http://online.warner.edu Warner Southern College] began using Moodle in early 2005 as an experiment to move from a simple webboard system into a full learning management system. The experiment went extremely well and a full transition to Moodle was accomplished in the fall term of 2005. Currently, Warner Southern College has one Moodle instance running with over 1200 registered users (500+ active students, 50+ instructors, 80+ courses and two system administrators) offering associate, bachelor and master of arts degree programs for both traditional site based and full online students. Warner Southern College is a small institution affiliated with the Church of God and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[ja:ユーザ数1000名以上]]

{{Template:Large Installations}}

Quiz activity

2008-09-16T03:39:13Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

{{Quizzes}}

The '''Quiz''' [[Teacher_documentation#Activity_modules|activity]] module allows the teacher to design and set quizzes consisting of a large variety of [[Question types]], among them multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions. These questions are kept in the course [[Question bank]] and can be re-used within courses and between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts. Each attempt is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give feedback and/or show the correct answers.

Feedback on performance is a critical part of a learning environment and assessment is one of the most important activities in education. As educators, we can’t tell what’s going on inside the heads of students, so we need a way for them to demonstrate what they understand and what they don’t. A well-designed test, even a multiple-choice test, can give you critical information about student performance. If the feedback is rapid enough, it can also be a critical tool for students to gauge their own performance and help them become more successful.

Moodle’s quiz module has a large number of options and tools, making it extremely flexible. You can create quizzes with different question types, randomly generated quizzes from pools of questions, allow students to have repeated attempts at a question or retake quizzes multiple times, and have the computer score it all.

These features open up a number of strategies which usually aren’t practical with paper based testing. It’s hard enough to score one batch of quizzes, and nearly impossible to score it 10 times for each student. When the computer does the work for you, it’s easy to give students a chance to practice taking a test, or to give frequent small quizzes. We explore how to apply these advantages on the page [[Effective quiz practices]].

The quiz module index page lists all the quiz activities in the course, organized under four headings:

# '''Topic''' - the number of the block, in which the given quiz appears
# '''Name''' - the name of the quiz
# '''Quiz closes''' - the date after which the quiz will be closed
# '''Attempts''' - if there have been any attempts at the quiz, you will see the text 'View reports for x attempts (y Students)', 'x' being the number of attempts and 'y' the number of students attempting at the quiz. Otherwise, the field will be empty.

== See also ==

*[http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&advanced=1&f_46=Quiz+Report&f_98=Third-Party Third-party quiz reports]
*[[Using Moodle book]] Chapter 6: Quizzes
*[https://docs.moodle.org/en/Lesson#Types_of_questions_available_within_a_lesson Questions available in a Lesson]

[[Category:Modules]]

[[es:Cuestionarios]]
[[eu:Galdetegiak]]
[[ja:小テストモジュール]]
[[ru:Тест]]
[[fr:Test]]
[[pl:Quizy]]
[[de:Test]]

Large installations

2008-09-15T20:01:45Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

== Large Moodle installations listing ==

This page was started on Wednesday 14th December 2005 at 1900GMT.
There are MANY more schools to add, it's just begun!

*[[Installations 1000 plus]]
*[[Installations 5000 plus]]
*[[Installations 10000 plus]]
*[[Installations 30000 plus]]

== See also ==
*[http://moodle.org/mod/choice/view.php?id=3934 How big is your Moodle site?] choice activity
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=36216 Chart of schools (by size) that are using Moodle] forum discussion
*[http://www.frappr.com/moodle World map of Moodle users]
*[http://moodle.org/stats/ Moodle statistics]
*[[Institutions that have Migrated to Moodle]]

[[ja:Moodleの大規模インストール]]

[[Category:Administrator]]

Choice activity

2008-09-15T19:10:01Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

{{Choices}}
[[Image:Choices_Icon.GIF]] A '''choice''' [[Teacher_documentation#Activity_modules|activity]] is very simple – the teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. It can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent.

Choice requires some preparation time for creating your activity and thinking about what results you would like to achieve, but your participation with activity itself is likely to be minimal.

==Educational Benefits of Using Choice==
Pedagogically, the choice activity can be used to provide an opportunity to share starting points through which learners are encouraged to think about and articulate existing knowledge and understandings of a topic. For example, you can ask students to make ‘choices’ about a statement such as “in learning to become a teacher, the most significant issue for me is” (giving the following choices): trust, theoretical underpinnings, communication or delivering materials to students.

This has two benefits: firstly, it forces participants to engage with their choice and think, in advance of a further related activity (you might wish to follow up such a choice activity with a forum discussion or a reflective activity like the online text assignment), about the context and consequences of this choice. Secondly, it allows tutors and students to gain a better understanding of existing views/understandings/knowledge related to the question, idea or concept at hand in the Choice activity.

The choice activity in Moodle only allows a participant to select one choice from a variety of options (that you provide), but you may set the activity so that participants can change their choices. You can also set the activity so that it ‘closes’ or ‘locks down’ on a specific date, making all choices final from that point on. This allows participants to change their minds several times before a final date.

== See also ==

* [[Using Moodle book]] Chapter 14: Surveys and Choices
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shkelQDKbtM Choice module video]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=43536 Have Your Students "Sign" an Agreement] forum discussion
* [[Choice block]] - a 3rd party block

[[Category:Modules]]

[[cs:Modul Anketa]]
[[de:Abstimmung]]
[[es:Consulta]]
[[eu:Inkesta]]
[[fr:Sondage]]
[[ja:投票]]

Question types

2008-09-13T13:05:17Z

Topstone: link to other languages

{{Questions}}

You may add a variety of different types of questions in the Quiz and Lesson modules. This page is about [[Quiz module]] question types, some will be similar to [[Lesson questions]] types, which are fewer in number and function differently. The standard quiz question types are listed below with brief descriptions. '''Please use the links on the right side of this page to find more detailed information about standard questions types that are found in both modules.'''

==Standard question types==

=== Calculated ===
Calculated questions offer a way to create individual numerical questions by the use of wildcards that are substituted with individual values when the quiz is taken. [[Calculated_question_type|More on the Calculated question type]]

=== Description ===
This is not a real question. It simply prints some text (and possibly graphics) without requiring an answer. This can be used to provide some information to be used by a subsequent group of questions, for example. [[Description_question_type|More on the Description question type]]

=== Essay ===
In response to a question (that may include an image) the respondent writes an answer in essay format. [[Essay_question_type|More on the Essay question type]]

=== Matching ===
A list of sub-questions is provided, along with a list of answers. The respondent must "match" the correct answers with each question. [[Matching_question_type|More on the Matching question type]]

=== Embedded Answers (Cloze Test / Gap Fill) ===
These very flexible questions consist of a passage of text (in Moodle format) that has various answers embedded within it, including multiple choice, short answers and numerical answers. [[Embedded_Answers_(Cloze)_question_type|More on the Embedded Answers question type]]

=== Multiple Choice ===
In response to a question (that may include a image) the respondent chooses from multiple answers. There are two types of multiple choice questions - single answer and multiple answer. [[Multiple_Choice_question_type|More on the Multiple Choice question type]]

=== Short Answer ===
In response to a question (that may include a image), the respondent types a word or phrase. There may several possible correct answers, with different grades. Answers may or may not be sensitive to case. [[Short-Answer_question_type|More on the Short Answer question type]]

=== Numerical ===
From the student perspective, a numerical question looks just like a short-answer question. The difference is that numerical answers are allowed to have an accepted error. This allows a continuous range of answers to be set. [[Numerical_question_type|More on the Numerical question type]]

=== Random Short-Answer Matching ===
From the student perspective, this looks just like a Matching question. The difference is that the sub-questions are drawn randomly from Short Answer questions in the current category. [[Random_Short-Answer_Matching_question_type|More on the Random Short-Answer Matching question type]]

=== True/False ===
In response to a question (that may include a image), the respondent selects from two options: True or False. [[True/False_question_type|More on the True/False question type]]

==Third-party question types==

Besides the standard question types that are part of the core Moodle distribution, there are question type plugins contributed by the community.

===Drag and Drop===

Please see the [[Drag and Drop question tutorial]] for more information.

===Molecule design===

The [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=296 Java Molecular Editor question type] allows you to ask students to design and submit a molecular structure.

===Opaque===

[[Development:Opaque|Opaque]] is a system for using questions from other systems that support the Opaque protocol within Moodle quizzes. This question type is the Moodle end of that bridge. It can be downloaded from http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=798. See the [[Opaque question type]] tutorial for more information.

===RQP===

RQP was an earlier attempt to do the same thing that Opaque does, but as of Moodle 1.6 it did not work. It used to be in Moodle core, but in Moodle 1.9 it was moved to be a third-part question type. It is probably now only of historical interest.

===Regular Expression Short Answer===
{{Moodle 1.6}}Like the Short Answer question, the RegExp Short Answer question expects the student to answer an "open" question with a word or a short phrase. However, using so-called '''regular expressions''' gives you access to a more powerful system for analysing the student's answers and thus providing more adapted feedback messages.
The [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=338 Regular Expression Short Answer question type] is available for Moodle 1.6 from the Modules and plugins database.

==Versions and questions==
*Some question types can be exported in version 1.6 to a lesson through use of a GIFT or XML Moodle file.

==Question bank==
Moodle 1.6 created "[[Question bank]]", a database of questions for the quiz module. This database will be available for both quiz and lesson modules in 2.0.

==See also==
[[Lesson questions]]

[[Category:Quiz]]
[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Lesson]]
[[ca:Tipus_de_preguntes]]
[[es:Tipos de preguntas]]
[[ja:問題タイプ]]

Development:Implementing Reset course functionality in a module

2008-09-12T18:28:14Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

The course reset code is triggered from /course/reset.php. To have your module included, you need to implement the two fuctions described below. To work out how to do this, a good example is to look at the implementations in /mod/fourm/lib.php

==''mymodule''_reset_course_form($course)==

This is called directly by /course/reset.php. It needs to output some form controls to control different options for resetting your module.

The convention is to call settings relating your your module reset_''mymodule''_''something''.

The forum implementation is a good model:

<pre><nowiki>
/**
* Called by course/reset.php
*/
function forum_reset_course_form($course) {
echo get_string('resetforums', 'forum'); echo ':<br />';
print_checkbox('reset_forum_news', 1, true, get_string('namenews','forum'), '', ''); echo '<br />';
print_checkbox('reset_forum_single', 1, true, get_string('singleforum','forum'), '', ''); echo '<br />';
print_checkbox('reset_forum_eachuser', 1, true, get_string('eachuserforum','forum'), '', ''); echo '<br />';
print_checkbox('reset_forum_general', 1, true, get_string('generalforum','forum'), '', ''); echo '<br />';
echo '<p>';
print_checkbox('reset_forum_subscriptions', 1, true, get_string('resetsubscriptions','forum'), '', '');
echo '</p>';
}
</nowiki></pre>

==''mymodule''_delete_userdata($data, $showfeedback)==

This actually does the resetting. It is called indirectly, /course/reset.php calls reset_course_userdata() in /lib/moodlelib.php, which then calls the functions for each module.

