Caliper

Introduction

The Caliper Logstore component uses the Moodle Logging interface to capture user events and emit them to a Caliper event store. The Caliper Framework is a specification from IMS Global which provides a data representation of learning activities and an API for transmitting these to an event store for later analysis. Metric profiles are used to describe different types of learning activity, allowing representations to be matched against the nature of the activity. Events may be sent immediately to the event store, or captured for sending later in batches.

Events supported

The following table shows the mapping of Moodle URLs to Caliper events supported by the current version of this component:

Supported Caliper Events

Metric Profile	Action	Moodle URL
Session	Logged In	\core\event\user_loggedin
	Logged Out	\core\event\user_loggedout
Navigation	Navigated To	\core\event\course_viewed
View	Viewed	\mod_book\event\course_module_viewed \mod_chat\event\course_module_viewed \mod_choice\event\course_module_viewed \mod_data\event\course_module_viewed \mod_facetoface\event\course_module_viewed \mod_feedback\event\course_module_viewed \mod_folder\event\course_module_viewed \mod_forum\event\course_module_viewed \mod_forum\event\user_report_viewed \mod_glossary\event\course_module_viewed \mod_imscp\event\course_module_viewed \mod_lesson\event\course_module_viewed \mod_lti\event\course_module_viewed \mod_page\event\course_module_viewed \mod_quiz\event\attempt_reviewed \mod_quiz\event\attempt_viewed \mod_quiz\event\course_module_viewed \mod_resource\event\course_module_viewed \mod_scorm\event\course_module_viewed \mod_survey\event\course_module_viewed \mod_url\event\course_module_viewed \mod_wiki\event\course_module_viewed \mod_workshop\event\course_module_viewed
Assessment	Started	\mod_quiz\event\attempt_started
	Submitted	\mod_quiz\event\attempt_submitted \mod_assign\event\assessable_submitted
Outcome	Graded	\mod_assign\event\submission_graded

How does it work?

The component adopts the same implementation method as the logstore component for xAPI. It is made up of three parts: an Expander, a Translator, and an Emitter. Each log entry follows a six step process before finally reaching the event store:

1. The component passes the log entry from the logstore_standard_log to the Expander.
2. The Expander expands the log entry with data from the Moodle database.
3. The component passes the expanded event from to the Translator.
4. The Translator translates the expanded event to Caliper metric profile options.
5. The component passes the translated event to the Emitter.
6. The Emitter emits the event to the event store using the Caliper Sensor API.

Installation

The component can be installed onto a Moodle 2.7+ instance as follows:

1. Download the component.
2. Log into your instance of Moodle as a System Administrator.
3. Go to /admin/tool/installaddon/ on your Moodle instance.
4. Drag and drop your download from step 1.
5. Click Install plugin from the ZIP file.
6. Click Install plugin!.
7. Click Upgrade Moodle database now.
8. Click Continue.
9. Complete the component's settings page:
   • Event Store URL;
   • API Key;
   • Send statements immediately to event store?;
   • Batch size.
10. Click Save changes.
11. Go to /admin/settings.php?section=managelogging on your Moodle instance.
12. Enable the Caliper log store component (use the Settings option to update the component's settings values).

NB If zip installation is disabled, you can unzip the zip file to /admin/tool/log/store instead of steps 3 to 5 above.

About the Contributors

This plugin was contributed by the Blackboard Product Development team in collaboration with Stephen Vickers. Blackboard is an education technology company dedicated to bringing excellent online teaching to institutions across the globe. We serve colleges and universities, schools and organizations by supporting the software that educators use to manage and deliver instructional content to learners in virtual classrooms. We are proud to be a Moodle Partner company.