MoodleDocs - User contributions [en]

Upload users

2007-03-28T02:23:12Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

Users may be imported, enrolled on courses and organised into groups via flat file.

Firstly, note that '''it is usually not necessary to import users in bulk''' - to keep your own maintenance work down you should first explore forms of authentication that do not require manual maintenance, such as connecting to existing external databases or letting the users create their own accounts. See the Authentication section in the admin menus.

If you are sure you want to import multiple user accounts from a text file, then you need to format your text file as follows:

* Each line of the file contains one record
* Each record is a series of data separated by commas
* The first record of the file is special, and contains a list of fieldnames. This defines the format of the rest of the file.

:'''Required fieldnames''': these fields must be included in the first record, and defined for each user
:<code>username, password, firstname, lastname, email</code>

:'''Default fieldnames''': these are optional - if they are not included then the values are taken from the primary admin
:<code>institution, department, city, country, lang, auth, timezone</code>

:'''Optional fieldnames''': all of these are completely optional. The course names are the "shortnames" of the courses - if present then the user will be enrolled as students in those courses. Group names must be associated to the corresponding courses, i.e. group1 to course1, etc.
:<code>idnumber, icq, phone1, phone2, address, url, description, mailformat, maildisplay, htmleditor, autosubscribe, course1, course2, course3, course4, course5, group1, group2, group3, group4, group5, type1, type2, type3, type4, type5</code>

* Commas within the data should be encoded as &#44 - the script will automatically decode these back to commas.
* For Boolean fields, use 0 for false and 1 for true.
* Types are used to tell Moodle whether the user is a student or a teacher if a corresponding course exists (e.g. type2 corresponds to course2). 1 = Student, 2 = Editing Teacher, and 3 = Non-editing Teacher. If type is left blank, or if no course is specified, the user is default to student.
* For courses, use the short name for the course
* Note: The help file claims that if a user is already registered in the Moodle user database, this script will return the userid number (database index) for that user, and will enrol the user as a student in any of the specified courses WITHOUT updating the other specified data. This is not actually true. The enrolments are not affected, though the userids are in fact returned.

Here is an example of a valid import file:

<code>username, password, firstname, lastname, email, lang, idnumber, maildisplay, course1, group1, type1 
jonest, verysecret, Tom, Jones, jonest@someplace.edu, en, 3663737, 1, Intro101, Section 1, 1 
reznort, somesecret, Trent, Reznor, reznort@someplace.edu, en_us, 6736733, 0, Advanced202, Section 3, 3</code>

==Updating existing accounts==

By default Moodle assumes that you will be creating new user accounts, and skips records where the username matches an existing account. However, if you set "Update existing accounts" to '''Yes''', the existing user account will be updated.

When updating existing accounts you can change usernames as well. Set "Allow renames" to '''Yes''' and include in your file a field called <code>oldusername</code>.

'''Warning''': any errors updating existing accounts can affect your users badly. Be careful when using the options to update.

==Hints==

If you use a spreadsheet program such as Excel to create your .csv file, check the resulting output in a text editor before you upload it. It is possible to get trailing commas on each line from an empty field if you have added and deleted columns of information prior to saving the final file.

==See also==

*[http://moodle.org/help.php?file=uploadusers.html Upload users help file] also contains information on flat file formatting
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=13289 How does flat file work?] forum discussion
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=36851 Can I auto enroll from Excel?] forum discussion

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

[[fr:Importer des utilisateurs]]
[[ja:ユーザのアップロード]]
[[zh:上传用户]]

Upgrading

2007-02-11T17:00:59Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

Moodle is designed to upgrade cleanly from any earlier version to any later version. Please refer to '''[[Upgrading to Moodle 1.6]]''' for particular considerations related to Moodle 1.6 features.

When upgrading a Moodle installation you should follow these steps:

==Re-read the installation documentation==
Spend some time re-reading the [[Installing Moodle | installation documentation]]. Look in particular for any changes in webserver, database and PHP requirements for the version of Moodle you are upgrading to.

== Backup important data ==

Although it is not strictly necessary, it is always a good idea to make a backup of any production system before a major upgrade, just in case you need to revert back to the older version for some reason. In fact, it's a good idea to automate your server to backup your Moodle installation daily, so that you can skip this step.

There are three areas that need backing up:

=== 1. The Moodle software directory itself ===

Make a separate copy of these files before the upgrade, so that you can retrieve your config.php and any modules you have added like themes, languages etc

=== 2. Your data directory ===

This is where uploaded content resides (such as course resources and student assignments) so it is very important to have a backup of these files anyway. Sometimes upgrades may move or rename directories within your data directory.

=== 3. Your database ===

Most Moodle upgrades will alter the database tables, adding or changing fields. Each database has different ways to backup. One way of backing up a MySQL database is to 'dump' it to a single SQL file. The following example shows Unix commands to dump the database called "moodle":

mysqldump -u username -p -C -Q -e -a moodle > moodle-backup-2002-10-26.sql

Substitute your database user account for username. The -p flag will prompt you for the password for the username specified by -u.

If your database host is different from the host you want to execute the backup command (usually the web server), you have to specify it with the -h option to mysqldump:

mysqldump -u username -p -h databasehost -C -Q -e -a moodle > moodle-backup-2002-10-26.sql

You can also use the "Export" feature in Moodle's optional "MySQL Admin" web interface to do the same thing on all platforms. This interface can be downloaded from http://download.moodle.org/modules/integrations.php. It is an integration of PHPMyAdmin for the Moodle administration interface.

== Install the new Moodle software ==

=== Using a downloaded archive ===

Do not overwrite an old installation unless you know what you are doing ... sometimes old files can cause problems in new installations. The best way is to rename the current Moodle directory to something else, then unpack the new Moodle archive into the old location.

mv moodle moodle.backup
tar xvzf moodle-1.1.tgz

Next, copy across your config.php and any other plugins such as custom themes:

cp moodle.backup/config.php moodle
cp -pr moodle.backup/theme/mytheme moodle/theme/mytheme

=== Using CVS ===

You can use CVS for updating or upgrading your Moodle.
First you need to do a CVS checkout in your (empty) Moodle root directory.

'''For Linux servers'''

To do a CVS checkout of Moodle, you first have to logon to the Moodle CVS server.

<nowiki>cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@moodle.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/moodle login</nowiki>
No password for anonymous, so just hit the Enter button.

Go to the directory where you want the Moodle root to come and type

<nowiki>cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@moodle.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/moodle
co -r MOODLE_15_STABLE moodle</nowiki>
(where MOODLE_15_STABLE is the desired version)

To update, just go into the Moodle root directory and update to the new files:

cvs update -dP
To update to a new version type in the following and change 17 to whatever newest version upgrade number is
cvs -Q update -dP -r MOODLE_17_STABLE

Make sure you use the "d" parameter to create new directories if necessary, and the "P" parameter to prune empty directories.

'''For Windows servers'''

You can use Tortoise CVS to do the initial checkout and the updates.

If you have been editing Moodle files, watch the messages very closely for possible conflicts. All your customised themes and non-standard plugins will be untouched.

Don't forget to visit the admin page after the CVS update proces has completed.

== Finishing the upgrade ==

The last step is to trigger the upgrade processes within Moodle.

To do this just visit the admin page of your installation e.g. ''<nowiki>http://example.com/moodle/admin</nowiki>''

It doesn't matter if you are logged in as admin or not.

Moodle will automatically detect the new version and perform all the database or filesystem upgrades that are necessary. If there is anything it can't do itself (very rare) then you will see messages telling you what you need to do.

Assuming all goes well (no error messages) then you can start using your new version of Moodle and enjoy the new features!

==See also==

*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=28 Installation problems] forum
*[[Upgrading to Moodle 1.6]]
*[[Installing Moodle]]
*[[Installation FAQ]]
*[[Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP]]
*[[Step by Step Installation Guide for Windows]]
*[[Step by Step Installation Guide for RedHat]]
*[[Step by Step Installation Guide for Debian GNU/Linux]]
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=26731&parent=125858 Using cvs] forum discussion
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=56915 Upgrading from 1.5.2 to 1.7] forum discussion
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=56991 Upgrade nightmares.... any help appreciated] forum discussion with a happy ending :-)
*Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=62463 After upgrading i get "Your site may not be secure." msg.] forum discussion

[[Category:Core]]
[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Installation]]

[[es:Actualización de moodle]]
[[fr:Mise à jour]]
[[nl:Upgraden]]
[[zh:升级]]

Capabilities/moodle/blog:manageentries

2007-02-01T07:54:58Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

allows a user to edit and delete blog entries from other users. (system context only?)

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Capability]]

[[zh:能力/moodle/blog:manageentries]]

Capabilities/moodle/role:viewhiddenassigns

2007-02-01T07:47:22Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

allows a user to view hidden participants (e.g. parents, hidden teachers) currently not yet implemented

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Capability]]

[[zh:能力/moodle/role:viewhiddenassigns]]

Capabilities/moodle/role:unassignself

2007-02-01T07:45:14Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

allows a user to unassign a role in the given context. (unenrol)

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Capability]]

[[zh:能力/moodle/role:unassignself]]

Capabilities/moodle/role:override

2007-02-01T07:35:22Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

allows a user to override a capability in a role in context. note that to override a capability in role A, the user doing the override has to hold a role B so that role B is permitted to override role A. This is controlled in the roles allow override settings.

This is logical because even though a teacher might have moodle/role:override, in most situations we only want him to be able to override capabilities of the student role, and not the admin role in his own course.

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Capability]]

[[zh:能力/moodle/role:override]]

Capabilities/moodle/site:accessallgroups

2007-02-01T07:16:49Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

moodle/site:accessallgroups allows a user to access all groups in the given context, regardless of the group mode. For example, a user with this capability set can browse forum posting of other groups when group mode of the forum activity is set to SEPARATE_GROUPS.

In Moodle 1.6 terms, non-editing teachers do not have this capability (bound to own group settings), but editing teachers do.

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Capability]]

[[zh:能力/moodle/site:accessallgroups]]

Capabilities/moodle/legacy:admin

2007-02-01T06:31:41Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

moodle/legacy:admin is implemented for backward compatibility. It is flag to tell Moodle that this role is a admin role. It is not required to set any legacy flags.

