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SchoolTool Integration

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Revision as of 22:01, 30 June 2009 by Matt Oquist 2 (talk | contribs)

The SchoolTool SIS project recently released version 1.0, and lots of people could benefit from a solid integration between Moodle and SchoolTool. This page is a work-in-progress specification for the first version of this integration.

Goal: Moodle-SchoolTool integration modeled on Moodle-Mahara integration.

  • SchoolTool-Mahara integration should require very little extra effort when this project is complete.
  • SchoolTool+Moodle+Mahara will provide a complete, integrated school administration/learning/portfolio suite that will be easily installable and supportable by time-crunched education systems administrators.

Requirements

  • Completely web-based integration configuration (similar to Moodle-Mahara configuration)
  • SSO between SchoolTool and Moodle
  • User accounts, courses, enrolments, assignments, and grades auto-update in SchoolTool
  • Automatic grade transfer from Moodle to SchoolTool

Integration v1.0 NON-Requirements

  • Users, courses, enrolments can originate in and be managed within SchoolTool, with Moodle updating from SchoolTool.
    • This will be the goal of the next version of the integration.

Assumptions

  • SchoolTool is the authoritative reporting application.
  • Moodle drives all data creation and management.

Supported versions

  • SchoolTool 1.0
  • Moodle 1.9.5+

Terminology Disambiguation

  • course: A SchoolTool course.
    • SchoolTool "course" has no Moodle analogue. ("Algebra 1") can have multiple "sections" ("Algebra * 1 @ 9:15 taught by Mr. Smith").
  • section: A SchoolTool section, a Moodle course.

Background info and references

Implementation notes/ideas

  • The PHP mnet library has been ported to python.
    • SchoolTool will need to use this library.
  • Moodle will need some awareness of SchoolTool in the mnet auth plugin. Not sure yet what this entails. (i.e., Mahara shows up in the list. We need SchoolTool in there, too.)
  • Moodle will need an enrolment plugin that gets data from mnet but is otherwise modeled on the external DB enrolment plugin.
  • Moodle will need a gradebook plugin that can pass grades to SchoolTool via mnet.
  • integration v1.0 will not batch updates from Moodle to SchoolTool. Updates will be small and frequent.

Use Cases

    • integration v1.0: Drop SchoolTool into existing Moodle site, leave Moodle as driver of user directory, enrollment management system.
      • No accounts manually created in SchoolTool can become integrated with Moodle.
      • All course creation and enrollment updates must happen first in Moodle and be transferred from there to SchoolTool.
      • Enrollment can be student-driven.
      • An interactive enrollment in Moodle kicks off an immediate transaction to record the enrollment in schooltool.
    • future integration version only: Drop SchoolTool into existing Moodle site, after bulk data transfer from Moodle->SchoolTool, flip configuration and use SchoolTool as the authoritative user directory and/or enrollment management system.
      • Could this be used to migrate to SchoolTool from another SIS (integrated somehow with Moodle) by way of Moodle?
    • Start fresh with both.
    • future integration version only: Drop Moodle into SchoolTool site.
      • maybe not important for v1.0, might basically come for free
    • future integration version only: Drop SchoolTool into Mahara site (and vice-versa)

Moodle mnet Interfaces

  • existing: SSO IDP interfaces
    • in integration v1.0, SchoolTool will only be a Service Provider and Moodle will always be the IDentity Provider
    • returns user data sufficient to create account
  • list_user_enrolments(user)
    • returns a list of all enrolments for a given user
    • SchoolTool may call this to get enrolment data ASAP when an unknown user authenticates and an account is created using user_authorise()