The $data parameter is what came back from the form printed by forum_reset_course. In particular, $data->courseid is the id of the coures we are cleaning up.

The $showfeedback parameter determines whether we should output progress information as we go along.

The forum implementation is again a good one to study, here is a very simple example:

<pre><nowiki>
function example_delete_userdata($data, $showfeedback=true) {
if (!empty($data->reset_example_frogs)) {
if (delete_records('example_frogs', 'couresid', $data->courseid) and $showfeedback) {
notify(get_string('frogsdeleted', 'example'), 'notifysuccess');
}
}
if (!empty($data->reset_example_newts)) {
if (delete_records('example_newts', 'couresid', $data->courseid) and $showfeedback) {
notify(get_string('newtsdeleted', 'example'), 'notifysuccess');
}
}
}
</nowiki></pre>

[[ja:開発:コースのリセット機能をモジュールに実装する]]

Development:Database fields

2008-09-06T14:30:06Z

Topstone: link to Japanese page

Moodle's [[Database module]] has some predefined [[Database_fields|field types]] (text, date, URL, picture, etc), but you can customise this to create new field types. For example, you might like to create:

; Discipline-specific field types : e.g. "Protein PDB code" - people can enter the PDB code for a protein, and then the display could (for example) include a 3D viewer for the protein structure, or link out to molecular databases.
; Institution-specific field types : e.g. "library reference number" - people can enter a number into the field, and this is automatically turned into a direct link to your library webpages
; Module-specific field types : e.g. "wiki page" - people see a drop-down list containing the names of pages in your wiki, and can choose which page this particular entry refers to

==Basic concepts==

To create a new field type in Moodle we need to create a new folder in /moodle/mod/data/field. Inside this folder will be PHP code telling Moodle:

# What HTML to output when people are looking at a record in the database
# What form fields to output when people are adding/editing a record in the database
# What to do (what info to store) when someone submits the record-add/edit form
# What form fields to output when the teacher is adding/editing an instance of the field
# What to do (what info to store) when the teacher submits the field-add/edit form

==The files==

The best way to get an understanding of the plugin architecture is to look at an existing field type - I recommend you look at '''the URL field type''', stored in /moodle/mod/data/field/url. There are three files:

* '''field.class.php''' - the most important file, this defines a PHP class which defines the majority of the data field's behaviour. See below for more detail on this.
* '''mod.html''' - contains a HTML "fragment" defining how the form fields will appear when the teacher is adding/editing an instance of the field.
* '''icon.gif''' - the icon to be displayed along with the field, as a visual cue to the teacher about what sort of data is stored in this field.

==The PHP class==

If you look at the file "field.class.php" for the URL field type you'll see that the class is named "data_field_url" and it is a subclass of "data_field_base". This is very important - the class "data_field_base" (defined in /moodle/mod/data/lib.php, by the way) defines some of the core behaviours without which your field will not work.

Your class's name should match the subfolder you have created. For example, if we're creating a new data type called "Tastiness", we want to create our plugin in a folder "tastiness" and the PHP class should be data_field_tastiness. The class should also define a class variable $type, which again should use the same name - in our example, we'd give it the value 'tastiness'. So the top of our field.class.php would look like this:

<?php
class data_field_tastiness extends data_field_base {
var $type = 'tastiness';

If you want to take an existing field type, duplicate it, and rename it to a new type (which you can modify later), this is all you need to do. You might like to try this (again, the URL field is a good one to start with) and see how it works.

The base class defines some simple behaviours which you can override in your subclass, to make the plugin do exactly what you want. For example:

function display_add_field($recordid=0) // Return some HTML for use when a user is adding/editing a record
function display_browse_field($recordid, $template) // Return some HTML for displaying a record
function update_content($recordid, $value, $name='') // Used when a user stores data for a record
function get_sort_sql($fieldname) // Specify SQL for how this field should be sorted

If you don't bother to specify these functions inside your new class, then the default behaviours specified by data_field_base will be used. Simply add these functions to your new class to make something different happen.

''To be continued...''

[[Category:Developer]]

[[ja:データベースフィールド]]

Category:Teacher

2008-09-06T14:23:24Z

Topstone: link to Japanese page

An index of documentation pages for '''teachers'''.

[[es:Categoría:Profesor]]
[[eu:Kategoria:Irakasleak]]
[[fr:Catégorie:Enseignant]]
[[ja:Category:教師]]
[[ru:Категория:Учителю]]

Administrator documentation

2007-06-11T17:29:39Z

Topstone: link to other languages

The purpose of this page is to list useful links by general topics for administrators.

== Installation & Upgrading ==

*[[Installation Quickstart]] for an overview of the installation steps
*[[Installing Moodle]] for detailed installation instructions
*[[Installation FAQ]]
*[[Installing AMP|Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP]]
*[[Upgrading|Upgrading Moodle]]

== System-specific Instructions & Packages ==

* [[SUSE Linux Server 10|Automated Installation Guide for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10]] operating system
* [[RedHat Linux installation|Step by Step Installation Guide for RedHat]] operating system
* [[Debian GNU/Linux installation|Step by Step Installation Guide for Debian GNU/Linux]] operating system
* [[Step-by-step Install Guide for Ubuntu]]
* [[Windows installation|Complete Install Packages for Windows XP and instructions for Windows NT/2000/2003 servers]]
* [[Complete Install Packages for Mac OS X]]
* [[Step-by-step Guide for Installing Moodle on Mac OS X 10.4 Client | Step-by-Step Guide for Installing Moodle using the internal web server on Mac OS X 10.4 Client]]
* [[1and1_MySQL_installation | Installation on 1and1 web hosting]]

==Security, Performance and Roles==

*[[Security]] contains important security procedures for a production site
*[[Performance | Performance and optimization]] for ideas on improving the speed of your installation
*[[Manage roles | Managing roles]] For Moodle 1.7 and later

== FAQs ==

*[[Installation FAQ]]
*[[Administration FAQ]]
*[[Backup FAQ]]

== Configuration Settings ==

*[[Variables]]
*[[Site settings]]
*[[Themes]]
*[[Language]]
*[[Modules (administrator)|Modules]]
*[[Blocks (administrator)|Blocks]]
*[[Filters (administrator)|Filters]]
*[[Backup (administrator)|Backup]]
*[[Editor settings]]
*[[Calendar (administrator)|Calendar]]
*[[Maintenance mode]]

* See also: [[Location of admin settings in 1.7|Comparision between configuration settings in Moodle 1.6 & 1.7]]

==User Management==

*[[Authentication]]
*[[Edit user accounts]]
*[[Edit profile|Add a new user]]
*[[Flat file|Upload users]]
*[[Enrolment plugins]]
*[[Courses (administrator)|Enrol students]]
*[[Courses (administrator)|Assign teachers]]
*[[Assign creators]]
*[[Assign administrators]]

==Other==

*[[Courses (administrator)|Courses]] and [[Course formats|course formats]]
*[[Logs]]
*[[Site files]]
*[[Moodle database|Database]]
*[[Environment]]
*[[Moodle Network]] and Moodle Community Hub

==See also==

*[[:Category:Administrator | Index of all Administrator-related pages]]
*[[Integrations]]
*[[CVS (administrator)|CVS documentation]]
*[[Email processing]]
*[[Search engine optimization]]
*[[Messaging]]
*[[Migration]]
*[[Metacourses]]
*[[Block layout]]
*[[Customizing Moodle]]
*[[Administrator do's and don'ts]]
*[http://download.moodle.org/docs/using_moodle/ch16_server_admin.pdf Using Moodle Chapter 16: Moodle Administration]

[[Category: Administrator]]
[[cs:Rukověť správce]]
[[es:Documentación para Administradores]]
[[fr:Documentation administrateur]]
[[ja:管理者ドキュメント]]
[[ko:관리자 문서]]
[[nl:Documentatie voor beheerders]]
[[ru:Администраторам]]
[[zh:管理员文档]]

Help:Editing

2007-06-05T17:59:46Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

{{Help}}
This page is for editing Moodle Documentation (MoodleDocs). This is a similar but much more robust type of program than the [[Wiki module|standard Moodle wiki]].

==Edit tab==
Every ModdleDoc page has an "edit" tab at the top . This link will let you edit the page you are viewing. Please try editing a page by using this [[Sandbox|sandbox link]]. We will cover more formatting and special MoodleDoc features below.

=== Show preview ===
In edit mode, the show preview button at the bottom of the page lets you see what the page will look like after your edit, before you actually save. We all make mistakes; this feature lets you catch them immediately. Using Show preview before saving also lets you try format changes and other edits without cluttering up the page history, and has a number of other advantages. Don't forget to save your edits after previewing, though!

=== Edit summary ===
Before saving the page, it's considered good practice to enter a very brief summary of your changes in the summary box below the edit-box.

== Formatting ==

Most '''formatting''' in MoodleDocs is usually done with MediaWiki markup - you don't have to learn HTML!

=== Bold and italics ===
'''Bolding''' and ''italicizing'' is done by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes (<tt>'</tt>):

:<code><nowiki>''italics''</nowiki></code> appears as ''italics''. (2 apostrophes on both sides)
:<code><nowiki>'''bold'''</nowiki></code> appears as '''bold'''. (3 apostrophes on both sides)
:<code><nowiki>'''''bolded italics'''''</nowiki></code> appears as '''''bolded italics'''''. (5 apostrophes on both sides)

=== Headings and subheadings ===
Headings and subheadings are an easy way to improve the organization of an article.

Headings can be created like this:
:<code><nowiki>==Top level heading==</nowiki></code> (2 equals signs)
:<code><nowiki>===Subheading===</nowiki></code> (3 equals signs)
:<code><nowiki>====Another level down====</nowiki></code> (4 equals signs)

If an article has at least four headings, a table of contents will automatically be generated.

=== Indentations ===
The simplest way of indenting is to place a colon (<code>:</code>) at the beginning of a line. The more colons you put, the further indented the text will be. A newline marks the end of the indented paragraph e.g.
:<code>This is aligned all the way to the left.</code>
:<code><nowiki>:</nowiki>This is indented slightly.</code>
:<code><nowiki>::</nowiki>This is indented more.</code>
is shown as
:This is aligned all the way to the left.
::This is indented slightly.
:::This is indented more.

=== Lists ===
{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
|-
!What it looks like
!What you type
|-
|
* ''Unordered lists'' are easy to do:
** start every line with a star
*** more stars means deeper levels
*A newline
*in a list
marks the end of the list.

|<pre><nowiki>* Unordered Lists are easy to do:
** start every line with a star
*** more stars means deeper levels
*A newline
*in a list
marks the end of the list.
</nowiki></pre>
|-
|
# Numbered lists are also good
## very organized
## easy to follow
#A newline
#in a list
marks the end of the list.
|<pre><nowiki># Numbered lists are also good
## very organized
## easy to follow
#A newline
#in a list
marks the end of the list.
</nowiki></pre>
|-
|Descriptive lists:
; first tag : accompanying description
; second tag : more description
; third tag : surprise! more description
|<pre><nowiki>Descriptive lists:
; first tag : accompanying description
; second tag : more description
; third tag : surprise! more description
</nowiki></pre>
|}

=== Preserving formatting ===

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
|-
!What it looks like
!What you type
|-
|
Leading spaces are another way to preserve formatting.