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Capability]]

[[zh:能力/moodle/legacy:admin]]

Capabilities/moodle/site:doanything

2007-02-01T06:28:07Z

Sunner: Add Chinese link

moodle/site:doanything allows a user to execute all actions in moodle in the given context (normally the whole Moodle system). This is primarily used for admins. When this capability is set, Moodle does not need to check any other capability but instead, grant the current user the privilege of carrying out all actions.

Contexts:
System

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Capability]]

[[zh:能力/moodle/site:doanything]]

Risks

2007-01-30T15:47:28Z

Sunner: Add

{{Roles}}
{{Moodle 1.7}}
This page describes the different types of risks that different capabilities can raise. (This page is incomplete and needs more information.)

==Configuration==
Users could change site configuration and behaviour

==XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)==
Users could add files and texts that allow cross-site scripting.

==Privacy==
Users could gain access to private information of other users

==Spam==
Users could send spam to site users or others

{{stub}}

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Roles]]

[[fr:Risques]]
[[zh:风险]]

Top 10 Moodle Myths

2006-10-14T14:37:16Z

Sunner: Add zh link

The top 10 list started life in [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=33044 a post by Josie Fraser], as part of the 2005-6 [http://helpusgettobett.com HUGToB campaign].

{{About Moodle}}

==Once Moodle is stable, it will be put under licence. If it were any good, they’d already be charging for it==
Martin Dougiamas is [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=41253 on record] that Moodle will always be free and under the GPL. Even if it weren't, the community could take the latest GPL code and continue development from there. One of the reasons why Moodle's so good is that it's open source code, and so the world wide educational community can contribute to making it better still.

==There’s no point in looking at Moodle unless you have a full time, php developer on your staff. At the very least you need a lot of technical support to run it in house==
There are ''plenty'' of institutions running Moodle as is, without any php developers in sight. You don't need to know any programming if you just want to run a copy of Moodle. That said, PHP is actually a fairly easy language to pick up, and the Moodle code is well documented, so if you did want to help with development, it's a fairly gentle learning curve.

It's fair to say you need a certain amount of technical know-how to run your own instance of Moodle securely, but this has more to do with getting a web-server, SQL database and scripting language up and integrated than the Moodle scripts themselves. If you can run your own webserver, you should be OK to run Moodle on it.

You don't actually have to run Moodle in house though - there are well respected [http://moodle.com Moodle Partners] who'll run Moodle for you, some of the more enlightened Local Authorities and Regional Broadband Consortia (in the UK) will provide Moodle hosting, and Moodle will work on plenty of commercially hosted webspaces too.

==Moodle won’t be compatible with our other systems/software==
Moodle will run on Linux, Windows and Mac OS-X. It's compatible with a huge range of databases through ADODB integration. There's a whole host of authentication and enrolment mechanisms, including LDAP. Moodle will allow teachers to integrate content in a range of different formats, including SCORM, Flash, MP3s and RSS feeds. On the [[Roadmap]] for future releases is a Web API which will allow easy integration with other web-based applications.

Finally, remember that this is open source software, with a well documented data and file structure. If Moodle's not compatible with a particular application at the moment, then you can pay a developer to code up that integration, or develop it in-house.

==Moodle just doesn’t have the commercial experience we’re looking for==
Check out the [http://moodle.com partners]. Moodle is currently used by some big name corporate clients for in-house CPD.

==You can’t just use Moodle out of the box – the basic Moodle install just isn’t that sophisticated==
Have a look at the [[Features|feature list]], all of which comes as standard. Additional themes, blocks and activities are easy to integrate and the vast majority are free, open source code too.

==There’s no documentation, training or technical support available – you’re on your own==
There's excellent (and expanding)documentation online, provided by the user and developer community. The Open University's [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=9318&course=5 Jason Cole] has written an excellent introduction to Moodle for teachers, available as a [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596008635/ proper book] from O'Reilly.

Most users find the Moodle interface intuitive and this helps reduce the training requirements. It's possible for institutions to run in-house training and many have successfully adopted this approach. Some Moodle Partners [http://moodle.com/training/ moodle.com] also specialize in training.

High quality, timely technical support is available from the user and developer community in the Using Moodle course on [http://moodle.org moodle.org]. Some LAs and RBCs (Local Authorities and Regional Broadband Consortia in the UK) support Moodle in their areas. Commercial support contracts are available from authorised Moodle Partners [http://moodle.com/support/ moodle.com].

==The total Cost of Ownership is actually higher for Moodle than it would be with a wholly commercial platform==
Stop and think for a moment. With both Moodle and commercial platforms, you'll still need to pay for hosting, support, training and content, one way or another: with Moodle, more of these costs ''can'' be brought in-house, because the code's open source and Moodle's great at providing the tools teachers need to write online activities themselves, but that doesn't mean you have to.

The difference is that with Moodle, there are '''no''' licence fees to pay. None. The money you do spend can go back into making the software better, or remain within the educational community for the common good. None of it needs to go to meet shareholder dividends or pay back the venture capitalists. Furthermore, you're not exposed to the risks of commercial suppliers unilaterally increase their licence fees, or going out of business.

It's therefore not that surprising that when the UK government agency [http://www.becta.org.uk Becta] examined the [http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/publications/documents/BEC5606_Full_report18.pdf Total Cost of Ownership of open-source software] on desktops in UK schools, they found significant savings compared to commercial alternatives. The savings on support costs were particularly impressive. It's likely that these savings would have been greater still had they examined web-based applications like Moodle.

==Moodle is just no good for an institution as large as mine==
So, that would be one larger than the UK's Open University, with 180,000 students, yes? The OU has [http://www3.open.ac.uk/events/7/2005118_40887_nr.doc announced] that they're moving to Moodle as their institutional VLE, and there are plenty of other [[Large_installations|large institutions]] officially using Moodle, and a good number of others where sections are.

==Moodle is just not designed to cope with my specific group of learners or customers==
Moodle's being used successfully from elementary education, including early years provision, up to higher education, in all subject areas including art, languages, the humanities and mathematics. It's also established itself in the world of life-long learning, teachers' CPD and corporate training.

==We have all our stuff on *******, it’s just not worth the hassle of switching to Moodle==
The switch may not be that much of a hassle, as Moodle will happily import content in a wide range of standard formats, including SCORM. There are an increasing number of Further and Higher Education institutions that are making the move.

Pedagogically, there's much to be gained from moving to a VLE which puts social, collaborative learning at the centre, and acknowledges the vital role that learners have to play, as well as providing teachers with the tools that they need to build effective on-line learning communities, rather than just presenting resources and activities.

From a financial perspective, the costs involved in switching to Moodle should be quickly recouped through savings in licence fees.
[[Category:Core]]
[[es:Los 10 mitos de Moodle]]
[[zh:Moodle十大流言]]

MoodleDocs:Authentication

2006-10-12T04:22:14Z

Sunner: Add zh link

{{MoodleDocs development}}

MoodleDocs now authenticates against [http://moodle.org/ moodle.org] i.e. your moodle.org username and password are required to login to MoodleDocs.

==Full name usage==

When you first login to MoodleDocs, a check will be performed to determine whether your full name already exists. If so, you will be allocated a full name suffixed with 2 (or 3, 4 etc.).

==User page redirects==

If you have made a number of contributions to MoodleDocs prior to the authentication change, you may wish to redirect your old user and talk pages to your permanent user and talk pages. If so, please copy the text then add a redirect to your old user and talk pages using <code><nowiki>#REDIRECT [[User:Full name]]</nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki>#REDIRECT [[User talk:Full name]]</nowiki></code>.

==Profile updates==

Please note that you may update your email address via your moodle.org profile page and the change will be reflected in MoodleDocs. However, if you update your full name then the change will NOT be reflected in MoodleDocs.

==Bugs==

Please report any MoodleDocs authentication bugs in the [http://moodle.org/bugs/ Moodle bug tracker], selecting the component "documentation".

[[Category:Developer]]
[[Category:MoodleDocs|Authentication]]

[[es:MoodleDocs:Autenticación]]
[[zh:MoodleDocs:认证]]

Viewing an assignment

2006-10-08T12:27:19Z

Sunner: Add zh link

{{Assignments}}

Viewing/submitting an assignment you will see the assignment name and its description with the 'View x submitted assignments' link (where 'x' is the number of assignments submitted) and the opening/closing dates and hours ('Available from' and 'Due date') of a given assignment. What's (and if there is anything) below depends on the type of assignment.

* In the Offline activity assignment there are no additional options.

* In the Online text assignment you will also see your assignment submission (if you have done so) with the Edit my submission option as well as the Feedback from the Teacher field.

* In the Upload a single file assignment, you can go for the Upload a file option, the execution of which demands using the Browse link allowing you to choose the file on your computer you wish to be uploaded.

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[zh:查看作业]]

The Good Teacher

2006-10-07T02:52:35Z

Sunner: Remove a spare "

== THE GOOD TEACHER ==

=== Act 1: The Pretty Good Teacher wants to be a better one ===

Once upon a time, there was a Pretty Good Teacher. Her students and her peers recognized that she was a Pretty Good Teacher. Humble as she was, though, she also felt that she was a Pretty Good Teacher, and she was proud to be one.

Still, like all good teachers, she wanted to be an even better teacher.

She spoke with colleagues and they gave her many helpful tips (although she suspected that some of them were holding back a little).

She talked to her students, and their insights were often quite interesting and thought-provoking.

She went to her principal and he gave her some good advice. (Really, he did.)

She read journals and books, joined a ListServ, visited web pages, signed up for courses, attended workshops and conferences, and generally sought knowledge wherever she could find it. She was very motivated.

Little by little, she began to try new strategies and techniques in her classroom. For example:
* She began to take multiple intelligences into account in her lesson plans.
* She started using cooperative learning in her classroom.
* She integrated more project-based learning into her instruction.
* She even started using an LCD projector.

Sometimes, it was a bit overwhelming. Exhausting, in fact. Not everything worked out the way she intended. But she persevered, because she wanted her students to learn as much as possible.

Still, she felt that something was missing. She wanted to do things with her students that she had never been able to do before. Things that were fun, things that were exciting, things that students actually enjoyed doing. Mostly, things that made her students WANT to learn.

But she couldn't say what those things were.

=== Act 2: The Pretty Good Teacher meets Mr. Dougis ===

One day, she read an article in her local newspaper about Mr. Dougis, a teacher who was doing great things on the Internet with his students. It sounded exciting and she wondered if this were not what she had been looking for.

She knew the school where he taught, and she left him a telephone message. Would he mind her dropping by one day to chat?