SchoolTool mnet Interfaces

  • new_user(userdata)
    • create new user account
    • userdata: associative array such as:
      • username=>moquist
      • firstname=>Matt
      • lastname=>Oquist
      • idnumber=>1234457 # unique ID shared by Moodle & SchoolTool
      • email=>moquist@majen.net
      • password_hash=>234lih23rlh2asldfjas
      • password_hash_algorithm=>md5
      • ircnick=>moquist
      • arbitrary_field=>arbitrary_data_string...
        • SchoolTool only cares about enough to create a login account.
        • SchoolTool does not care about student-editable profile fields.
  • new_section(sectiondata)
    • sectiondata: associative array such as:
      • name=>"Algebra 1 V1 Mrs. Smith: Cats and their Affectations"
      • idnumber=>197423 # unique ID shared by Moodle & SchoolTool
      • teacheridnumber=>987234 # unique ID shared by Moodle & SchoolTool
      • segment=>1 # a section may have more than one semester/segment/term(?)
  • new_enrolment(enrolmentdata)
    • create new association between user & section
    • enrolmentdata: associative array such as:
      • sectionid=>197423 # unique ID shared by Moodle & SchoolTool
      • userid=>987234 # unique ID shared by Moodle & SchoolTool
      • role=>'teacher' # only 'student' and 'teacher' supported in integration v1.0
  • new_assessment(assessmentdata)
    • create new assessment to be displayed in grade reports
    • assessmentdata: associative array such as:
      • sectionid=>197423 # unique ID shared by Moodle & SchoolTool
      • name=>"How to skin a logarithm"
      • idnumber=>73743734 # unique ID shared by Moodle & SchoolTool
      • chapternum=>3
      • honors_required=>false
      • nonhonors_required=>true
      • extra_credit=>false
      • pointval=>68
  • new_grade(gradedata)
    • make entry in gradebook
    • gradedata: associative array such as:
      • assessmentid=>73743734
      • userid=>2347234 # unique shared ID of student
      • points_earned=>62
      • excepted=>false
      • attempt_num=>1 # if multiple attempts are allowed

Planning meeting prep/notes (to be integrated above after meeting)

  • Write down some use cases about ST+Moodle integration
  • What user data will go between SchoolTool & Moodle?
    • Moodle & SchoolTool will share an idnumber(UUID) for each object they share.
    • Which user profile fields do SchoolTool & Moodle have in common?
    • Perhaps leave it up to Moodle admin whether to leave profile fields that can come from SchoolTool editable or locked.
    • Each system must be able to send enough data to the other for a login account to be created.
    • The integration will have a mechanism to prevent student logins even when their accounts exist (and SSO is configured). (This will be some sort of flag, that applies to groups so nobody needs to set it for each user. Ugh.)
  • What enrollment data will go between SchoolTool & Moodle?
    • What are SchoolTool's course status concepts, and how will these interact with Moodle? (e.g., is enrollment simply binary, or are there other status options?) -- Status will be added soon (see SchoolTool TODO list). Enrollment in SchoolTool consists of a group of students and a group of teachers associated with a course section. Moodle will simply treat all of these teachers as editing teachers and all of these students as students (as opposed to other roles).
  • What grade data will go between Moodle & ST?
    • One grade/student/course, or one grade/assessment/student/course? (Eventually want to provide admin(?) with option.)
  • Identify MNET interfaces published by Moodle & ST for this integration.
  • Produce mock-ups of the SSO, enrollment, & grading data. (XML)
  • Where will the python mnet library live?
  • Can we allow the admin to choose whether auth directory goes from SchoolTool to Moodle or vice-versa?
    • Definitely want bulk update via cron available for the chosen transfer direction.
    • Optionally allow on-demand update per user if used before bulk update via cron. (Moodle works this way now.)
  • Can we allow the admin to choose whether enrollment authority is in SchoolTool or Moodle?
    • Definitely want bulk update via cron available for the chosen transfer direction.
    • Optionally allow on-demand update per user if used before bulk update via cron. (Moodle works this way now.)
  • What will the code between SchoolTool and the python MNET library look like? (This is probably where zope-related considerations come into play.)
    • What, in summary, does MNET provide?
      • MNET is an XMLRPC implementation that dispatches messages to applications on either side (with a convention for function naming).
      • MNET has a security layer that enforces that every message is encrypted and signed (with regular key rotation).
      • MNET provides a core set of modules to provide common functionality such as SSO, key discovery, ping, and course enrollment.
  • Planning TODO list
    • Find out what reports ECHS will want from SchoolTool
  • SchoolTool TODO list
    • Add enumerated status field to enrollment (e.g., Active, Withdrawn No Grade, Withdrawn Failing, Passed) This will not initially include a workflow, but simply a current state and a history of states.
    • Prototype user creation via XMLRPC (as if Moodle sent info for a new user).
    • Optional: Prototype course creation in SchoolTool (as if Moodle sent info about a new course).
    • Also optional: Prototype section creation in SchoolTool.
    • Yet again, optional: Prototype section enrollment in SchoolTool.
    • Create an "ongoing section" container that will contain (otherwise normal) sections that do not fit into the year/term schema.
      • integration v1.0 will place all Moodle-driven sections in the "ongoing" container
    • Add support for section history
      • grading history
      • enrollment history (including all enrollment status changes)
      • teacher history