Putting a space at the beginning of each line
stops the text from being reformatted.
|<pre><nowiki>Leading spaces are another way to preserve formatting.

Putting a space at the beginning of each line
stops the text from being reformatted.
</nowiki></pre>
|}

You can also use <pre><pre></pre> tags around code and other preformatted text.
or use block the text and use the nowiki tool

== Links ==
Links to other pages are the heart of a wiki and MoodleDocs.

=== Wiki links ===
To make a wiki link, simply put the word in double square brackets, like this: <code><nowiki>[[Sandbox]]</nowiki></code> . Highlight text and using the "internal link" tool will do this as well.

If you want to use words other than the article title as the text of the link, you can do so by adding the pipe "|" divider followed by the alternative name or text.

For example, if you wanted to make a link to the [[Sandbox]], but wanted it to say "my text" you would write it as: <code><nowiki>[[Sandbox|my text]]</nowiki>...</code> It would appear as: [[Sandbox|my text]]... but would link to the sandbox.

=== External links ===

The easiest way to make an external link is to simply type in the full URL for the page you want to link to e.g. http://moodle.com.

To make the link display something other than the URL, use one square bracket at each end. If you want to make a link to moodle.com, type <code><nowiki>[http://moodle.com/]</nowiki></code>
This will display the link as a number in brackets, like this: [http://moodle.com/]. There is also the external link tool which can also assist you.

If you want the link to appear with text that you specify, add an alternative title after the address separated by a '''space''' (''not'' a pipe). So if you want the link to appear as [http://moodle.com Moodle], just type <code><nowiki>[http://moodle.com Moodle] </nowiki></code>.

===Categories links===
A catagory is a type of index page, a page of links listed in alphabetical order. In page view mode, a list of catagories that a page is linked to, appears at the bottom.
To put a page in a category, just type <code><nowiki>[[Category:]]</nowiki></code>, and put the name of the category between the colon and the brackets.

To link directly to a category use <code><nowiki>[[:Category:Teacher | teacher]]</nowiki></code>, this will show as [[:Category:Teacher | teacher]], note the preceding ":", which is different to <code><nowiki>[[Category:Teacher | teacher]]</nowiki></code>. The second will put the current page in the teacher category as mentioned above.

This page is linked to the single catagory "MoodleDocs".

===Inter-language links===

Simply type <code><nowiki>[[es:Corresponding page title in Spanish]]</nowiki></code> in the English Moodle Docs, or <code><nowiki>[[en:Corresponding page title in English]]</nowiki></code> in the [[:es:Portada|Spanish Moodle Docs]], at the bottom of the page, below the category link. Inter-language links will appear automatically in the "In other languages" block.

===User-page links===
User names can be linked to a user page. For example <nowiki>[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] </nowiki> will appear [[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] and link to the user's page. Comments by other users are generally left on the Users page comment tab.

==Page comments==
The page comment tab is used for discussion about the page. Sometimes before making an edit on the page for the first time, it is a good idea to check the page comments. It can be formatted the same as a main page, thus can be used to show a draft of a proposed change.

Talk page contributions may be signed and dated by typing four tildes <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. This will appear as [[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 06:35, 19 February 2006 (WST), for example.

==Page history==
The page history tab allows a way to look at changes between different edits. It is also possible to revert (roll back) an edit to a previous version. Usually this is left to the administrator, but you certainly can rollback your recent edits.

==Watch and unwatch page==
A watched page will appear on "my watchlist" when ever someone edits the page. There is a tab next to history which acts as a toggle between watch and unwatch. There is also at the bottom of the page in edit mode a "Watch this page" check off box.

==See also==
*[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing MediaWiki Help:Editing]
*[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:HTML_in_wikitext Help:HTML in wikitext]
*[http://diberri.dyndns.org/html2wiki.html HTML to MediaWiki converter]
*[http://wikipedia.mozdev.org/ Firefox Wikipedia extension] - The Wikipedia extension makes editing of wiki pages easier by adding a new toolbar to your browser and by providing new menu items in the context menu (right mouse key).
*[[Wiki module]] for the wiki included as part of the standard Moodle

[[Category:MoodleDocs]]

[[es:Ayuda:Cómo se edita una página]]
[[fr:Aide:Comment éditer une page]]
[[ja:Help:編集方法]]
[[nl:Meehelpen]]
[[ru:Справка:Редактирование]]

Sandbox

2007-06-01T10:32:54Z

Topstone:

abcdef deneme 1 2

Very nice :-)<br>
<strong>Moodle is Great!</strong><br>

'''== אחת שתיים שלו ארבע
==== Headline text ==== Headline text =='''Bold text''''''

====bbbbbb====
[[Table]]
$$ x^2 $$

<math>x^2</math>
== Headline text ==

== Aesthetic buggery to follow! ==
<hr size=5>
<hr size=10>
<hr size=20>
... well, that's too bad: <tt> I was expecting to be able to make larger headers! <i>[pout!]</i></tt>

:Interesting. Don't know much about HTML but
#remember this is a Mediawiki.
#When I want to try something off the beaten track in MoodleDocs, I [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing#Templates start here with a search on editing tips].
#Since I am a clutz, I created a web page using a word processor. Then opened my browser and revealed the page code. Then placed it below. So you can make larger headers several ways. chris collman
::see examples below

==<span style='font-size:26.0pt'>This is 26.opt test</span>==

Notice it still is a header just not the default font

===This is a 3rd level - a little smaller===

====This is a 3rd level header - Probably no difference====

== Headline text ==

Martha is a radical

=Is a 1st level header - the larger header topic=

just to see what would happen

=<span style='font-size:40.0pt'>This is a 400.opt font test</span>

Hmm...

Just testing it out!

Seems OK!

----

Here's some text.
:Here's some indented text.
::And a bit more indented.
::::::::::Now you're just being silly.

----

[[fr:Bac à sable]]
[[ja:サンドボックス]]

HTML in Moodle

2007-05-31T11:12:12Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

When writing HTML in Moodle, you are free to use almost any HTML tags you like to produce the effect you want.

Note that scripting (eg Javascript or VB Script) is not allowed, and will be removed automatically.

Your code will normally be printed on the page within a table cell, so:

* there is no need to use any <HEAD> or <BODY> tags
* be careful about unmatched </TABLE> tags that may mess up the display.

Smilies (emoticons) will be converted into their graphical equivalent, and bare URLs will be converted into links.

==See also==
[[HTML editor]] | [[overlib]]

[[ja:MoodleでのHTML]]

Development:Coding

2007-05-31T03:46:20Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

Any collaborative project needs consistency and stability to stay strong.

These '''coding guidelines''' are to provide a goal for all Moodle code to strive to. It's true that some of the older existing code falls short in a few areas, but it will all be fixed eventually. All new code definitely must adhere to these standards as closely as possible.

==General rules==

# All code files should use the .php extension.
# All template files should use the .html extension.
# All text files should use Unix-style text format (most text editors have this as an option).
# All php tags must be 'full' tags like <?php ?> ... not 'short' tags like <? ?>.
# All existing copyright notices must be retained. You can add your own if necessary.
# Each file should include the main config.php file.
# Each file should check that the user is authenticated correctly, using require_login() and isadmin(), isteacher(), iscreator() or isstudent().
# All access to databases should use the functions in ''lib/dmllib.php'' whenever possible - this allows compatibility across a wide range of databases. You should find that almost anything is possible using these functions. If you must write SQL code then make sure it is: cross-platform; restricted to specific functions within your code (usually a lib.php file); and clearly marked.
# Don't create or use global variables except for the standard $CFG, $SESSION, $THEME, $SITE, $COURSE and $USER.
# All variables should be initialised or at least tested for existence using isset() or empty() before they are used.
# All strings should be translatable - create new texts in the "lang/en_utf8" files with concise English lowercase names and retrieve them from your code using get_string() or print_string(). Never delete strings to ensure backwards compatibility of the language packs is maintained.
# All errors should be printed using print_error() to maximise translation and help for users (it automatically links to the docs wiki).
# All help files should be translatable - create new texts in the "lang/en_utf8/help" directory and call them using helpbutton(). If you need to update a help file:
#* with a minor change, where an old translation of the file would still make sense, then it's OK to make the change but you should notify translation AT moodle DOT org.
#* for a major change you should create a new file by adding an incrementing number (eg filename2.html) so that translators can easily see it's a new version of the file. Obviously the new code and the help index files should also be modified to point to the newest versions.
# Incoming data from the browser (sent via GET or POST) automatically has magic_quotes applied (regardless of the PHP settings) so that you can safely insert it straight into the database. All other raw data (from files, or from databases) must be escaped with addslashes() before inserting it into the database. Because this is so often done incorrectly, there is more explanation on this issue of adding and stripping slashes on a [[Developer:Slashes|separate page]].
# VERY IMPORTANT: All texts within Moodle, especially those that have come from users, should be printed using the format_text() function. This ensures that text is filtered and cleaned correctly. More information can be found on the page about [[Development:Output_functions|output functions]].
# User actions should be logged using the [[Development:Logs|add_to_log()]] function. These logs are used for [[Settings#Show_activity_reports|activity reports]] and [[Logs]].
# When generating a HTML link, always make it relative to the full site root, i.e. link to ''$CFG->wwwroot/mod/blonk/view.php?id=99'' rather than just ''view.php?id=99''. This means that your code will work if called by a script in another folder, among other things.

==Coding style==

I know it can be a little annoying to change your style if you're used to something else, but balance that annoyance against the annoyance of all the people trying later on to make sense of Moodle code with mixed styles. There are obviously many good points for and against any style that people use, but the current style just is, so please stick to it.

1. Indenting should be consistently 4 spaces. Don't use tabs AT ALL.

2. Variable names should always be easy-to-read, meaningful lowercase English words. If you really need more than one word then run them together, but keep them short as possible. Use plural names for arrays of objects.

GOOD: $quiz
GOOD: $errorstring
GOOD: $assignments (for an array of objects)
GOOD: $i (but only in little loops)

BAD: $Quiz
BAD: $aReallyLongVariableNameWithoutAGoodReason
BAD: $error_string

3. Constants should always be in upper case, and always start with the name of the module. They should have words separated by underscores.

define("FORUM_MODE_FLATOLDEST", 1);
4. Function names should be simple English lowercase words, and start with the name of the module to avoid conflicts between modules. Words should be separated by underscores. Parameters should always have sensible defaults if possible. Note there is no space between the function name and the following (brackets).

function forum_set_display_mode($mode=0) {
global $USER, $CFG;

if ($mode) {
$USER->mode = $mode;
} else if (empty($USER->mode)) {
$USER->mode = $CFG->forum_displaymode;
}
}

5. Blocks must always be enclosed in curly braces (even if there is only one line). Moodle uses this style:

if ($quiz->attempts) {
if ($numattempts > $quiz->attempts) {
error($strtoomanyattempts, "view.php?id=$cm->id");
}
}

6. Strings should be defined using single quotes where possible, for increased speed.

$var = 'some text without any variables';
$var = "with special characters like a new line \n";
$var = 'a very, very long string with a '.$single.' variable in it';
$var = "some $text with $many variables $within it";

7. Comments should be added as much as is practical, to explain the code flow and the purpose of functions and variables.