The next day, she received an answer. She could drop by any Thursday to see what was up. But it had to be a Thursday.

She went to her principal and explained to him that she needed a substitute teacher for next Thursday. She told him why and he gladly gave her a professional day in order investigate. Really, he did.

She went to see Mr. Dougis. He greeted her with a friendly smile.

"Welcome," he said, and smiled. "It's good that you came today. Thursdays, we Moodle."

The Pretty Good Teacher looked around. There were about twenty-five students sitting at computers. They looked about thirteen years old. Most did not notice her, because they were engrossed in what they were doing.

"What are they working on?" she asked.

"Well," said Mr. Dougis, "a couple of things. Some of them are working together to create a glossary of terms used in the current events articles we read each week."

"They know how to do that?" she asked. She thought that creating an online glossary must be a bit complicated for this age.

"Sure," said Mr. Dougis. "It's not hard to do that in Moodle."

"Oh yes, Moodle," she said, "I read about Moodle in the newspaper article. What is it?"

"It's the software we use in our virtual classroom", he said, as he guided her to a monitor.

"See how the students are simply filling in a form to create entries in the glossary?" he asked. "That's Moodle."

It did not look like the students were having any trouble.

"And some of the other students," he said, "are having an online debate about the way the current war on terrorism is being conducted. It's turning into a pretty heated discussion," he chuckled.

"How do you have an online debate?" she asked.

"They are using a discussion forum to talk with each other and are even rating each others' posts according to criteria we developed together," he said.

"Can they really handle that at such a young age?" she asked.

"Some are still learning about how to deal with constructive criticism and how not to take everything that is posted personally," he replied. "But we are getting there. With a little guidance and encouragement..."

"No, I mean the technology," she interrupted.

"Of course!" replied Mr. Dougis. "In Moodle, forums are easy to use."

And throughout the day, that is how it went. Moodle this and Moodle that. The Pretty Good Teacher had to admit that even the younger students seemed to be proficient Moodlers. And almost all the students seemed engaged and interested in their work.

She was impressed, but wondered if all were really as it seemed.

During Mr. Dougis' break, they talked over a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.

"Tell me more about Moodle," she said.

"Well," he began, "I use Moodle to complement and enhance my classroom instruction. I might, for example, just upload a Power Point presentation to the site for my students to review or post links to a good web site. Or we might do something more social, more collaborative, as you have seen today."

"So, Moodle helps you do some things differently?" she asked.

"Not just different," he emphatically corrected, "better."

"How so?" She really wanted to know.

"Let's say," said Mr. Dougis, "that we are discussing the effects of global warming. I can send my students to the library to do traditional research and we can discuss what they find out in class. And I can have the students make posters to display what they have learned. We can break into groups create lists of top ten easy ways to fight global warming. And we can have a debate in class about the effects of global warming, too."

"That sounds fine," said the Pretty Good Teacher. "What is wrong with that?"

"There is nothing wrong with that," replied Mr. Dougis, "but we can, for example, also go to Moodle and create a survey about global warming to administer to students here at our school and to students at our online partner schools in Canada and South Africa in order to see to what extent we all agree on the issue. We can design the survey together, invite our partners to take it, and have a discussion with them about where we see eye to eye and where we don't. And that is potentially a rich, valuable educational experience that we could not have without Moodle, don't you agree?"

The Pretty Good Teacher did agree. She wanted this Moodle thing for her students.

Mr. Dougis showed her how to go to any one of several sites and set up a Moodle classroom. That weekend, the Pretty Good Teacher started learning the basics of Moodle. She even got in touch with the moodle community at moodle.org where she found other teachers like herself and lots of people interested in the moodle thing.

=== Act 3: The Pretty Good Teacher starts Moodling ===

By the next Friday, she and her students were in the school computer lab. She showed them how to use a discussion forum and urged the students to discuss the novel they were currently reading.

Some students had a good bit to say about it. Others had very little to say. Some comments were insightful. Others were quite foolish.

The Pretty Good Teacher was disappointed. Was Moodle not really all Mr. Dougis had claimed?

A few days later, she tried again. She set up a chat room and told the students to chat about anything, but to pretend they were characters from the novel. A few students did a really good job, but many students did not seem to take the assignment seriously. And the chat room became very confusing when everyone spoke at the same time. Frankly, the lesson was a flop.

Some of her students must have been talking about Moodle in a less than complimentary way, because the Pretty Good Teacher had to endure some snide comments about it in the staff room. Some of her so-called colleagues actually seemed happy to see her struggle a little. It was incomprehensible to her, but it was undeniable. And she didn't like looking foolish.

Now the Pretty Good Teacher was quite sure that Moodle was not as wonderful as Mr. Dougis seemed to think it was. Annoyed, she sent him an email, telling him so.

=== Act 4: Mr. Dougis you've got an email ===

She received a quick reply. "You sound upset," wrote Mr. Dougis.

The Pretty Good Teacher returned, "I am upset. I am not so sure that Moodle is right for my students."

An exchange of emails ensued.

"Maybe," he responded. "But let me ask you this: Did your students do what you asked them to do?"

"What do you mean?" asked the Pretty Good Teacher.

"Well, when you asked them to discuss the novel in the forum, did they do that?" he asked.

"Yes, I suppose most of them did," she replied.

"And when you asked them to chat about the novel," he continued, "did they do that?"

"The majority of them did," she answered.

"So, why are you unhappy?" asked Mr. Dougis.

It was a good question.

"Well," she wrote, "the students did not seem very excited about the lessons and I am not sure that they learned much, either."

"Does that ever happen in your traditional classroom?" asked Mr. Dougis.

Now she was offended. "Almost never," came her indignant response.

"Why not?" asked Mr. Dougis playing with fire.

First she planned a very icy and angry response. But after 5 minutes or so, she cooled down and started thinking about it seriously. Normally, her lessons had something like a beginning, a middle and an end. They were well thought out and the students understood just what she expected of them. So that is what she wrote in her response to Mr. Dougis' question.

"Can you honestly say the same of your two Moodle lessons?" he wrote back. Mr. Dougis was definitively a daredevil.

She knew he was right. She had expected Moodle to work some sort of magic on her students, but she had not really designed the kind of good, effective lessons she normally planned.

"What would you advise your students to do in a situation like this?" asked Mr. Dougis.

She decided to give Moodle another chance.

=== Act 5: The Pretty Good Teacher strikes back ===

This time, she asked herself, "What do I want my students to learn?" And she wrote down her objectives.

Then she asked herself, "What resources will we need to make the lesson work?" and she collected and organized her resources.

Finally, she asked herself, "What is it I want my students to actually do in order to be successful?" And she designed her activities.

The Pretty Good Teacher wanted her students to recognize and identify the importance of conflict in the novel.

She located a couple of good online resources to give students the information they needed to do this and she posted her own notes to help them better understand what they found on the web sites.

In addition, she wanted them to create a web page for each major conflict in the novel, describing the conflict and suggesting several possible ways the conflict could be resolved. Then she set up a wiki where her students could do this.

Before going to the lab, she discussed the lesson with her students and showed them how to work in a wiki. She used her cool, new LCD projector for that.

She posted clear instructions about the lesson to the web site, reinforcing what she had said in class (and unconsciously stating a contract with her students).

The next day, they went to the lab.

The Pretty Good Teacher was gratified to see how much better the lesson went. While a few of the students did have a little trouble the first few minutes getting used to the wiki, most of them actually caught on very quickly, and it was a pleasure to see how they helped each other get up and running.

After about forty-five minutes, almost all students had contributed to the wiki. Some of their web pages were surprisingly good.

As the Pretty Good Teacher circulated around the lab, she encouraged the students and complimented their work. Of course, she also had to remind a couple of students that playing card games on the computer was not part of the lesson.

While she could not say that the lesson was perfect, the Pretty Good Teacher was pleased. The students had not only learned a lot, they seemed to enjoy doing so.

That evening, she went back to the wiki to reread some of the pages. She was surprised to see that some students had continued to work on their pages from home. They had added graphics and links and some shocking, but enthusiastic, text formatting. She had not assigned this as homework, they just wanted to do it.

And the Pretty Good Teacher smiled a little.

=== Act 6: The next day ===

When class met the next day, several of the students were quite excited about Moodle. One said, "When my father asked me what we had done in school, I showed him the wiki. He thought it was great!" It was obvious that she was proud of the work she and her classmates had done.

The Pretty Good Teacher was feeling pretty good.

"Can we go back to the lab today?" one student asked.

"No," she replied, "not today, but we can go back next week. Do you all want to do that?"

When they said yes, she was not very surprised.

"In the meantime," she suggested, "maybe we should think of a name for our online classroom."

They thought of several good possibilities and decided to vote to pick the best one. The Pretty Good Teacher said, "We do not have to vote right now. I will post a choice to our new web site and you can take a few days to decide."

Almost everyone agreed that this was a sensible idea. But a couple of students looked unhappy about it.

"What's wrong?" the Pretty Good Teacher asked one of them as the class was leaving.

"We don't have the Internet at my house, so I can't vote," said the student.

The Pretty Good Teacher hadn't thought of that. But she had an Internet connection in her classroom. And there were quite a few online computers in the school's media center.

"Why don't you stop here right after school and use our computer when you want to Moodle?" she suggested. "Or I can write you a pass to the media center during class one day when we have a few extra minutes."

The student smiled. "Thanks! I'll stop by after school", she said and headed to her next class.

When she returned at the end of the day, she had a friend with her. "You're not in my class," teased the Pretty Good Teacher. "I know," said the friend, "but it sounds like fun."

And the Pretty Good Teacher was pretty happy.

=== Act 7: She kept on moodling ===

And so it went. Over time, Moodle came to be an important part of the class. Soon, the Pretty Good Teacher was posting lesson plans to Moodle. Not very exciting, but the parents seemed to appreciate it. After a while, she began setting up little practice quizzes to help students prepare for tests. Together with another class, the students collaborated on articles for the school newspaper. They submitted rough drafts of papers for peer review and discussed class matters online. Some students even used the chat room for occasional online study sessions. And once they discovered instant messaging and blogs, things really got crazy.

After a few months, Moodling became second nature to them. It felt natural. It was fun.

And other teachers at the school began to Moodle. Sometimes, they met with their wireless laptops at a local cafe for "Moodle and Coffee" sessions. The teachers began to look forward to spending this time together--even a couple of the teachers who had made negative remarks in the staff room.

