Working Groups
What is a working group?
Working groups bring together experienced users, researchers and developers who are interested in working together to make Moodle better. They happen at MoodleMoots.
Working groups have the following characteristics.
- Topics are suggested from surveys, the Moodle Roadmap and from forum discussions. In future, topics may be put forward from the Moodle Association.
- Generally there is a leader (or leaders) who establishes the working group; the leaders may maintain some leadership during the project, such as mediating discussions and documenting ideas, but work is done by all participants.
- Most participants will be experienced end-users (teachers, admins, researchers, IDs) or developers, but advanced technical skills are not required.
- Participants may be asked to be involved in preparation prior to the working group in focussed discussions about the target Moodle function.
- On the first day of the MoodleMoot, working group members will meet together. A developer will be available to provide technical advice to the group, if necessary. The day is likely to progress as follows.
- Introductions and group formation
- Sharing of pre-existing solutions
- Discussion about target areas and generalisation focussing on the "what" rather than the "how"
- Iteration over work areas, elaborating and prioritising ideas in a collaborative document
- Preparing a report to share with the MoodleMoot
- Preparing questions for developers at the Hackfest
- In the next two days of the MoodleMoot, working groups will be given the opportunity to put their ideas to the community at the MoodleMoot and to gather feedback. Short plenary sessions are planned for this purpose.
- The day after the conference there will be a Hackfest that will bring together Moodle developers. Developers will have a chance to consider how the ideas of the working group can become a reality. Working groups will be represented by the working group leaders at the Hackfest.
- After the MoodleMoot, working group members are encouraged to remain involved as changes are implemented in later Moodle versions.
- Working group members may wish to experimentally test the value of their work as a research project, collaborating towards publishable results. While this is encouraged, it is not a mandatory part of working groups and will depend on the nature of the project.
Gradebook Working group 2014
Leaders: Mark McKay, Bob Puffer
The Gradebook working group was originally planned to be part of the Moodle Research Conference that was to be held in California, USA. When the MRC was cancelled, the Gradebook working group still took place.
- Most of the groups work was captured as Tracker issues in MDL-44673
- Significant outcomes of the working group were released in Moodle 2.8 and included the following.
- Ongoing work in course on moodle.org
MoodleMoot IEUK 2015
Two working groups were held at MoodleMootIEUK.
Dashboard
Leader: Mark Glynn
The working group looked at what teachers and students need from their Dashboard / My Home page, what other organisations have done and what should be changed and built for core Moodle.
- Discussion
- NEED INFORMATION HERE
Form Simplification
Leader: Artis Ivanovs
The purpose of this working group was to review and simplify forms that users (including new users) use every day and to provide more control to administrators over such forms.
The working group reviewed a number of common forms and made recommendations for usability improvements. Some reflected pre-existing issues and others were created as new issues.
MoodleMoot Australia 2015
MoodleMoot US 2015
- Moodle Instructional Assistant working group
- Gradebook working group
- Learning analytics working group