* Every function (and class) should use the popular [http://www.phpdoc.org/ phpDoc format]. This allows code documentation to be generated automatically.
* Inline comments should use the // style, laid out neatly so that it fits among the code and lines up with it.

/**
* The description should be first, with asterisks laid out exactly
* like this example. If you want to refer to a another function,
* do it like this: {@link clean_param()}. Then, add descriptions
* for each parameter as follows.
*
* @param int $postid The PHP type is followed by the variable name
* @param array $scale The PHP type is followed by the variable name
* @param array $ratings The PHP type is followed by the variable name
* @return mixed
*/
function forum_get_ratings_mean($postid, $scale, $ratings=NULL) {
if (!$ratings) {
$ratings = array(); // Initialize the empty array
if ($rates = get_records("forum_ratings", "post", $postid)) {
// Process each rating in turn
foreach ($rates as $rate) {
....etc

8. Space should be used liberally - don't be afraid to spread things out a little to gain some clarity. Generally, there should be one space between brackets and normal statements, but no space between brackets and variables or functions:

foreach ($objects as $key => $thing) {
process($thing);
}

if ($x == $y) {
$a = $b;
} else if ($x == $z) {
$a = $c;
} else {
$a = $d;
}

9. When making a COPY of an object, always use the php5 clone() function (otherwise you may end up with just a reference to the first object). Moodle will make sure this works consistently on php4 too.

BAD: $b = $a;
GOOD: $b = clone($a);

If the thing you want to copy is not an object, but may contain objects (eg an array of objects) then use fullclone() instead.

==Database structures==

To help you create tables that meet these guidelines, we recommend you use the built in [[Development:XMLDB_defining_an_XML_structure#The_XMLDB_editor|database definition (XMLDB) editor]].

# Every table must have an auto-incrementing id field (INT10) as primary index. (see [[IdColumnReasons]])
# The main table containing instances of each module must have the same name as the module (eg widget) and contain the following minimum fields:
#* id - as described above
#* course - the id of the course that each instance belongs to
#* name - the full name of each instance of the module
# Other tables associated with a module that contain information about 'things' should be named widget_things (note the plural).
# Table and column names should avoid using [[Database reserved words|reserved words in any database]]. Please check them before creation.
# Column names should be always lowercase, simple and short, following the same rules as for variable names.
# Where possible, columns that contain a reference to the id field of another table (eg widget) should be called widgetid. (Note that this convention is newish and not followed in some older tables)
# Boolean fields should be implemented as small integer fields (eg INT4) containing 0 or 1, to allow for later expansion of values if necessary.
# Most tables should have a timemodified field (INT10) which is updated with a current timestamp obtained with the PHP time() function.
# Always define a default value for each field (and make it sensible)
# Each table name should start with the database prefix ($CFG->prefix). In a lot of cases, this is taken care of for you automatically. Also, under Postgres, the name of every index must start with the prefix too.
# In order to guarantee [[Development:XMLDB problems#Table and column aliases - the AS keyword|cross-db compatibility]] follow these simple rules about the use of the '''AS''' keyword (only if you need table/colum aliases, of course):
#* '''Don't use''' the '''AS''' keyword for '''table aliases'''.
#* '''Do use''' the '''AS''' keyword for '''column aliases'''.
# '''Never''' create UNIQUE KEYs (constraints) at all. Instead use UNIQUE INDEXes. In the future, if we decide to add referential integrity to Moodle and we need UNIQUE KEYs they will be used, but not now. Please note that the XMLDB editor allows you to specify both XMLDB-only UNIQUE and FOREIGN constraints (and that's good, in order to have the XML well defined) but only underlying INDEXes will be generated.
# Those XMLDB-only UNIQUE KEYs (read previous point) only must be defined if such field/fields '''are going to be the target''' for some (XMLDB-only too) FOREIGN KEY. Else, create them as simple UNIQUE INDEXes.
# Tables associated '''with one block''' must follow this convention with their names: '''$CFG->prefix + "block_" + name_of_the_block + anything_else'''. For example, assuming that $CFG->prefix is 'mdl_', all the tables for the block "rss_client" must start by 'mdl_block_rss_client' (being possible to add more words at the end, i.e. 'mdl_block_rss_client_anothertable'...). This rule will be 100% enforced with Moodle 2.0, giving time to developers until then. See [http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-6786 Task 6786] for more info about this.
# '''Never''' make database changes in the STABLE branches. If we did, then users upgrading from one stable version to the next would have duplicate changes occurring, which may cause serious errors.

==Security issues (and handling form and URL data)==

# Do not rely on 'register_globals'. Every variable must be properly initialised in every code file. It must be obvious where the variable came from.
# Initialise all arrays and objects, even if empty. $a = array() or $obj = new stdClass();.
# Do not use the optional_variable() function (this function is now deprecated). Use the optional_param() function instead. Pick the correct PARAM_XXXX value for the data type you expect.
# Do not use the require_variable() function (this function is now deprecated). Use the required_param() function instead. Pick the correct PARAM_XXXX value for the data type you expect.
# Use data_submitted(), with care. Data must still be cleaned before use.
# Do not use $_GET, $_POST or $_REQUEST. Use the appropriate required_param() or optional_param() appropriate to your need.
# Do not check for an action using something like if (isset($_GET['something'])). Use, e.g., $something = optional_param( 'something',-1,PARAM_INT ) and then perform proper test for it being in its expected range of values e.g., if ($something>=0) {....
# Wherever possible group all your required_param(), optional_param() and other variables initialisation at the beginning of each file to make them easy to find.
# Use 'sesskey' mechanism to protect form handling routines from attack. Basic example of use: when form is generated, include <input type="hidden" name="sesskey" value="<?php echo sesskey(); ?>" />. When you process the form check with if (!confirm_sesskey()) {error('Bad Session Key');}.
# All filenames must be 'cleaned' using the clean_filename() function, if this has not been done already by appropriate use of required_param() or optional_param()
# Any data read from the database must have [[Developer:Slashes|addslashes()]] applied to it before it can be written back. A whole object of data can be hit at once with addslashes_object().
# Wherever possible, data to be stored in the database must come from POST data (from a form with method="POST") as opposed to GET data (ie, data from the URL line).
# Do not use data from $_SERVER if you can avoid it. This has portability issues.
# If it hasn't been done somewhere else, make sure all data written to the database has been through the clean_param() function using the appropriate PARAM_XXXX for the datatype.
# If you write custom SQL code, make very sure it is correct. In particular watch out for missing quotes around values. Possible SQL 'injection' exploit.
# Check all data (particularly that written to the database) in every file it is used. Do not expect or rely on it being done somewhere else.
# Blocks of code to be included should contain a definite PHP structure (e.g, a class declaration, function definition(s) etc.) - straight blocks of code promote uninitialised variable usage.

[[Category:Developer|Coding]]

[[es:Manual de Estilo de Código]]
[[ja:コーディング]]
[[zh:代码指南]]

Language packs

2007-05-28T17:04:37Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

{{Moodle 1.6}}

Location: ''Administration > Language > Language packs''

* Additional language packs may be selected from the list in the right pane and installed directly.
* The new location for language files is ''moodledata/lang''.
* Please note that certain language packs contain only the modified language strings from their parent language, rather than a complete set. Thus, it is necessary to install the parent language pack too. These language packs are:
** de_du (which requires de)
** es_mx and es_ar (which require es)
** fr-ca (which requires fr)

==See also==

*[[Upgrading to Moodle 1.6]]
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=48492 Language import utility broken] forum discussion

[[Category:Language]]

[[fr:Utilitaire d'importation de langues]]
[[ja:言語インポートユーティリティ]]
[[zh:语言倒入工具]]

Development:Modules

2007-05-28T14:23:09Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

'''Activity modules''' reside in the 'mod' directory. Each module is in a separate subdirectory and consists of the following mandatory elements (plus extra scripts unique to each module):

* ''mod.html'' - a form to set up or update an instance of this module
* ''version.php'' - defines some meta-info and provides upgrading code
* ''icon.gif'' - a 16x16 icon for the module
* ''db/'' - SQL dumps of all the required db tables and data (for each database type)
* ''index.php'' - a page to list all instances in a course
* ''view.php'' - a page to view a particular instance
* ''lib.php'' - any/all functions defined by the module should be in here. If the modulename is called widget, then the required functions include:
:* widget_add_instance() - code to add a new instance of widget
:* widget_update_instance() - code to update an existing instance
:* widget_delete_instance() - code to delete an instance
:* widget_user_outline() - given an instance, return a summary of a user's contribution
:* widget_user_complete() - given an instance, print details of a user's contribution
:* Other functions available but not required are:
:** widget_delete_course() - code to clean up anything that would be leftover after all instances are deleted
:** widget_process_options() - code to pre-process the form data from module settings
:* To avoid possible conflict, any module functions should be named starting with widget_ and any constants you define should start with WIDGET_
* ''config.html'' - (optional) a form to set up or update global settings of this module
* Lastly, each module will have some language files that contain strings for that module.

IMPORTANT: When creating a new module, the new name of the module must not contain numbers or other special characters!

You should also make sure that your activity module provides appropriate support for groups and metacourses.

==See also==

* http://download.moodle.org/download.php/modules/NEWMODULE.zip - new module template for starting module development. Please follow the README instructions inside the zip.
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5 Activity modules] forum
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=66165 A new resource type: where do I put the language strings?] forum discussion
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=65986 New Module Template Code for Moodle 1.7] forum discussion

[[Category:Developer]]
[[Category:Modules]]

[[es:Módulos de actividades (desarrollador)]]
[[ja:モジュール (開発者)]]

Teaching with Moodle

2007-05-28T14:20:24Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

'''Objective:''' To organize and share resources and "good practices" so that teachers and students have a positive Moodle experience that enhances the learning process. The resources presented will focus on the pedagogical implementation of Moodle in a classroom setting (whatever that classroom may look like).

*[[The Good Teacher]] - The best place for a teacher contemplating using Moodle in their classroom to start learning as well as a great place for experienced Moodlers to remember why they began using it.

*[[Teaching Do's]] & [[Teaching Don'ts]] - Good general/pedagogical guidelines to consider when setting up a course in Moodle and introducing students to it.

*[[Learning Activities Overview]] - A list of the different activities available within Moodle, as well as what type of learning strategy they employ, suggested age level, and a link to each activity's pedagogy page.

*[[Moodle Stories]] - This is a subset of the ''[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?f=127 Moodle Stories]'' forum. It contains a collection of innovative ways teachers are utilizing [http://www.moodle.org Moodle] in their classroom. This is a great place for teachers who like the idea of Moodle and what it has to offer, but could benefit from ideas to start from.