=== Act 8: Unexpected role-reversal===

One day, the Pretty Good Teacher ran into Mr. Dougis at the grocery store. She told him how well things were going. And she thanked him for Moodle.

"Glad to share," he said, and smiled.

"Know what I like best?" she said. "It is cool that we can do a weekly podcast for our new partner class in Australia! My students love that podcasting module!"

"So there's a podcasting module? I didn't know that," said her Moodle mentor.

"Really, well, we should set up a forum where we can share on a regular basis," she replied, secretly thrilled at this unexpected role-reversal.

"Yes, that's a great idea. Let's do that," answered Mr. Dougis, who was clearly pleased. "You know, it sounds like you have become a Very Good Teacher."

And he was right. She had, indeed, become a Very Good Teacher.

=== Epilogue ===

She had to convince the school faculty council and the school director, but she finally succeeded in getting some free days for her trip to the next MoodleMoot. Her school administrators even covered the expenses of her trip, writing it off as "professional development" and wishing her well as she represented them to other schools attending the Moot. Once there she, the Good Teacher, gave a speech to other Moodlers about her Moodling experiences.

[[Category:Teacher]]

[[es:La buena maestra]]
[[fr:Une bonne enseignante]]
[[ja:良い先生]]
[[zh:好教师]]

Question bank

2006-10-03T05:22:05Z

Sunner: Add chinese interlang link

{{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 any supported course activity such as [[Quizzes]] and certain types imported into [[Lesson module|lessons]]. 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 quiz edit page has tabs that allow you (as teacher) to edit questions, [[Question categories|categories]], [[Import questions|import questions]] and [[Export questions|export questions]].
[[Image:Quiz_edit_tabs.JPG]]
==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.

==Add a new question==
#From the '''Category:''' drop-down menu, select a category you want to add a question to.
#The area below the category will then display the question creation block.
#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.
#Click Save Changes at the bottom of the form.
Each [[Question types|question type]] has its own form and has its own options.

==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.

'''Tip''': 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.)

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Question]]
[[Category:Quiz]]

[[es:Preguntas]]
[[ja:問題]]
[[zh:题库]]

Question bank

2006-10-03T05:21:37Z

Sunner:

Upgrading to Moodle 1.6

2006-10-02T13:58:28Z

Sunner: Add chinese interlang link

{{Moodle 1.6}}
Since the changes for the upgrade from Moodle 1.5.x to Moodle 1.6 not only change the database structure, but also the database content (everything is converted to UTF-8), some considerations are important before you start. If you are upgrading a really important site, it will probably be worth doing a test upgrade on a separate copy of your site first just to make sure it goes OK.

==Check the system requirements==
Go to Administration >> [[Environment]] (in recent versions of Moodle 1.5) and choose Moodle 1.6 ;-)
You will get a report of whether your server specs meet the requirements for Moodle 1.6 and what needs to be done. Basically you need PHP 4.3.0 or later (for PHP5, version 5.1.0 or later is required), and MySQL 4.1.16 or later (4.1.12 is ok if your site is latin-only) or PostgreSQL. Native iconv support in PHP will really speed things up too (it needs to be specified during compilation) but is not required.

==Update the Moodle files==
Perform a [[Upgrading|normal upgrade]] of your Moodle installation, '''[[Upgrading#3._Your_database |backing up your database first]]'''.
Take care to include ALL optional modules you have in your existing installation. Conversion of the data to UTF-8 of these modules will not be possible if you forget this.

==Database migration==
Although not strictly necessary, it is HIGHLY recomended that you migrate your database to UTF-8 immediately after upgrading. You'll find the link to do this waiting for you at the top of the admin page. Please see [[Database migration|MySQL database migration]] or [[UTF-8 PostgreSQL|PostgreSQL database migration]] for further details.

==Languages==

An entirely new interface for languages has been designed. By default, Moodle only contains one language (English), and you need to install all the language packs you need individually. The new interface makes this easy - it will download them for you from moodle.org and install them in your data directory.

After the migration of the database, you may go to Administration >> [[Configuration]] >> [[Language]] and follow the [[Language import utility]] link. You may select the desired language packs on the right pane and install them directly. Updating the language packs can now easily be done by following the update link.

Take care to use always a language pack that matches your database content:

* Upgraded installations: first database migration, then UTF-8 language packs
* New 1.6 installations: you will immediately use UTF-8 language packs

You will not find the en_utf8 language pack in your ''moodledata/lang'' folder. It is in the moodle/lang folder and is not to be modified at all. It should never be upgraded, since it is part of the installation. All other language packs, even modifications for the en language pack go in the ''moodledata/lang'' folder (and are in the case of the en language pack called en_utf8_local or en_xx_utf8 but then with parent language string in moodle.php)

If you use the langlist variable on the config variables page, don't forget to change the language names from xx to xx_utf8 or the languages will not be shown in the language drop down menu.

IMPORTANT: There is a bug in 1.6 and 1.6.1 that blocks the locales specified in language packs. Workaround is to override locale for all languages by setting it in Administration >> Configuration >> Variables >> locale. You can find suitable values in the [[Table of locales]] (en.UTF-8 , es_ES.UTF-8,...). If you are using 1.6.1+ and later the correct value is usually empty field.

===Localisations of existing language packs===

Localisations of an existing xx_utf8 language pack should be called xx_utf8_local, should be UTF-8 encoded and should also be put in the moodledata/lang folder. It is still possible to give it another name like xx_mypack_utf8, but then you should add the parentlanguage string in moodle.php from your localisation.

===Custom language packs===

Custom made new language packs go in ''moodledata/lang''. They have to be in a xx_utf8 folder and MUST be UTF-8 encoded (Unicode). We no longer support other encodings, especially when mixed with UTF-8 packs.

If you are using custom language packs before the UTF-8 migration, please remember that they need to include either 1) thischarset or 2) parentlanguage in their moodle.php. Please also rename them from xx to xx_utf8 after the migration. You might need to convert the custom packs into UTF-8 format before using them in a migrated Moodle 1.6.

===Advanced languages===

If you want to download all the languages at once, we suggest checking the whole lang directory out directly from CVS into your ''moodledata/lang'' directory.

cvs -z3 -d:ext:myusername@moodle.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/moodle co lang

This is the recommended method for translators, as you can edit these packs within Moodle and just check them straight back into CVS.

==Finishing up==

Congratulations! After migrating your database and updating your languages you should have a functional 1.6 site. You'll probably want to visit the various admin pages (especially [[Variables]]) to turn some of the features on and off.

==See also==

*[[Translation]] - More details on language packs in 1.6, especially customized packs
*[[Converting files to UTF-8]] - General text on how to convert files, like non-standard language packs, to UTF-8

Using Moodle forum discussions:
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=39153 utf-8 and mysql]
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=44073 utf db migration in optional modules]
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=43527 Local language modifications]
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=46900 Language packs and migration to UTF-8]
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=49668 Is there now only one local language pack allowed?]

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Installation]]

[[es:Actualización de moodle 1.6]]
[[fr:Mise à jour à Moodle 1.6]]
[[zh:升级到Moodle 1.6]]

Development:XML database schema

2006-10-02T13:34:25Z

Sunner: Add chinese interlang link

__NOTOC__
One of the main upcoming features in Moodle 1.7 will be its ability to work with some more [[wikipedia:RDBMS|RDBMS]] ([[wikipedia:MSSQL|MSSQL]] and [[wikipedia:Oracle database|Oracle]]) while maintaining everything working properly with both [[MySQL]] and [[PostgreSQL]]. As Moodle core uses [http://adodb.sourceforge.net/ ADOdb] internally, this possibility has been present since the beginning and, with the current maturity of the project (5 years old baby!), this can be a good moment to sort all this out.

Initially, all our tests and preliminary work was to inspect how [http://adodb.sourceforge.net/ ADOdb] was doing its work, and how we could mix together all those 4 RDBMS, whose SQL dialects, although pretty similar, have some differences and idiosyncrasies that force us to do some important changes to our current database code (formerly '''datalib.php''') and how it's used by the rest of Moodle.

All the changes to be performed, which primary objective is to enable Moodle to work with more RDBMS must be be filled following the next non-functional requirements:

* '''Provide one layer (new) for DB creation/upgrade''' ([[wikipedia:Data_Definition_Language|DDL]]): With this, developers will create their structures in one neutral form, independent of the exact implementation to be used by each RDBMS.

* '''Provide one layer (existing) for DB handling''' ([[wikipedia:Data_Manipulation_Language|DML]]): With this, developers will request/store information also in one nuetral form, independent of the RDBMS being used.

* '''Easy migration path from previous versions''': The current installation/upgrade system will work until, at least, Moodle 2.0, allowing 3rd part developers to migrate along the time to the new system.

* '''Simple, usable and effective''': Until now, the way to upgrade Moodle has been really cool and it has worked pretty fine since the beginning, but it has forced developers to maintain at least two installation and two upgrade scripts for each module/plugin. The new alternative will have only one file to install and one file to upgrade (per modude/plugin too), reducing the possibility of mistakes in an high degree.

* '''Conditional code usage must be minimised''': Database libraries must accept 99% of potential SQL sentences, building/transforming them as necessary to work properly under any RDBMS. The number of places using custom (per DB) code should be minimum.

* '''Well documented''': All the functions defined, both at DML and DDL level must be well documented, helping the developer to find and use the correct one in each situation.

== The Stack ==

The next stack shows how Moodle 1.7 code will interact with underlying RDBMS. It will help us to understand a bit more what we are trying to do and will explain some of the points related in the Roadmap (below in this page).

[[Image:MoodleDBStack.png|center]]

Moodle code will use two ''languages'' to perform its DB actions:

* '''XMLDB neutral description files''': To create, modify and delete database objects (DDL: create/alter/drop tables, fields, indexes, constraints...). It consists in a collection of validated, standard, XML files. They will be used to define all the DB objects. New for 1.7.
* '''Moodle SQL neutral statements''': To add, modify, delete and select database information (DML: insert/update/delete/select records). To modify for 1.7.

Please note the '''neutral''' keyword used in the expressions above. It means that both '''languages''' will be 100% the same, independently of the underlying RDBMS being used. And this must be particularly true for the XMLDB part. Point.

Obviously it's possible that in the SQL part we found some specialised queries (using complex joins, regular expressions...) that will force us to do some '''Exceptions'''. Well, they can exist (in fact, they exist), but we always must try to provide an alternate path to minimise them using neutral statements and standard libraries.