*[[Teaching FAQ | Common Teacher Questions (FAQs)]]

*[[Teaching Good Practices (K-12) | Good Practices (K-12)]]

*[[NECC 06 Collaboration Session | NECC 2006 Bird's of a Feather Session]] - Notes from the NECC 2006 Bird's of a Feather Session. The focus is on using Moodle in educational settings with ideas about how to use it and hints too.

*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=61228 How teaching is changing using Moodle] forum discussion

[[Category:Teacher]]

[[fr:Enseigner avec Moodle]]
[[ja:Moodleで教える]]

Metacourse

2007-05-28T14:18:17Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

A '''metacourse''' automatically enrolls participants from other "child" courses. Metacourses take their enrollments from other courses. This feature can populate many courses from one enrollment or one course from many enrollents.

For example, a course is part of a program (metacourse). Each time a student enrols in (or unenrols from) this course, they are enrolled/unenrolled from any metacourse(s) associated with it.

Please note that metacourse enrolments do not preserve groups and enrolment does not happen immediately.

==Metacourse setup==
Teachers are able to choose whether a course is a metacourse via the "Is this a metacourse?" (yes/no) menu option in the [[Course settings|course settings]]. In Moodle 1.5 and 1.6, if a meta course is chosen, the [[Students|students]] page changes from listing/searching for students to listing/searching for courses. In Moodle 1.7 "Child courses" appears in the teacher's administration block.

==Metacourse examples==
Metacourses may be used in a variety of ways:

* '''Scenario 1:''' X is a metacourse with Course 1 through 4 as normal courses with standard student enrollments. Students enrolling on these courses are automatically enrolled onto Metacourse X.

[[Image:Metacourses1_en.jpg|Standard Metacourse Usage]]

For example, a math teacher or department has 2 algebra and 2 geometry courses. The teacher or department wants course for each of these subjects. But they also want a generic space where they can post things for all of the students in all of their courses, perhaps including compulsory work for all students. By making algebra 1 & 2 and geometry 1 & 2 as each as part of a Math metacourse, they acheive this goal.

* '''Scenario 2:''' Metacourses 1-4 are linked to Y which is a normal course. Students enrolling on Course Y are automatically enrolled on Metacourses 1-4. This would be used, for example, when all five courses are intended to have exactly the same students.

[[Image:Metacourses2_en.jpg|Upsidedown Metacourse Usage]]

In both diagrams you can see students being enrolled normally into standard courses and then the entire student list of a course being added to the Metacourse.

* '''Scenario 3:''' One or more meta courses are used as a library of resources and activities. For example, the English department has collected material useful in writing papers. Teachers can direct or embed a link to a specific reference about citations, or how to select a topic for a paper or suggested reading compiled by students.

* '''Scenario 4:''' The metacourse feature can also be used "in reverse." Say you have a Diploma program that involves courses D1, D2, D3, and D4. In this case, you would create a "Diploma" course as a normal course (non-metacourse). You would then designate programs D1 through D4 as metacourses (plus completing the student enrollment task under Course Administration). When a student enrolls in "Diploma", he or she will be automatically enrolled in courses D1 through D4.

==See also==
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=48901 Metacourses?], [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=54389 Metacourses and Roles in 1.7] and [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=39438 Best reference for describing a metacourse] forum discussions

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Enrolment]]

[[es:Metacourses]]
[[fr:Méta-cours]]
[[ja:メタコース]]
[[ru:Метакурсы]]

Migration

2007-05-28T14:16:59Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

== Migrating to/from Moodle ==

*[[WebCT migration|Migrating from WebCT]] (whether Campus Edition or Vista) to Moodle
*[[Blackboard migration|Migrating from Blackboard]] to Moodle
*[[Learnwise migration|Migrating from Learnwise]] to Moodle
*[[Migration from Moodle|Migrating to another system]] from Moodle

== Miscellaneous import/export ==
* [[Import PowerPoint]] into lesson feature in 1.6
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=24572 Import Powerpoint html to lesson] forum discussion
*[http://www.openoffice.org/ OpenOffice] - this software can be used to convert Powerpoint files to Flash animations, which can then be loaded into Moodle

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Developer]]
[[ja:移行作業]]

Messaging

2007-05-28T14:16:11Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

Site-wide messaging may be disabled/enabled by the Administrator in the permissions section of ''Administration > Configuration > Variables'' (1.6) or in ''Administration > Security > Site policies'' (1.7 onwards).

Unlike [[Forums]] and [[Chats]], Messaging is non-course specific i.e. students may send messages to each other regardless of whether they are enrolled on the same course. Your profile page contains a "Messages" button for opening the Messages window. Alternatively, to encourage the use of messaging in your course, you may wish to add a [[Messages block]] and/or an [[Online Users block]] to your course page.

==Sending messages==

To send a message to an individual:
#In the Messages window click on the Search tab to search for the person, if appropriate checking the box "Only in my courses", then click on their name. (Alternatively, if the person is listed in the Online Users block, simply click on the "Add/send message" envelope opposite their name.)
#Type the message in the pop-up box then click on the "Send message" button.

To send a message to selected course participants (for teachers only):
#Click on the Participants link in the People bock on the course page.
#Select participants from the list or use the "Select all" button at the bottom of the list.
#Choose "Add/send message" from the "With selected users..." drop-down menu.
#Type the message then click the "Preview" button.
#Assuming you are satisfied with the message, click the "Send" button.

==Reading and replying to messages==

When you are sent a message, the Messages window will pop-up. Also, the Messages block will display the name of the person sending the message with a link to read the message. If you have set the email option (see Message Settings below), then you will get a copy of the message in your email after the time you have specified if you are not logged in.

After reading a message, you may type a reply then click on the "Send message" button.

==Searching messages==

In addition to searching for people, the Search tab in the Messages window provides the option to search for keywords, only messages to or from you, and to include in the search people you have previously blocked from contacting you.

[[Image:MsgSearch.jpg|frame|none|Message window Search tab]]

==Managing contacts==

People may be added to your list of contacts (or blocked from contacting you) by clicking the "Add contact" (or "Block contact") icon opposite their name in the Messages window.

By default the contact list is empty. In order to send a message or to create a shortcut to the person you are sending, go to the Search tab.

[[Image:MsgContacts.jpg|frame|none|Message window Contacts tab]]

==Message history==

A record of messages sent to/from a person may obtained by clicking the "History" icon opposite their name in the Messages window.

==Message settings==

Message settings may be changed via the Settings tab in the Messages window.

Here you can decide on having a popup Message window whenever you get a new message, blocking messages from people who are not on your Contacts list, having an audio signal for a new message, using a HTML editor, or getting email messages when you are offline.

[[Image:MsgSettings.jpg|frame|none|Message window Settings tab]]

==See also==

* [[Messaging enhancements]]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?f=476 Messaging forum]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=58977 How can I see student messages?] forum discussion
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=34972 Viewing old messages?] forum discussion

[[Category: Teacher]]
[[Category: Messaging]]

[[es:Mensajería]]
[[fr:Messagerie]]
[[ja:メッセージング]]

Environment

2007-05-28T14:13:01Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

This setting allows administrators compare their server with the minimum requirements for hosting a particular version of moodle.

==1.5.3==

*MySQL version - 3.23 or later is required
*PHP version - 4.1.0 or later is required
*The php_extension mbstring is recommended to be installed/enabled

==1.6==

*MySQL version 4.1.12 or later for sites that are exclusively [http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html Latin-1], 4.1.16 if you have other languages, or PostgreSQL 7.4.x or later.
*PHP version 4.3.0 or later is required (but don't use versions 5.0.0 to 5.0.6 which were buggy)
*The php_extension iconv is recommended to be installed/enabled
*The php_extension mbstring is recommended to be installed/enabled

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[fr:Environnement]]
[[ja:環境]]

LDAP authentication

2007-05-28T14:10:19Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

This document describes how to set up Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) authentication in Moodle. We cover the basic, advanced and some trouble shooting sections to assist the user in the installation and administrating LDAP in Moodle.

==Basic Scenario==
The simple and straightforward approach for most installations.

===Assumptions===

# Your Moodle site is located at '''http://your.moodle.site/'''
# You have configured your PHP installation with the LDAP extension. It is loaded and activated, and it shows when you go to '''http://your.moodle.site/admin/phpinfo.php''' (logged in as user 'admin').
# Your LDAP server has '''192.168.1.100''' as its IP address.
# You are not using LDAP with SSL (also known as LDAPS) in your settings. This might prevent certain operations from working (e.g., you cannot update data if you are using MS Active Directory -- MS-AD from here on --), but should be OK if you just want to authenticate your users.
# You don't want your users to change their passwords the first time they log in into Moodle.
# You are using a single domain as the source of your authentication data in case you are using MS-AD (more on this in the Appendices).
# You are using a top level distinguished name (DN) of '''dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain''' as the root of your LDAP tree.
# You have a non-privileged LDAP user account you will use to bind to the LDAP server. This is not necessary with certain LDAP servers, but MS-AD requires this and it won't hurt if you use it even if your LDAP server doesn't need it. Make sure '''this account and its password don't expire''', and make this password as strong as possible. Remember you only need to type this password once, when configuring Moodle, so don't be afraid of making it as hard to guess as possible. Let's say this user account has a DN of '''cn=ldap-user,dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain''', and password '''hardtoguesspassword'''.
# All of your Moodle users are in an organizational unit (OU) called '''moodleusers''', which is right under your LDAP root. That OU has a DN of '''ou=moodleusers,dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain'''.
# You '''don't''' want your LDAP users' passwords to be stored in Moodle at all.

===Configuring Moodle authentication===

Log in as an admin user and go to Administration >> Users >> Authentication. In the drop down listbox titled "Choose an authentication method" select "Use an LDAP Server". You will get a page similar to this one:

<br>
::: [[Image:auth_ldap_config_screenshot.jpg]]
<br>

Now, you just have to fill in the values. Let's go step by step.
<br>
<br>

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5"
! Field name
! Value to fill in
|-
| ldap_host_url
| As the IP of your LDAP server is 192.168.1.100, type "'''ldap://192.168.1.100'''" (without the quotes).
|-
| ldap_version
| Unless you are using a really old LDAP server, '''version 3''' is the one you should choose.
|-
| ldap_preventpassindb
| As you '''don't''' want to store the users's password in Moodle's database, choose '''Yes''' here.
|-
| ldap_bind_dn
| This is the distinguished name of the bind user defined above. Just type "'''cn=ldap-user,dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain'''" (without the quotes).
|-
| ldap_bind_pw
| This is the bind user password defined above. Type "'''hardtoguesspassword'''" (without the quotes).
|-
| ldap_user_type
| Choose:
* '''Novel Edirectory''' if your LDAP server is running Novell's eDdirectory.
* '''posixAccount (rfc2307)''' if your LDAP server is running a RFC-2307 compatible LDAP server (choose this is your server is running OpenLDAP).
* '''posixAccount (rfc2307bis)''' if your LDAP server is running a RFC-2307bis compatible LDAP server.
* '''sambaSamAccount (v.3.0.7)''' if your LDAP server is running with SAMBA's 3.x LDAP schema extension and you want to use it.
* '''MS ActiveDirectory''' if your LDAP server is running Microsoft's Active Directory (MS-AD)
|-
| ldap_contexts
| The DN of the context (container) where all of your Moodle users are found. Type '''ou=moodleusers,dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain''' here.
|-
| ldap_search_sub
| If you have any sub organizational units (subcontexts) hanging from '''ou=moodleusers,dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain''' and you want Moodle to search there too, set this to '''yes'''. Otherwise, set this to '''no'''.
|-
| ldap_opt_deref
| Sometimes your LDAP server will tell you that the real value you are searching for is in fact in another part of the LDAP tree (this is called an alias). If you want Moodle to 'dereference' the alias and fetch the real value from the original location, set this to '''yes'''. If you don't want Moodle to dereference it, set this to '''no'''. If you are using MS-AD, set this to '''no'''.
|-
| ldap_user_attribute
| The attribute used to name/search users in your LDAP tree. This option takes a default value based on the ''ldap_user_type'' value you choosed above. <u>So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in</u>.