Each one of the '''languages''' above will use its own library to do the work:

* '''Moodle DDL Library''' ([[DDL functions|ddllib.php]]): Where all the functions needed to handle DB objects will exist. This library in new for 1.7 and will provide developers with an high level of abstraction. As input it will accept some well defined objects and actions and it will execute the proper commands for the RDBMS being used.
* '''Moodle DML Library''' ([[DML functions|dmllib.php]]): Where all the functions needed to handle DB contents will exist. This library is new for 1.7, although its contents are, basically, functions currently present in '''datalib.php''' (moved from there). All those DML functions will offer cross-db support for insert/update/delete/select statements using a common behaviour.

Also note that '''datalib.php''' continues present in the schema above. It will contain all the functions that haven't been moved to the new '''ddllib.php''' and '''dmllib.php''' libraries. Only some common functions will remain there, and this situation will disappear (it's considered a legacy library) in upcoming '''Moodle''' releases (after 1.7) by moving all those functions to their proper library (course/lib.php, user/lib.php....).

Both this libraries (plus the small '''Exceptions''' bar) will perform all their actions using the '''ADOdb Database Abstraction Library for PHP''' that will receive all the request from them, communicate with the DB ('''MySQL''', '''PostgreSQL''', '''Oracle''' or '''SQL*Server'''), retrieve results and forward them back to originator library.

== The process ==

* [[XMLDB Roadmap|Roadmap]]: Where the whole process is defined. It has been splitted in small chuncks to be performed and tested easily. Also, such documents should be used to track what's done and what's pending following some easy nomenclature.

* [[XMLDB Problems|Problems]]: A comprensive list of issues that need to be determined/solved prior to incorporate them to the [[XMLDB Roadmap|roadmap]].

==See also==

=== XMLDB related ===

* [[XMLDB preliminary links]] - A collection of links about general info, searched and analysed at the initial stages of the project
* [[XMLDB preliminary notes]] - A collection of notes collected in the early stages of this project, pointing both to some changes required and some problems to solve.
* [[XMLDB column types]] - Some links about column types inside every RDBMS and their characteristics
* [[XMLDB key and index naming]] - Some info about automatic naming of keys/indexes and other objects.
* [[XMLDB reserved words]] - A collection of reserver words inside each RDBMS

=== Database related ===

* [[DDL functions]] - Documentation for all the Data Definition Language (DDL) functions available inside Moodle.
* [[DML functions]] - Documentation for all the Data Manipulation Language (DML) functions available inside Moodle.

[[Category:Developer]]
[[Category:XMLDB]]
[[Category:Future]]

[[zh:开发:XML数据库计划]]

LDAP authentication

2006-10-02T13:26:26Z

Sunner: Add chinese interlang link

This document describes how to set up LDAP authentication in Moodle. You can find a [[#Basic Scenario|Basic Scenario]], where everything is simple and straightforward, and that should be enough for most installations. If your installation is a little bigger and you are using multiple LDAP servers, or multiple locations (contexts) for your users in your LDAP tree, then have a look at the [[#Advanced Scenarios|Advanced Scenarios]].

==Basic Scenario==

===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:

 
::: [[Image:auth_ldap_config_screenshot.jpg]]
 

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

{| 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. So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in.

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. So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in.

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. So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in.

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.

As you don't want your users to change their passwords in their first login, leave this set to ''No''
|-
| 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).

So unless you have Novell eDirectory server (or use the patch), choose ''No'' here.
|-
| 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. So unless you need something special, you don't need to fill this in.
|-
| 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.

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

So you don't need to fill this in.
|-
| 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'''.

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

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

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

This setting is optional
|-
| 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.

This setting is optional
|-
| 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).

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

This setting is optional
|-
| 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).

This setting is optional
|-
| 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).

This setting is optional
|-
| Description
| '''description'''

This setting is optional
|-
| ID Number
|

This setting is optional
|-
| Language
| '''preferredLanguage'''

This setting is optional
|-
| Instructions
|
|}

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

==Advanced Scenarios==

===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]]

[[zh:LDAP认证]]

The Good Teacher

2006-10-02T13:16:50Z

Sunner: Add chinese interlang link

== THE GOOD TEACHER ==

=== Act 1: The Pretty Good Teacher wants to be a better one ===

Once upon a time, there was a Pretty Good Teacher. Her students and her peers recognized that she was a Pretty Good Teacher. Humble as she was, though, she also felt that she was a Pretty Good Teacher, and she was proud to be one.

Still, like all good teachers, she wanted to be an even better teacher.

She spoke with colleagues and they gave her many helpful tips (although she suspected that some of them were holding back a little).

She talked to her students, and their insights were often quite interesting and thought-provoking.

She went to her principal and he gave her some good advice. (Really, he did.)

She read journals and books, joined a ListServ, visited web pages, signed up for courses, attended workshops and conferences, and generally sought knowledge wherever she could find it. She was very motivated.

Little by little, she began to try new strategies and techniques in her classroom. For example:
* She began to take multiple intelligences into account in her lesson plans.
* She started using cooperative learning in her classroom.
* She integrated more project-based learning into her instruction.
* She even started using an LCD projector.

Sometimes, it was a bit overwhelming. Exhausting, in fact. Not everything worked out the way she intended. But she persevered, because she wanted her students to learn as much as possible.

Still, she felt that something was missing. She wanted to do things with her students that she had never been able to do before. Things that were fun, things that were exciting, things that students actually enjoyed doing. Mostly, things that made her students WANT to learn.

But she couldn't say what those things were.

=== Act 2: The Pretty Good Teacher meets Mr. Dougis ===

One day, she read an article in her local newspaper about Mr. Dougis, a teacher who was doing great things on the Internet with his students. It sounded exciting and she wondered if this were not what she had been looking for.

She knew the school where he taught, and she left him a telephone message. Would he mind her dropping by one day to chat?

The next day, she received an answer. She could drop by any Thursday to see what was up. But it had to be a Thursday.

She went to her principal and explained to him that she needed a substitute teacher for next Thursday. She told him why and he gladly gave her a professional day in order investigate. Really, he did.

She went to see Mr. Dougis. He greeted her with a friendly smile.

"Welcome," he said, and smiled. "It's good that you came today. Thursdays, we Moodle."

The Pretty Good Teacher looked around. There were about twenty-five students sitting at computers. They looked about thirteen years old. Most did not notice her, because they were engrossed in what they were doing.

"What are they working on?" she asked.

"Well," said Mr. Dougis, "a couple of things. Some of them are working together to create a glossary of terms used in the current events articles we read each week."

"They know how to do that?" she asked. She thought that creating an online glossary must be a bit complicated for this age.

"Sure," said Mr. Dougis. "It's not hard to do that in Moodle."

"Oh yes, Moodle," she said, "I read about Moodle in the newspaper article. What is it?"

"It's the software we use in our virtual classroom", he said, as he guided her to a monitor.

"See how the students are simply filling in a form to create entries in the glossary?" he asked. "That's Moodle."

It did not look like the students were having any trouble.

"And some of the other students," he said, "are having an online debate about the way the current war on terrorism is being conducted. It's turning into a pretty heated discussion," he chuckled.

"How do you have an online debate?" she asked.

"They are using a discussion forum to talk with each other and are even rating each others' posts according to criteria we developed together," he said.

"Can they really handle that at such a young age?" she asked.

"Some are still learning about how to deal with constructive criticism and how not to take everything that is posted personally," he replied. "But we are getting there. With a little guidance and encouragement..."

"No, I mean the technology," she interrupted.

"Of course!" replied Mr. Dougis. "In Moodle, forums are easy to use."

And throughout the day, that is how it went. Moodle this and Moodle that. The Pretty Good Teacher had to admit that even the younger students seemed to be proficient Moodlers. And almost all the students seemed engaged and interested in their work.

She was impressed, but wondered if all were really as it seemed.

During Mr. Dougis' break, they talked over a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.

"Tell me more about Moodle," she said.

"Well," he began, "I use Moodle to complement and enhance my classroom instruction. I might, for example, just upload a Power Point presentation to the site for my students to review or post links to a good web site. Or we might do something more social, more collaborative, as you have seen today."

"So, Moodle helps you do some things differently?" she asked.

"Not just different," he emphatically corrected, "better."

"How so?" She really wanted to know.

"Let's say," said Mr. Dougis, "that we are discussing the effects of global warming. I can send my students to the library to do traditional research and we can discuss what they find out in class. And I can have the students make posters to display what they have learned. We can break into groups create lists of top ten easy ways to fight global warming. And we can have a debate in class about the effects of global warming, too."

"That sounds fine," said the Pretty Good Teacher. "What is wrong with that?"

"There is nothing wrong with that," replied Mr. Dougis, "but we can, for example, also go to Moodle and create a survey about global warming to administer to students here at our school and to students at our online partner schools in Canada and South Africa in order to see to what extent we all agree on the issue. We can design the survey together, invite our partners to take it, and have a discussion with them about where we see eye to eye and where we don't. And that is potentially a rich, valuable educational experience that we could not have without Moodle, don't you agree?"

The Pretty Good Teacher did agree. She wanted this Moodle thing for her students.

Mr. Dougis showed her how to go to any one of several sites and set up a Moodle classroom. That weekend, the Pretty Good Teacher started learning the basics of Moodle. She even got in touch with the moodle community at moodle.org where she found other teachers like herself and lots of people interested in the moodle thing.

=== Act 3: The Pretty Good Teacher starts Moodling ===

By the next Friday, she and her students were in the school computer lab. She showed them how to use a discussion forum and urged the students to discuss the novel they were currently reading.

Some students had a good bit to say about it. Others had very little to say. Some comments were insightful. Others were quite foolish.

The Pretty Good Teacher was disappointed. Was Moodle not really all Mr. Dougis had claimed?

A few days later, she tried again. She set up a chat room and told the students to chat about anything, but to pretend they were characters from the novel. A few students did a really good job, but many students did not seem to take the assignment seriously. And the chat room became very confusing when everyone spoke at the same time. Frankly, the lesson was a flop.

Some of her students must have been talking about Moodle in a less than complimentary way, because the Pretty Good Teacher had to endure some snide comments about it in the staff room. Some of her so-called colleagues actually seemed happy to see her struggle a little. It was incomprehensible to her, but it was undeniable. And she didn't like looking foolish.

Now the Pretty Good Teacher was quite sure that Moodle was not as wonderful as Mr. Dougis seemed to think it was. Annoyed, she sent him an email, telling him so.

=== Act 4: Mr. Dougis you've got an email ===

She received a quick reply. "You sound upset," wrote Mr. Dougis.

The Pretty Good Teacher returned, "I am upset. I am not so sure that Moodle is right for my students."

An exchange of emails ensued.

"Maybe," he responded. "But let me ask you this: Did your students do what you asked them to do?"

"What do you mean?" asked the Pretty Good Teacher.

"Well, when you asked them to discuss the novel in the forum, did they do that?" he asked.

"Yes, I suppose most of them did," she replied.

"And when you asked them to chat about the novel," he continued, "did they do that?"

"The majority of them did," she answered."

"So, why are you unhappy?" asked Mr. Dougis.

It was a good question.

"Well," she wrote, "the students did not seem very excited about the lessons and I am not sure that they learned much, either."

"Does that ever happen in your traditional classroom?" asked Mr. Dougis.

Now she was offended. "Almost never," came her indignant response.

"Why not?" asked Mr. Dougis playing with fire.

First she planned a very icy and angry response. But after 5 minutes or so, she cooled down and started thinking about it seriously. Normally, her lessons had something like a beginning, a middle and an end. They were well thought out and the students understood just what she expected of them. So that is what she wrote in her response to Mr. Dougis' question.

"Can you honestly say the same of your two Moodle lessons?" he wrote back. Mr. Dougis was definitively a daredevil.

She knew he was right. She had expected Moodle to work some sort of magic on her students, but she had not really designed the kind of good, effective lessons she normally planned.

"What would you advise your students to do in a situation like this?" asked Mr. Dougis.

She decided to give Moodle another chance.

=== Act 5: The Pretty Good Teacher strikes back ===

This time, she asked herself, "What do I want my students to learn?" And she wrote down her objectives.

Then she asked herself, "What resources will we need to make the lesson work?" and she collected and organized her resources.

Finally, she asked herself, "What is it I want my students to actually do in order to be successful?" And she designed her activities.

The Pretty Good Teacher wanted her students to recognize and identify the importance of conflict in the novel.

She located a couple of good online resources to give students the information they needed to do this and she posted her own notes to help them better understand what they found on the web sites.

In addition, she wanted them to create a web page for each major conflict in the novel, describing the conflict and suggesting several possible ways the conflict could be resolved. Then she set up a wiki where her students could do this.

Before going to the lab, she discussed the lesson with her students and showed them how to work in a wiki. She used her cool, new LCD projector for that.

She posted clear instructions about the lesson to the web site, reinforcing what she had said in class (and unconsciously stating a contract with her students).

The next day, they went to the lab.

The Pretty Good Teacher was gratified to see how much better the lesson went. While a few of the students did have a little trouble the first few minutes getting used to the wiki, most of them actually caught on very quickly, and it was a pleasure to see how they helped each other get up and running.

After about forty-five minutes, almost all students had contributed to the wiki. Some of their web pages were surprisingly good.

As the Pretty Good Teacher circulated around the lab, she encouraged the students and complimented their work. Of course, she also had to remind a couple of students that playing card games on the computer was not part of the lesson.

While she could not say that the lesson was perfect, the Pretty Good Teacher was pleased. The students had not only learned a lot, they seemed to enjoy doing so.

That evening, she went back to the wiki to reread some of the pages. She was surprised to see that some students had continued to work on their pages from home. They had added graphics and links and some shocking, but enthusiastic, text formatting. She had not assigned this as homework, they just wanted to do it.

And the Pretty Good Teacher smiled a little.

=== Act 6: The next day ===

When class met the next day, several of the students were quite excited about Moodle. One said, "When my father asked me what we had done in school, I showed him the wiki. He thought it was great!" It was obvious that she was proud of the work she and her classmates had done.

The Pretty Good Teacher was feeling pretty good.

"Can we go back to the lab today?" one student asked.

"No," she replied, "not today, but we can go back next week. Do you all want to do that?"

When they said yes, she was not very surprised.

"In the meantime," she suggested, "maybe we should think of a name for our online classroom."

They thought of several good possibilities and decided to vote to pick the best one. The Pretty Good Teacher said, "We do not have to vote right now. I will post a choice to our new web site and you can take a few days to decide."

Almost everyone agreed that this was a sensible idea. But a couple of students looked unhappy about it.

"What's wrong?" the Pretty Good Teacher asked one of them as the class was leaving.

"We don't have the Internet at my house, so I can't vote," said the student.

The Pretty Good Teacher hadn't thought of that. But she had an Internet connection in her classroom. And there were quite a few online computers in the school's media center.

"Why don't you stop here right after school and use our computer when you want to Moodle?" she suggested. "Or I can write you a pass to the media center during class one day when we have a few extra minutes."

The student smiled. "Thanks! I'll stop by after school", she said and headed to her next class.

When she returned at the end of the day, she had a friend with her. "You're not in my class," teased the Pretty Good Teacher. "I know," said the friend, "but it sounds like fun."

And the Pretty Good Teacher was pretty happy.

=== Act 7: She kept on moodling ===

And so it went. Over time, Moodle came to be an important part of the class. Soon, the Pretty Good Teacher was posting lesson plans to Moodle. Not very exciting, but the parents seemed to appreciate it. After a while, she began setting up little practice quizzes to help students prepare for tests. Together with another class, the students collaborated on articles for the school newspaper. They submitted rough drafts of papers for peer review and discussed class matters online. Some students even used the chat room for occasional online study sessions. And once they discovered instant messaging and blogs, things really got crazy.

After a few months, Moodling became second nature to them. It felt natural. It was fun.

And other teachers at the school began to Moodle. Sometimes, they met with their wireless laptops at a local cafe for "Moodle and Coffee" sessions. The teachers began to look forward to spending this time together--even a couple of the teachers who had made negative remarks in the staff room.

=== Act 8: Unexpected role-reversal===

One day, the Pretty Good Teacher ran into Mr. Dougis at the grocery store. She told him how well things were going. And she thanked him for Moodle.

"Glad to share," he said, and smiled.

"Know what I like best?" she said. "It is cool that we can do a weekly podcast for our new partner class in Australia! My students love that podcasting module!"

"So there's a podcasting module? I didn't know that," said her Moodle mentor.

"Really, well, we should set up a forum where we can share on a regular basis," she replied, secretly thrilled at this unexpected role-reversal.

"Yes, that's a great idea. Let's do that," answered Mr. Dougis, who was clearly pleased. "You know, it sounds like you have become a Very Good Teacher."

And he was right. She had, indeed, become a Very Good Teacher.

=== Epilogue ===

She had to convince the school faculty council and the school director, but she finally succeeded in getting some free days for her trip to the next MoodleMoot. Her school administrators even covered the expenses of her trip, writing it off as "professional development" and wishing her well as she represented them to other schools attending the Moot. Once there she, the Good Teacher, gave a speech to other Moodlers about her Moodling experiences.

[[Category:Teacher]]

[[es:La buena maestra]]
[[fr:Une bonne enseignante]]
[[ja:良い先生]]
[[zh:好教师]]

Assignment module

2006-10-02T10:19:53Z

Sunner: Add chinese interlang link

{{Assignments}}

'''Assignments''' allow the teacher to grade various types of student submissions.

==Types==
Moodle supports plug-in assignment types.

===Official types===
There are three official types:

;Upload
:A student can upload a single file. This could be a Word document, spreadsheet or anything digital. Multiple files could be zipped and then submitted.
;Online Text
:This assignment type asks users to edit a text, using the normal editing tools. Teachers can grade them online, and even add inline comments or changes.
;Offline assignment
:This is useful when the assignment is performed outside of Moodle. It could be something elsewhere on the web or face-to-face. Students can see a description of the assignment, but can't upload files or anything. Grading works normally, and students will get notifications of their grades.

===Contrib modules===
These assignment types have been contributed by users:

;[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=30613 Group Assignment] (by Patrick Jermann)
:One user uploads the file but all the members of his or her group "benefit" from the submission.

;[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=33940 uploadmulti] (by Brian Jones)
:Allows uploading multiple files.

;[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=39979 Multiple Files Upload] (by Gustav W Delius)
:Allows uploading multiple files.

;[http://cdc.humboldt.edu/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=21 Review assignment] (by Humboldt University)
:A new assignment type that adds the ability to send back to the student a graded copy of their file. For Moodle 1.5.

;[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=34887 Form] (by Michael Robellard)
:allows students to enter information in a form (multiple textarea boxes) and then the teacher can grade each textarea with a number of points (or other grading scale) and give a comment for each form field

== See also ==
*[http://download.moodle.org/docs/using_moodle/ch7_assignments.pdf Using Moodle Chapter 7: Assignments and Exercises]