By the way, it's usually '''cn''' (Novell eDirectory and MS-AD) or '''uid''' (RFC-2037, RFC-2037bis and SAMBA 3.x LDAP extension), but if you are using MS-AD you could use '''sAMAccountName''' (the pre-Windows 2000 logon account name) if you need too.
|-
| ldap_memberattribute
| The attribute used to list the members of a given group. This option takes a default value based on the ''ldap_user_type'' value you choosed above. <u>So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in.</u>

By the way, the usual values are '''member''' and '''memberUid'''.
|-
| ldap_objectclass
| The type of LDAP object used to search for users. This option takes a default value based on the ''ldap_user_type'' value you choosed above. <u>So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in.</u>

Here are the default values for each of the ''ldap_user_type'' values:
* '''User''' for Novel eDirectory
* '''posixAccount''' for RFC-2037 and RFC-2037bis
* '''sambaSamAccount''' for SAMBA 3.0.x LDAP extension
* '''user''' for MS-AD
|-
| Force change password
| Set this to ''Yes'' if you want to force your users to change their password on the first login into Moodle. Otherwise, set this to ''no''. Bear in mind the password they are forced to change is the one stored in your LDAP server.

<u>As you don't want your users to change their passwords in their first login, leave this set to ''No''</u>
|-
| Use standard Change Password Page
|
* Setting this to ''Yes'' makes Moodle use it's own standard password change page, everytime users want to change their passwords.
* Setting this to ''No'' makes Moodle use the the page specified in the field called "Change password URL" (at the bottom of the configuration page).

Bear in mind that changing your LDAP passwords from Moodle might require a LDAPS connection (this is true at least for MS-AD).

Also, code for changing passwords from Moodle for anything but Novell eDirectory is almost not tested, so this may or may not work for other LDAP servers.
|-
| ldap_expiration
|
* Setting this to ''No'' will make Moodle not to check if the password of the user has expired or not.
* Setting this to ''LDAP'' will make Moodle check if the LDAP password of the user has expired or not, and warn her a number of days before the password expires.

Current code only deals with Novell eDirectory LDAP server, but there is a patch floating around to make it work with MS-AD too (search in the authentication forum).

<u>So unless you have Novell eDirectory server (or use the patch), choose ''No'' here.</u>
|-
| ldap_expiration_warning
| This value sets how many days in advance of password expiration the user is warned that her password is about to expire.
|-
| ldap_exprireattr
| The LDAP user attribute used to check password expiration. This option takes a default value based on the ''ldap_user_type'' value you choosed above. <u>So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in.</u>
|-
| ldap_gracelogins
| This setting is specific to Novell eDirectory. If set to ''Yes'', enable LDAP gracelogin support. After password has expired the user can login until gracelogin count is 0.

<u>So unless you have Novell eDirectory server and want to allow gracelogin support, choose ''No'' here.</u>
|-
| ldap_graceattr
| This setting is currently not used in the code (and is specific to Novell eDirectory).

<u>So you don't need to fill this in.</u>
|-
| ldap_create_context
|
|-
| ldap_creators
| The DN of the group that contains all of your Moodle creators. This is typically a posixGroup with a "memberUid" attribute for each user you want to be a creator. If your group is called ''creators'', type '''cn=creators,ou=moodleusers,dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain''' here. Each memberUid attribute contains the CN of a user who is authorized to be a creator. Do not use the user's full DN (e.g., not '''memberUid: cn=JoeTeacher,ou=moodleusers,dc-my,dc=organizations,dc=domain''', but rather '''memberUid: JoeTeacher''').

In eDirectory, the objectClass for a group is (by default) not '''posixGroup''' but '''groupOfNames,''' whose member attribute is '''member,''' not '''memberUid,''' and whose value is the full DN of the user in question. Although you can probably modify Moodle's code to use this field, a better solution is just to add a new '''objectClass''' attribute of '''posixGroup''' to your creators group and put the CNs for each creator in a '''memberUid''' attribute.

In MS Active Directory, you will need to create a security group for your creators to be part of and then add them all. If your ldap context above is 'ou=staff,dc=my,dc=org' then your group should then be 'cn=creators,ou=staff,dc=my,dc=org'. If some of the users are from other contexts and have been added to the same security group, you'll have to add these as separate contexts after the first one using the same format.
|-
| First name
| The name of the attribute that holds the first name of your users in your LDAP server. This is usually '''givenName'''.

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Surname
| The name of the attribute that holds the surname of your users in your LDAP server. This is usually '''sn'''.

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Email address
| The name of the attribute that holds the email address of your users in your LDAP server. This is usually '''mail'''.

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Phone 1
| The name of the attribute that holds the telephone number of your users in your LDAP server. This is usually '''telephoneNumber'''.

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Phone 2
| The name of the attribute that holds an additional telephone number of your users in your LDAP server. This can be '''homePhone''', '''mobile''', '''pager''', '''facsimileTelephoneNumber''' or even others.

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Department
| The name of the attribute that holds the department name of your users in your LDAP server. This is usully '''departmentNumber''' (for posixAccount and maybe eDirectory) or '''department''' (for MS-AD).

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Address
| The name of the attribute that holds the street address of your users in your LDAP server. This is usully '''streetAddress''' or '''street'.

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| City/town
| The name of the attribute that holds the city/town of your users in your LDAP server. This is usully '''l''' (lowercase L) or '''localityName''' (not valid in MS-AD).

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Country
| The name of the attribute that holds the couuntry of your users in your LDAP server. This is usully '''c''' or '''countryName''' (not valid in MS-AD).

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Description
| '''description'''

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| ID Number
|

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Language
| '''preferredLanguage'''

<u>This setting is optional</u>
|-
| Instructions
|
|}

The rest of the fields are common to all authentication methods and will not be discussed here..

==Active Directory Troubleshooting Help==

===Warning: The PHP LDAP module does not seem to be present. Please ensure it is installed and enabled.===
This usually means that the main ldap dll or one of the supporting dlls are missing.
Let's start with the main one itself.
Browse to http://(moodleserver)/admin/phpinfo.php and examine the "Configuration File (php.ini) Path" field to determine which php.ini is being used and open it with an editor. Find the line 'extension=php_ldap.dll' and take out the semi-colon if it is there. That semi-colon will stop it loading the module all together!
While you have that file open, search for 'extension_dir' and note which folder it is set to. Open that folder and ensure the php_ldap.dll file is in there. If it isn't then put it in there.
If that still hasn't fixed it you are missing a supporting dll, but you don't get told that. To see what dlls are missing open the Command Prompt and navigate to the php directory and execute the following line 'php -m'. You should get some error messages now. Ugly, but at least they give you information! Find the dlls listed and copy them to the php directory. You may now need to restart the apache/httpd service. Run 'php -m' again and you should be error free and the message in Moodle should be gone now.

===LDAP-module cannot connect any LDAP servers : Server: 'ldap://my.ldap.server/' Connection: 'Resource id #26' Bind result: ''===
Getting this message when you are trying to log in is a result of incorrect details for the Bind user, or the user account having insufficient permissions in Active Directory. The best way to test and resolve this is use ldp.exe to test binding until it suceeds. There are instructions on installing ldp.exe below.
Open the program and Connect to AD, giving the server name, then from the Connection menu choose Bind. Enter the details you think are correct and you will probably find that an error is returned. Try adjusting the accounts priveleges or another account until you are returned an "Authenticated as" message.
Once you are sure your account can be used to bind to AD, check that the DN of that users name is correct. Expand the tree on the left until you find the user you used to bind. Right click on that item and choose Copy DN. Go to the User Authentication page in Moodle and paste the value into the ldap_bind_dn field. Add the password and you can now feel safe your user is binding sucessfully.

===Getting correct CNs for Contexts and Creators===
For those not familiar with AD this could be very confusing, and not that easy for some who are familiar with it. Again, ldp.exe is your friend. There are instructions on installing ldp.exe below.
Open it up and expand the tree on the left until you find the group or user you want to use and right click on it and select Copy DN. Go back to the Moodle User Authentication page and paste that value into either ldap_contexts or ldap_creators.

===Getting the right user_attribute===
By default, Moodle uses an accounts cn (full name) to verify against, but most networks don't use a full given name for logon as it's too easy to guess and you can easily have two people with the same name. If this is the case for you too you need to tell Moodle to look at another field for the logon id.
In ldp.exe navigate the tree on the left to find a user account, preferably your own. Double-click the item in the tree and full-details will be loaded into the screen on the right. Look down the details until you find your logon id and note the item listed against it. For me, and a lot of people, it is sAMAccountName. Copy this name and paste it into the ldap_user_attribute on the Moodle User Authentication page.
There are instructions on installing ldp.exe below.

===Installing ldp.exe Server Tool===
ldp.exe comes as part of the Server Tools on most versions of Windows Server. Find your Windows Server installation disc and find a folder on it called Support\Tools. In there will be a SupTools.msi which will install the server tools if run. You should now have a folder under Program Files called Support Tools, in which will be ldp.exe. ldp.exe is also available in the Windows XP Support Tools, which you can download from Microsoft [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=49AE8576-9BB9-4126-9761-BA8011FABF38&displaylang=en here]. Alternatively, a single download of ldp.exe is available [http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/w2k3/utilities/ldp.htm here].

===Example Active Directory Configuration===
Below is an example configuration for Active Directory. As detailed above, the values may vary based on your local Active Directory configuration, but should provide a good starting point for most cases.

ldap_host_url = ldap://ads.example.com
ldap_version = 3
ldap_preventpassindb = yes
ldap_bind_dn = bind-user@example.com
ldap_bind_pw = bind-password
ldap_user_type = MS ActiveDirectory
ldap_contexts = ou=moodleusers,dc=example,dc=com
ldap_user_attribute = sAMAccountName

==Advanced Scenarios - Multiple servers or locations==
For larger installations with multiple LDAP servers, or multiple locations (contexts) in a LDAP tree.

===Using multiple LDAP Servers===
Entering more than one name in the ldap_host_url field can provide some sort of resilience to your system. Simply use the syntax :
ldap://my.first.server ; ldap://my.second.server ; ...

Of course, this will only work if all the servers share the same directory information, using a replication or synchronization mecanism once introduced in eDirectory and now generalized to the main LDAP-compatible directories.

There is one drawback in Moodle 1.5 - 1.6 implementation of LDAP authentication : the auth_ldap_connect() function processes the servers sequentially, not in a round robin mode. Thus, if the primary server fails, you will have to wait for the connection to time out before switching to the following one.

===Using multiple user locations (contexts) in your LDAP tree===
There is no need to use multiple user locations if your directory tree is flat, i.e. if all user accounts reside in a '''ou=people,dc=my,dc=organization,dc=domain''' or '''ou=people,o=myorg''' container.

At the opposite, if you use the ACL mecanism to delegate user management, there are chances that your users will be stored in containers like '''ou=students,ou=dept1,o=myorg''' and '''ou=students,ou=dept2,o=myorg''' ...

Then there is an alternative :
* Look at the '''o=myorg''' level with the ldap_search_sub attribute set to '''yes'''.
* Set the ldap_context to '''ou=students,ou=dept1,o=myorg ; ou=students,ou=dept2,o=myorg'''.

Choosing between these two solutions supposes some sort of benchmarking, as the result depends heavily on the structure of your directory tree '''and''' on your LDAP software indexing capabilities. Simply note that there is a probability in such deep trees that two users share the same ''common name'' (cn), while having different ''distinguished names''. Then only the second solution will have a deterministic result (returning allways the same user).

===Using LDAPS (LDAP + SSL)===
====MS Active Directory + SSL ====

If the Certificate Authority is not installed you'll have to install it first as follows:
# Click '''Start''' -> '''Control Panel''' -> '''Add or Remove programs.'''
# Click '''Add/Remove Windows Components''' and select '''Certificate Services.'''
# Follow the procedure provided to install the '''Certificate Authority'''. Enterprise level is a good choice.

Verify that SSL has been enabled on the server by installing suptools.msi from Windows installation cd's \Support\tools directory. After support tools installation:
# Select '''Start''' -> '''Run''', write '''ldp''' in the Open field.
# From the ldp window select '''Connection''' -> '''Connect''' and supply valid hostname and port number '''636'''. Also select the SSL check box.

If successful, you should get information about the connection.

Next step is to tell PHP's OpenLDAP extension to disable SSL certificate checking. On Windows servers you're most likely using pre-compiled PHP version, where you must create a path ''C:\OpenLDAP\sysconf''. In this path create a file called "ldap.conf" with content:

TLS_REQCERT never.

Now you should be able to use '''ldaps://''' when connecting to MS-AD.

==Appendices==

===Child Domains and the Global Catalog in MS Active Directory===

Moodle currently only has limited support for multiple domain controllers; specifically it expects each of the LDAP servers listed to contain identical sets of information. If you have users in multiple domains this presents an issue. One solution when working with MS-AD is to use the Global Catalog. The Global Catalog is designed to be a read-only, partial representation of an entire MS-AD forest, designed for searching the entire directory when the domain of the required object is not known.

For example your organisation has a main domain example.org, staff and students are contained in two child domains staff.example.org and students.example.org. The 3 domains (example.org, staff.example.org and students.example.org) each have a domain controller (dc01, dc02 and dc03 respectively.) Each domain controller contains a full, writable, representation of only the objects that belong to its domain. However, assuming that the Global Catalog has been enabled (see below) on one of the domain controllers (for example dc01) a query to the Global Catalog would reveal matching objects from all three domains. The Global Catalog is automatically maintained through replication across the active directory forest, it can also be enabled on multiple servers (if, for example, you need redundancy / load balancing.)

To make use of this in Moodle to allow logins from multiple domains is simple. The Global Catalog runs on port 3268 as opposed to 389 for standard LDAP queries. As a result, still assuming the Global Catalog is running on dc01, the ''''ldap_host_url'''' would be ''ldap://dc01.example.org:3268''. The rest of the settings are the same as for other MS-AS Auth setups.

You should use the ''''ldap_contexts'''' setting to indicate the locations of individuals you wish to grant access. To extend the example above a little: In the example.org domain users are all in the'' 'Users' ''OU, in the staff.example.org domain users are in two OUs at the root of the domain,'' 'Support Staff' ''and'' 'Teaching Staff' '', and in the students.example.org domain students are in an OU indicating the year that they enrolled, all of which are under the'' 'Students' ''OU. As a result our ''''ldap_contexts'''' setting may look a little like this:'' 'OU=Users,DC=example,DC=org; OU=Support Staff,DC=staff,DC=example,DC=org; OU=Teaching Staff,DC=staff,DC=example,DC=org; OU=Students,DC=students,DC=example,DC=org''.' The ''''ldap_search_sub'''' option should be set to'' 'Yes' ''to allow moodle to search within the child OUs.

Its worth noting that the Global Catalog only contains a partial representation of the attributes of each object, as defined in the Partial Attribute Set supplied by Microsoft. However common information likely to be of use to a general Moodle installation (Forename, Surname, Email Address, sAMAccountName etc) is included in the set. For specific needs the schema can be altered to remove or add various attributes.

In most cases the Global Catalog is read-only, update queries must be made over the standard LDAP ports to the domain controller that holds the object in question (in our example, updating a student's details would require an LDAP query to the students.example.org domain controller - dc03, it would not be possible to update details by querying the Global Catalog.) The exception to this would be in an environment where there is only a single domain in the active directory forest; in this case the Global Catalog holds a writable full set of attributes for each object in the domain. However, for the purposes of Moodle authorisation, there would be no need to use the Global Catalog in this case.

===Enabling the Global Catalog===

The Global Catalog is available on Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Active Directory servers. To enable, open the ‘Active Directory Sites and Services’ MMC (Microsoft Management Console) snap-in. Extend ‘Sites’ and then the name of the Site containing the active directory forest you wish to use. Expand the server you wish to enable the Global Catalog on, right click ‘NTDS settings’ and select the ‘Properties’ tab. To enable, simply click the ‘Global Catalog’ checkbox. Under a Windows 2000 server it is necessary to restart the server (although it won’t prompt you to); under Windows 2003 server it is not necessary to restart the server. In either case you will generally have to wait for the AD forest to replicate before the Global Catalog offers a representation of the entire AD forest. Changes made in Active Directory will also be subject to a short delay due to the latency involved with replication. If your AD servers are firewalled port 3268 will need to be opened for Global Catalog servers.
If your organisation uses Microsoft Exchange then it its highly likely that at least one Domain Controller will already have Global Catalog enabled – Exchange 2000 and 2003 rely on the Global Catalog for address information, users also access the Global Catalog when using the GAL (Global Address List)

===ldap auth_user_create() only suports Novell===

After configuring user authentication with ldap I realized ldap only support edir (Novell) when combining ldap an email user confirmation. For example in my case (I use openldap) I have the following error after filling the user form:

auth: ldap auth_user_create() does not support selected usertype:"rfc2307" (..yet)

==See also==

*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=42 Using Moodle: User authentication] forum
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=32168 PHP LDAP module does not seem to be present] forum discussion
* [[LDAP enrolment]]

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Authentication]]

[[es:LDAP_authentication]]
[[fr:Utiliser un serveur LDAP]]
[[ja:LDAP認証]]
[[zh:LDAP认证]]

Maintenance mode

2007-05-28T14:07:47Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

The idea of maintenance mode is to prevent any users other than admin to use the site while the maintenance process takes place.

When students/guests/teachers try access a course in maintenance mode, they will obtain a message saying the course is in maintenance mode. A customized message may be added, perhaps stating when the site will be available again or giving the reason for doing maintenance.

If for some reason the webinterface is not available you can also put the Moodle installation in maintenance mode by creating a file called ''maintenance.html'' in the folder called ''1'' in your moodle data folder. Any text in that file will be displayed to users trying to access anything other than the frontpage.

==See also==
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=46451 Maintenance mode?] forum discussion

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[fr:Mode de maintenance]]
[[ja:メンテナンスモード]]

Backup and restore FAQ

2007-05-28T14:05:43Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

{{FAQ}}
;Site backups
:Site backups, as explained in [[Upgrading_Moodle#Backup_important_data|upgrading Moodle]], are recommended in order to have all data saved with the best confidence and the shortest recovery time.

;Course backups
:Course backups, configured on the [[admin/backup|backup]] page, are more expensive in terms of time and CPU usage. The recovery time to have your site running again is longer. Course backups are useful for obtaining "fresh" copies of courses to be re-used or distributed individually, however they should never be used as a primary backup system (unless your hosting doesn't allow the preferred site backups). In order to make scheduled backups, you have to set up CRON to run periodically. Please refer to the [[Cron|cron instructions]].

==How do I backup my whole Moodle site?==

There are two main things you need to make a copy of - the database and the uploaded files. The Moodle scripts themselves are less important, since you can always download a fresh copy if you have to.

There are many ways to do such backups. Here is an outline of a little script you can run on Unix to backup the database (it works well to have such a script run daily via a cron task):

cd /my/backup/directory
mv moodle-database.sql.gz moodle-database-old.sql.gz
mysqldump -h example.com -u myusername --password=mypassword -C -Q -e -a mydatabasename > moodle-database.sql
gzip moodle-database.sql

For the files, you can use rsync regularly to copy only the changed files to another host:

rsync -auvtz --delete -e ssh mysshusername@example.com:/my/server/directory /my/backup/directory/

'''Character Encoding'''

When dumping the entire Moodle database, Administrators should be careful to watch for possible character encoding issues. In some instances, backups created with mysqldump or phpmyadmin may not properly encode all of the data resulting in spurious A characters. One solution is to use mySQL Administrator 1.1 or another tool that will force a UTF-8 dump of the data.

==How do I restore a backup of my whole Moodle site?==

If you have followed the above instructions and created a backup of a Moodle site, you may need to know how to restore the site backup you created. Here is a set of basic steps that make up the restore process.

1. Rename the original moodle directory to something different (so you still have it) and copy the backed up moodle directory or a newly downloaded moodle directory in its place.

2. If you are running mysql, a backup of the database should be a .sql, .gz or .tar.gz file. If it is .tar.gz or .gz you need to extract it until it is an sql file.

tar -xzvf moodlesqlfile.tar.gz

3. If you are running mysql, import the sql file back into a newly created database on the mysql server. Be careful here, some backups try to import right back into the same working database that moodle is connected to. This causes database problems that damage a Moodle installation. The best thing to do is make a new database, restore the backed up database into it, and change the Moodle config.php file to connect to this new database (this way you still have the original database).

once you have created the new database:
mysql -p new_database < moodlesqlfile.sql

==What data is not contained in course backups?==

By selecting all the options when setting up the backup you can include almost all the data in the course. However you should be aware of the fact that some things are not backed up:
* Quiz questions are only backed up if at least one question from their category has been added to a quiz.
* Scales are only backed up if they are used by at least one activity.

==Error: An error occurred deleting old backup data==

This part of the backup (or restore) procedure tries to delete old info, used in previous executions, performing the following tasks:

* Delete old records from "backup_ids" table: Check the table exists, repair it and try again.