== Assignment - Read Only Personal Report Access for Students ==
* Use to provide access to secure personalised student information such as reports. (Needs to be moved to a seperate page - How ??)
* Using "Upload a single file" Assignment to provide individual report access for students:
* Create report files commencing with the moodle user code (easier to create correct "batch" command file with code at start of filename)
* Create pdf files from all reports (pdf's with the right security settings reduce the likelihood of tampering with final reports cf. other editable files)
* Open moodle database table mdl_user and copy the fields id and username to a spreadsheet file for manipulation e.g.
** 2 admin
** 3 tsp80902
** 4 che
* Use a spreadsheet formula to construct the correct command lines to create a folder with the moodle id and move the file starting with the matching username into the new folder:
** e.g. for Excel in a Windows environment use : ="mkdir"&A2&"CarraigeReturn"&"move "&B2&"_2006_MidSem2.pdf "&A2
** mkdir2CarraigeReturnmove admin_2006_MidSem2.pdf 2
** mkdir3CarraigeReturnmove tsp80902_2006_MidSem2.pdf 3
** mkdir4CarraigeReturnmove che_2006_MidSem2.pdf 4
* Use an editor to replace the "CarraigeReturn" marker with a real carraige return, and insert a space after the "mkdir" command:
** mkdir 2
** move admin_2006_MidSem2.pdf 2
** mkdir 3
** move tsp80902_2006_MidSem2.pdf 3
** mkdir 4
** move che_2006_MidSem2.pdf 4
* Go to the course where you want to add the documents and note the course id from the URL displayed in the browser:
** e.g. http://infonet.cheltsec.vic.edu.au/course/view.php?id=5
* Create an "Upload a single file" Assignment in moodle
* Upload an marker file for yourself as a test.
* Update the assignment witht the "available" and "due" dates in the past (so students cannot upload their own amended report !) and check the "Prevent Late Submissions" box.
* Use a file explorer to go to the moodledata folder and look for this course, then open moddate (module data) and open the last assignment. You should see a folder created with your id that should contain the marker file that you uploaded.
* Paste all the files that you want to allow studenst to access in the assignment folder:
** e.g. \\infonet\c$\Webstore\moodledata\5\moddata\assignment\112
* Paste the batch file in the dame folder
* Add a line at the start of the batch file to make it start in the correct physical network folder when it starts making new folders: e.g.
** net use /d R:
** net use R: \\infonet\c$\Webstore\moodledata\5\moddata\assignment\125
** cd /d R:\
* the final batch command file should look like:
** net use /d R:
** net use R: \\infonet\c$\Webstore\moodledata\5\moddata\assignment\125
** cd /d R:\
** mkdir 9
** move bou0010_2006_MidSem2.pdf 9
** mkdir 10
** move wol0002_2006_MidSem2.pdf 10
** mkdir 11
** etc.....
* Run the batch file, and the folders will be created as if the students had uploaded their own reports themselves.
* Open moodle database table mdl_assignment_submissions and copy the database record of your marker file as a template.
** e.g id=11823; assignment=125 userid = 6; timecreated = 1157503128 ; timemodified = 1157503128 ; numfiles=1 data1=(blank) data2=(blank) grade=-1 comment=(blank) format=0; teacher=0; timemarked=0; mailed=0
* Paste the record into a spreadsheet and then paste the list of moodle id's under the userid field; increment the mdl_assignmnet id by one for every user; fill down the same assignment number and all other fields: e.g.
** 11823 125 6 1157503128 1157503128 1 -1 0 0 0 0
** 11824 125 2 1157503128 1157503128 1 -1 0 0 0 0
** 11825 125 3 1157503128 1157503128 1 -1 0 0 0 0
** 11826 125 4 1157503128 1157503128 1 -1 0 0 0 0
** 11827 125 5 1157503128 1157503128 1 -1 0 0 0 0
** 11828 125 6 1157503128 1157503128 1 -1 0 0 0 0
* These records ensure that the database "knows" that there are documents already submitted into the assignment so that students can read but not change the document.

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[category:Modules]]

[[fr:Devoir]]
[[nl:Opdracht]]
[[zh:作业模块]]

Language packs

2006-09-09T14:14:55Z

Sunner:

{{Moodle 1.6}}
Desired language packs may be selected from the list in the right pane and installed directly. Updating the language packs can now easily be done by following the update link.

* the new location for lang files is '''$CFG->dataroot/lang'''

==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: Administrator]]
[[Category:Language]]

[[zh:语言倒入工具]]

Language editing

2006-09-07T00:24:13Z

Sunner: Add Chinese interlang link

__NOEDITSECTION__
== Manage language ==
{{Moodle 1.6}}
Moodle 1.6 includes a [[Language import utility]].

== Edit strings ==
{{Moodle 1.6}}
Text in Moodle may be changed by editing the language strings, either via Administration >> [[Configuration]] >> Language or directly i.e. in ''moodledata/lang/''.
* Click the button "switch" and a local language folder, ''parentlanguage_local'', will automatically be created in ''moodledata/lang/''. Files of edited strings will then be saved in this folder.
* When returning to edit further strings, check that files of edited strings will again be saved to the folder ''parentlanguage_local'', switching folder if necessary.

==Local language pack==
Sometimes, you may wish to change the default terms or language strings used in Moodle. For example, you may wish to replace all occurences of "course" with "class." To ensure that any changes are not overwritten by a new version when upgrading, you need to create your own local language pack as follows:

* Copy the ''langconfig.php'' of your language folder (e.g. ''moodledata/lang/parentlanguage_utf8 or lang/en_utf8'') into a new folder (e.g. ''moodledata/lang/parentlanguage_utf8_local''). You will need access to the server to achieve this step - it cannot be done from within Moodle.
* Add a string for parentlanguage to this file, which points to the language which is the most similar to yours (e.g. $string[''parentlanguage''] = ''parentlanguage_utf8'';).
* Edit only those strings you want to change with the built-in language editor, to be found in Administration >> [[Configuration]] >> Language.

The hierarchy of language packs can support up to three levels, the parent language, a sitewide local language pack, and a course level language pack. Moodle will first look for a string in the course level language pack, and if it does not find it, it will use the sitewide language pack, and then use the parent language string by default.

If you are having trouble figuring out where a particular string you wish to change is located, you will need to perform a search for it. An easy way to do this is to use a program like [http://www.webattack.com/get/amcodesearch.html AM Code Search] which allows you to search for strings inside php files, unlike the Windows search.

==Previous admin/lang==
{{Moodle 1.5}}
Text in Moodle may be changed by editing the language strings, either via Administration >> [[Configuration]] >> Language or directly e.g. in ''lang/en''.

'''Local language pack'''

To ensure that any changes are not overwritten by a new version when upgrading, you need to create your own local language pack as follows:

* Copy the contents of your language folder (e.g. ''lang/en'') into a new folder (e.g. ''lang/en_local'') - you will need access to the server to achieve this step, it cannot be done from within Moodle.
* Make your local language pack the default for the site via Administration >> [[Configuration]] >> [[Variables]].

== See also ==

* [[Translation]]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=43 Languages] forum
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=49150 Local language] forum discussion

[[Category: Administrator]]
[[Category:Language]]

[[es:admin/lang]]
[[fr:Langue]]
[[zh:语言]]

Scales

2006-09-02T14:58:16Z

Sunner: Add Chinese interlang link

{{Course admin}}

'''Scales''' may be used in [[Forums]], [[Glossaries]] (for rating) and [[Assignments]] (for grading). Custom scales can be created where you would like to assign non-numerical or non-numerically assigned lettered grades.

* The interface for creating scales is accessed by clicking the "Scales" link in any course [[Administration block]].
* Scales may be created for individual courses by Teachers with editing rights or Administrators.
* Administrators may create site-wide scales by "promoting" a scale created for a course. To achieve this, add a new scale, then use the move down arrow to move the scale from custom scales to standard scales (i.e. site-wide).

==Creating a scale==

If you choose to ''Add a new scale'' from the '''Scales''' administration menu, you can create a custom scale for your course.

;Name
:A recognisable name for your scale that will identify it among other scales.

;Scale
:Define the options for your scale using comma separated options. For example if you would like two options in your scale (complete and incomplete) type: ''incomplete, complete''. You can use as many options here as you require. Other examples could include a four option scale ''refer, pass, merit, distinction'' or ''Excellent, Average, Acceptable, Hesitant (Fail)'' depending on your curriculum/course needs.

;Description
:Explain the methodology and/or purpose of this grading scale if necessary.

==Using a custom scale==

When you create a new graded or rated activity, you should find the name of your scale in the drop-down '''Grade:''' option. When you mark the activity you will now be given the options defined in your scale rather than the standard numerical values.

== See also ==

*[http://download.moodle.org/docs/using_moodle/ch12_grades.pdf Using Moodle Chapter 12: Grades and Scales]

[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Teacher]]
[[Category:Forum]]
[[Category:Glossary]]
[[Category:Assignment]]

[[zh:等级]]

Site settings

2006-09-01T14:24:31Z

Sunner:

This page provides options for defining the appearance of the site homepage.

The site homepage is effectively a course with id = 1 (usually). ''<nowiki>http://yourmoodlesite.org/course/teacher.php?id=1</nowiki>'' may be used to give users other than admins editing rights (including the rights to post in a no discussions, no replies forum or add an entry to a teacher-only glossary) to the site homepage.

== See also ==
* [[Homepage design|Homepage design of moodle.org]]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=38614 Front page format] forum discussion

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[zh:站点设置]]

Configuration

2006-09-01T14:19:44Z

Sunner:

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

[[Category:Administrator]]

[[fr:Configuration]]
[[zh:配置]]

MoodleDocs:Link pages

2006-09-01T13:06:28Z

Sunner: Add Chinese interlang link

{{MoodleDocs development}}

'''Link pages''' enable easy access to documentation for each page in Moodle. Links may be tested in the [http://demo.moodle.com/ Moodle demo site].

Link pages should be moved/redirected (using <code><nowiki>#REDIRECT [[Page name]]</nowiki></code>) to provide translated page names.

==Administrator links==

*[[admin/]] - Administrator documentation
*[[admin/index]] - Administrator documentation

===Configuration===
*[[admin/configure]] - Configuration
*[[admin/config]] - Variables
*[[admin/site]] - Site settings
*[[theme/index]] - Themes
*[[admin/lang]] - Language
*[[admin/langimport]] - Language import utility
*[[admin/modules]] - Modules (administrator)
*[[admin/blocks]] - Blocks (administrator)
*[[admin/filters]] - Filters (administrator)
*[[admin/backup]] - Backup (administrator)
*[[admin/editor]] - Editor settings
*[[admin/calendar]] - Calendar (administrator)
*[[admin/maintenance]] - Maintenance mode
*[[admin/utfdbmigrate]] - Moodle database migration

'''Module configuration'''
*[[mod/assignment/config]] - Assignment configuration
*[[mod/chat/config]] - Chat configuration
*[[mod/data/config]] - Database configuration
*[[mod/forum/config]] - Forum configuration
*[[mod/glossary/config]] - Glossary configuration
*[[mod/hotpot/config]] - Hotpot configuration
*[[mod/lams/config]] - LAMS configuration
*[[mod/quiz/config]] - Quiz configuration
*[[mod/resource/config]] - Resource configuration
*[[mod/scorm/config]] - SCORM/AICC configuration

'''Block configuration'''
*[[block/courses/config]] or [[block/course list/config]] - Courses block configuration
*[[block/online_users/config]] - Online users block configuration
*[[block/remote_rss_feeds/config]] or [[block/rss client/config]] - Remote RSS Feeds block configuration
*[[blocks/rss client/block rss client action]] - Add/edit feeds

'''Filter settings'''
*[[filter/censor/config]] - Word censorship
*[[filter/mediaplugin/config]] - Multimedia plugins
*[[filter/tex/config]] - TeX notation

===Users===

*[[admin/admin]] - Assign admins
*[[admin/uploaduser]] - Upload users
*[[admin/users]] - Users
*[[admin/user]] - Edit user accounts