* Delete old records from "backup_files" table: Check the table exists, repair it and try again.

* Delete old files from "moodledata/temp/backup": Delete the dir completely and try again.

There are various ways of repairing tables, including using MySQL Admin.

==XML error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line YYYY==

This problem can appear at any point in the restore process. It's caused when the XML parser detects something incorrect in the backup file that prevent correct operation. Usually, it's caused by some "illegal" characters added in the original course due to some copy/paste of text containing them (control characters, or invalid sequences...).

The best method to handle this issue is:

* Unzip the problematic backup file under one empty folder.

* Open the moodle.xml with Firefox. It will show you where (exact char) the problem is happening.

* Edit the moodle.xml file with some UTF8-compatible editor and delete such characters. Save changes.

* Test the moodle.xml file again with Firefox until no error was displayed.

* Zip everything again (all the folder contents but not the folder itself!).

* Restore the course. It should work now.

* Restore still not working? See the next paragraph.

Also, if possible, it's highly recommended to solve those problems in the original course too from Moodle itself. Once "repaired" there, problems will be out if you create new backup files in the future.

==Still XML error: how to clean xml borked file==

In some cases XML backup files may contain characters causing the restore process to abort, even after the steps described in the previous paragraph. In such cases you may want to try the following:

* Download the [http://repository.atlassian.com/atlassian-xml-cleaner/jars/atlassian-xml-cleaner-0.1.jar Atlassian XML Cleanr Utility] from the [http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Removing+invalid+characters+from+XML+backups JIRA Atlassian site].

* Unzip the problematic Moodle backup file under one empty folder. Moodle will create the course file folders as long as the unclean moodle.xml file. Please unzip using the Moodle unzip feature.

* Rename the unclean moodle.xml file to moodle-unclean.xml.

* If you don't have access to your Moodle server's command prompt, using the Moodle zip feature, zip the moodle-unclean.xml file only, download the zip file locally and unzip it. It is very important to download the xml file in zipped format to avoid unwanted charachter encoding when transferring from an operating system to another.

* Move the downloaded Atlassian XML Cleaner Utility in the same folder where is your moodle-unclean.xml file.

* Issue the following command from the command prompt:

java -jar atlassian-xml-cleaner-0.1.jar moodle-unclean.xml > moodle.xml

* If you launched the utility on your local computer, zip the just created (and hopefully cleaned) moodle.xml file and upload it in the same place from where you downloaded the moodle-unclean.xml file. Once uploaded, unzip it using the Moodle unzip feature.

* Zip everything again (all the folder contents but the folder itself!).

* Restore the course. It should work now.

==Some of your courses weren't saved!!==

There are three possible causes of this problem:
# Error - this happens when the backup procedure has found an error and so hasn't finished the backup of a particular course. These are "controlled" errors and the scheduled backup continues with the next course.
# Unfinished - this happens when the backup procedure dies without knowing why. When the cron is next executed it detects that the last execution went wrong, and continues skipping the problematic course. A possible solution would be to raise the PHP/Apache limit in your installation (memory, time of execution...). By taking a look to your log tables you should be able to see if the "crash" is happening at exact time intervals (usually a problem with the max_execution_time php's variable), or if there is some exact point were all the courses are breaking (generally internal zip libraries, try to switch to external executables instead).
# Skipped - this happens when a course is unavailable to students and has not been changed in the last month (31 days). This isn't an error situation - it's a feature, especially useful for sites with many unavailable old courses, saving process time.

==Restoring pre 1.6 non-ISO-8859-1 backups to Moodle 1.6 - Unicode==

Any backup files with contents which are not 100% ISO-8859-1 will be a problem to restore to Moodle 1.6 (and upwards) running under Unicode. Instead, please try the following:

# Make a clean install of Moodle 1.5.x (the latest version available)
# Restore all your courses there (they should work if they were working originally)
# Upgrade your site to Moodle 1.6 and run the UTF-8 migration script
# Backup your courses again

This will produce a new set of backup files that will be 100% UTF-8 and you will be able to use them with Moodle 1.6 without any problems.

==Why are some courses being skipped?==

From 1.6 onwards, course backups automatically skip courses which are unavailable to students AND have not been changed in the last month.

== See also ==

*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?f=128 Backup and Restore forum]
*[[Backup restore]] Version 1.6 description of screens for both
*[[Restore]] almost same as backup_restore
*[[Roll courses forward]] new Version 1.7 option
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=66708 Scheduled backup fails] forum discussion including possible solution to "An error occured while copying files".

== External links ==

*[http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mysql/article.php/10897_3300511_2 Repairing Database Corruption in MySQL]

[[Category:FAQ]]
[[Category:Backup]]

[[es:FAQ Backup]]
[[fr:FAQ de sauvegarde]]
[[ja:バックアップFAQ]]

Automated course backup

2007-05-28T14:04:23Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

The backup configuration page enables administrators to configure automated course backups and a backup schedule. This menu can be found in the administration block under configuration.

*Course backups are more expensive in terms of time and CPU usage. The recovery time to have your site running again is longer.
*Course backups are useful for obtaining "fresh" copies of courses to be re-used or distributed individually, however they should never be used as a primary backup system (unless your hosting doesn't allow the preferred site backups).
*In order to make scheduled course backups, you have to setup CRON to run periodically. Have a look at [[Cron|Set up cron]] for details.
*Site backups, as explained in [[Upgrading_Moodle#Backup_important_data|upgrading Moodle]], are recommended in order to have all data saved with the best confidence and the shorter recovery time.
{{Moodle 1.6}}
*From 1.6 onwards, course backups automatically skip courses which are unavailable to students AND have not been changed in the last month.

==See also==

*[[Backup FAQ]]
*[[Backup restore]]
[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Backup]]

[[fr:Sauvegarde (administrateur)]]
[[ja:バックアップ (管理者)]]

Filters

2007-05-28T14:03:28Z

Topstone: link to Japanese

'''Filters''' allow for the automatic transformation of entered text into different, often more complex forms. For example the titles of [[Resources|resources]] can automatically become hyperlinks that take you to the relevant resource, URLs pointing to [[mp3]] files can become [[Flash]] controls embedded in the webpage that let you pause and rewind the audio. The possibilities are endless and there are a number of standard filters included with Moodle and many more specialized filters contributed by the community.

Filters are one of Moodle's pluggable resources and may be added or removed simply by using a file manager to add or remove them from the /filters directory. Moodle detects those that are present and makes them available to use.

In versions prior to 1.7, the filters manager and individual filter settings may be found in the site administration block >> [[Configuration]] >> Filters. In 1.7 it can be found in the administration block >> Modules >> Filters.

[[Image:Filters_configuration_table.JPG|thumb|300px|left|Moodle 1.6 Filters administration]]
Prior to Moodle 1.6 the filters administration screen has two columns - '''active''' and '''inactive'''. The arrows are used to move filters from one column to the other. Only filters in the active column will be applied. Note that up and down arrows are provided to the left of the '''active''' column to enable the order in which filters are applied to be changed. In some cases this can be significant.
{{Moodle 1.6}}
Moodle 1.6 has a more unified administration screen (similar to the modules and blocks administration screens).

The filters administration screen enables individual filters to be shown (enabled) or hidden (disabled). Only enabled filters will be applied to displayed text. The order in which filters are applied to displayed text can be significant - you can change the order in which enabled filters are applied using the up and down buttons. The enabled filters are applied from the top of the list down. Some filters have their own settings screen. Please refer to the documentation for the individual filter for more information.

Underneath the filter selection area, there are fields which control the cache.
<br style="clear:both;"/>

==Filters==

*Activity Names Auto-linking - This scans text for activity titles that exist in the same course and creates a link.
*[[Algebra filter|Algebra]] - This filter will convert algebra code into GIF images. It requires the tex filter to be installed ([[#TeX notation|see below]]). Note also that your system must also include the following Perl module: HTML::Entities.pm
*Database auto-linking - As the name suggests, this filter enables automatic linking of [[Database module]] entries.
*Email Protection - This filter scans the text for any email addresses. Where found they are changed to reduce the chance of being added to a spammers list.
*Glossary auto-linking - As the name suggests, this filter enables automatic linking of [[Glossary module]] entries. In addition to this filter, individual glossary entries should have the "This entry should be automatically linked" box checked.
*[[Multi language content]] - This filter enables resources to be created in multiple languages. It looks for <span lang="xx" class="multilang">...</span> tags which indicate that a text contains multiple languages. Then it selects and outputs the best language for the current user. The language of the resource will change when the user changes their selected Moodle language. Please note: going to the past, the multilang filter supported the <lang> tag. Then, officially, we changed it to the standard HTML <span> tag and the <lang> solution is now deprecated.
*[[Multimedia plugins]]
*Resource Names Auto-linking - The titles of [[Resources]] can automatically become hyperlinks that take you to the relevant resource within the same course.
*[[TeX filter|TeX notation]]
*Tidy - This filter checks whether HTML code is XHTML compliant, tidying where necessary. To make this filter work you need to have PHP compiled with the libtidy option; see http://www.php.net/tidy. The Using Moodle discussion [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=28418 Tidy Filter for Moodle 1.5] contains more details.
*Wiki Page Auto-linking
*[[Word censorship]] - This filter "blacks out" words found on a list.

==Cache Controls==
{{Moodle 1.6}}
*Text cache lifetime - To reduce load on the server and to speed display of pages, Moodle can store previously processed pages (that have not changed) for a period of time. This setting controls the time for which processed pages are stored. A longer setting may improve performance but has the effect that changes to pages may not become visible for a time. You can switch caching off completely here.
*Filter uploaded files - This setting enables uploaded files (HTML and text only) to be processed by the filters system. You can choose to have none, only HTML or all files filtered.
*Filter match once per page - This setting effects the glossary, activity and resource linking filters. If set to yes, only the first match on the complete page will be converted to a link. All others will be ignored.
*Filter match once per text - This setting effects the glossary, activity and resource linking filters. If set to yes, only the first match in a discrete block of text will be converted to a link. All others in that text block will be ignored.
*Filter all strings - When set to yes, almost all Moodle text will be filtered. This is probably only necessary when using the multi-language filter.

==Config.php settings==
{{Moodle 1.5}}
*For Moodle 1.6 see the Cache Settings above. For earlier versions of Moodle, the filter/config.php file will need to be changed for the visual effects below. The following two settings affect the glossary, activity and resource linking filters:
:To convert only the first matching title on a page, insert or uncomment the following line in config.php: <code>$CFG->filtermatchoneperpage = true;</code>
:To convert only the first matching title in a discrete block of text, insert or uncomment the following line in config.php: <code>$CFG->filtermatchonepertext = true;</code>

==See also==

*[[Development:Filters]]
Non-standard filters:

* [[Jmol filter|Jmol]] - for interactive 3D viewing of molecular structures
* [[Code Syntax Highlighting]] - for more readable excerpts of programming languages including [[PHP]], [[HTML]], [[CSS]], and XML amongst many others

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Filter]]

[[es:Filtros (Administrador)]]
[[fr:Filtres (administrateur)]]
[[ja:フィルタ (管理者)]]