'''Authentication'''
*[[auth/email]] - Email-based authentication
*[[auth/manual]] - Manual accounts only
*[[auth/none]] - No authentication
*[[auth/pam]] - PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)
*[[auth/shibboleth]] - Shibboleth
*[[auth/cas]] - Use a CAS server (SSO)
*[[auth/fc]] - Use a FirstClass server
*[[auth/pop3]] - Use a POP3 server
*[[auth/db]] - External database authentication

'''Enrolment'''
*[[enrol]] - Enrolment plugins
*[[enrol/authorize]] - Authorize.net Payment Gateway
*[[enrol/database]] - External database
*[[enrol/flatfile]] - Flat file
*[[enrol/imsenterprise]] - IMS Enterprise
*[[enrol/manual]] - Internal enrolment
*[[enrol/ldap]] - LDAP enrolment
*[[enrol/paypal]] - Paypal

===Other===
*[[course/index]] - Courses (administrator)
*[[admin/stickyblocks]] - Sticky blocks
*[[admin/report]] - Site reports
*[[admin/report/courseoverview/index]] - Course overview reports
*[[admin/environment]] - Environment
*[[admin/register]] - Registration
*[[userpix/]] - User pictures

==Teacher/user links==

===Activity modules===

[[mod/assignment/index]] - '''Assignments'''
*[[mod/assignment/details]] - Assignment details
*[[mod/assignment/submissions]] - Assignment submissions
*[[mod/assignment/view]] - Viewing an assignment
*[[mod/assignment/mod]] - Adding/editing an assignment

[[mod/chat/index]] - '''Chats'''
*[[mod/chat/gui header js/index]] - Chat sessions
*[[mod/chat/report]] - Chat reports
*[[mod/chat/view]] - Viewing a chat
*[[mod/chat/mod]] - Adding/editing a chat

[[mod/choice/index]] - '''Choices'''
*[[mod/choice/mod]] - Adding/editing a choice
*[[mod/choice/report]] - Choice responses
*[[mod/choice/view]] - Viewing a choice

[[mod/data/index]] - '''Database module'''
*[[mod/data/mod]] - Adding/editing a database
*[[mod/data/edit]] - Adding an entry
*[[mod/data/field]] - Fields
*[[mod/data/templates]] - Templates
*[[mod/data/view]] - Viewing a database

[[mod/forum/index]] - '''Forums'''
*[[mod/forum/discuss]] - Viewing a discussion
*[[mod/forum/mod]] - Adding/editing a forum
*[[mod/forum/post]] - Forum posting
*[[mod/forum/search]] - Advanced forum search
*[[mod/forum/subscribers]] - Forum subscription
*[[mod/forum/view]] - Viewing a forum
*[[mod/forum/user]] - View forum posts

[[mod/glossary/index]] - '''Glossaries'''
*[[mod/glossary/edit]] - Adding/editing a glossary entry
*[[mod/glossary/view]] - Viewing a glossary
*[[mod/glossary/mod]] - Adding/editing a glossary

[[mod/hotpot/index]] - '''Hotpot'''
*[[mod/hotpot/mod]] - Adding/editing a hotpot
*[[mod/hotpot/report]] - Hotpot reports
*[[mod/hotpot/view]] - Viewing a hotpot

[[mod/lesson/index]] - '''Lessons'''
*[[mod/lesson/addbranchtable]] - Adding a branch table
*[[mod/lesson/addpage]] - Adding a question page
*[[mod/lesson/import]] - Import questions
*[[mod/lesson/importppt]] - Import PowerPoint
*[[mod/lesson/mod]] - Adding/editing a lesson
*[[mod/lesson/report]] - Lesson reports
*[[mod/lesson/view]] - Viewing a lesson

[[mod/quiz/index]] - '''Quizzes'''
*[[mod/quiz/attempt]] - Quiz preview
*[[mod/quiz/edit]] - Editing a quiz
*[[mod/quiz/grading]] - Manual grading
*[[mod/quiz/mod]] - Adding/editing a quiz
*[[mod/quiz/question]] - Quiz questions
*[[mod/quiz/report]] - Quiz reports
*[[mod/quiz/view]] - Viewing a quiz

[[mod/scorm/index]] - '''SCORM'''
*[[mod/scorm/mod]] - Adding/editing a SCORM
*[[mod/scorm/report]] - SCORM reports
*[[mod/scorm/view]] - Viewing a SCORM

[[mod/survey/index]] - '''Surveys'''

[[mod/wiki/index]] - '''Wiki'''

[[mod/workshop/index]] - '''Workshop'''

===Blocks===
*[[blocks/html]] - HTML block
*[[blocks/rss client]] - RSS feeds
*[[blocks/quiz results]] - Quiz Results
*[[blocks/glossary random]] - Random Glossary Entry

===Resources===
*[[mod/resource/directory]] - Directory
*[[mod/resource/file]] - File or website link
*[[mod/resource/html]] - Web page
*[[mod/resource/ims]] - IMS content package
*[[mod/resource/index]] - Resources
*[[mod/resource/text]] - Text page
*[[mod/label/mod]] - Label
*[[mod/resource/view]] - Viewing a resource

===Other===
*[[backup/backup]] - Course backup
*[[backup/restore]] - Backup restore
*[[course/edit]] - Settings
*[[course/groups]] - Groups
*[[course/view]] - Course homepage
*[[course/import]] - Import course data
*[[course/log]] - Logs
*[[course/reset]] - Reset course
*[[course/scales]] - Scales
*[[course/student]] - Students
*[[course/teacher]] - Teachers
*[[course/user]] - View activity reports
*[[files/index]] - Files
*[[files/index/backupdata]] - Restore
*[[grade/index]] - Grades
*[[user/edit]] - Edit profile
*[[user/index]] - Participants
*[[user/view]] - View profile
*[[course/request]] - Course request

[[blog/index]] - '''Blogs'''
*[[blog/edit]] - Adding/editing a blog entry
*[[blog/preferences]] - Blog preferences
*[[blog/tags]] - Add/delete tags

[[question/edit]] - '''Questions'''
*[[question/category]] - Question categories
*[[question/question]] - Question types
*[[question/import]] - Import questions
*[[question/export]] - Export questions

[[course/report]] - '''Reports'''
*[[course/report/log/index]] - Logs report
*[[course/report/log/live]] - Live logs
*[[course/report/outline/index]] - Activity report
*[[course/report/participation/index]] - Participation report
*[[course/report/stats/index]] - Statistics

==Links for deletion==
*[[admin/auth]]
*[[admin/enrol]]
*[[mod/data/add]]

[[Category:Developer]]
[[Category:MoodleDocs]]

[[de:MoodleDocs:Link pages]]
[[es:MoodleDocs:Páginas enlazadas]]
[[fr:MoodleDocs:Pages de liens]]
[[nl:MoodleDocs:Link pages]]
[[zh:MoodleDocs:链接页]]

Installing Moodle

2006-09-01T12:48:59Z

Sunner: Add Chinese interlang link

'''Firstly don't panic! :-)'''

This guide explains how to install Moodle for the first time. For some of these steps it goes into a lot of detail to try and cover the majority of possible web server setups, so this page may look long and complicated. Don't panic, once you know how to do it you can install Moodle in minutes!

If you have problems please read this page carefully - most common issues are answered in here. If you still have trouble, you can seek help from the Moodle community via [http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5 moodle.org Using Moodle].

Another option is to contact a [http://moodle.com/hosting/ Moodle Partner providing Moodle hosting] who can completely maintain Moodle for you, so that you can ignore all this and get straight into educating!

==Requirements==

Moodle is primarily developed in Linux using [[Apache]], [[MySQL]] and [[PHP]] (also sometimes known as the LAMP platform), but is also regularly tested with PostgreSQL and on Windows XP, Mac OS X and Netware 6 operating systems.

The requirements for Moodle are as follows:

* Web server software. Most people use [[Apache]], but Moodle should work fine under any web server that supports [[PHP]], such as [[IIS]] on Windows platforms. PHP does impose requirements on versions of web servers, however these are complex and the general advice is to use the newest version possible of your chosen web server.
* PHP scripting language (version 4.1.0 or later). PHP 5 (version 5.1.0 or later) is supported as of Moodle 1.4. (Please note that there have been issues installing Moodle with [http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk PHP-Accelerator]). From Moodle version 1.6, the minimum version of PHP will be 4.3.0.
* a working database server: [[MySQL]] or [[PostgreSQL]] are completely supported and recommended for use with 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. The minimum version of MySql required for Moodle 1.5 is 3.23. Moodle 1.6 requires MySQL 4.1.16 (4.1.12 if you use latin languages only). The minimum version of PostgreSQL is 7.4 and it is widely used with 8.0 and 8.1.

Most web hosts support all of this by default. If you are signed up with one of the few webhosts that does not support these features ask them why, and consider taking your business elsewhere.

If you want to run Moodle on your own computer and all this looks a bit daunting, then please see our guide: [[Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP]]. It provides some step-by-step instructions to install all this on most popular platforms.

Additional requirements:

PHP Extensions:
* [http://www.boutell.com/gd/ GD library] and the [http://www.freetype.org/ FreeType 2] library on Linux/Unix boxes to be able to look at the dynamic graphs that the logs pages make.
* mbstring - is required for multi-byte string handling. (iconv is also recommended for Moodle 1.6)
* 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 zlib extension is required for zip/unzip functionality
* other PHP extensions may be required to support optional Moodle functionality, especially external authentication and/or enrolment (e.g., LDAP extension)

== Download and copy files into place ==

There are two ways to get Moodle, as a compressed package or via CVS. These are explained in detail on the download page: http://download.moodle.org/

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.

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>'''.

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".

== Site structure ==

You can safely skip this section, but here is a quick summary of the contents of the Moodle folder, to help get you oriented:

:''config.php'' - contains basic settings. This file does not come with Moodle - you will create it.
:''install.php'' - the script you will run to create config.php
:''version.php'' - defines the current version of Moodle code
:''index.php'' - the front page of the site
:''admin/'' - code to administrate the whole server
:''auth/'' - plugin modules to authenticate users
:''blocks/'' - plugin modules for the little side blocks on many pages
:''calendar/'' - all the code for managing and displaying calendars
:''course/'' - code to display and manage courses
:''doc/'' - help documentation for Moodle (eg this page)
:''files/'' - code to display and manage uploaded files
:''lang/'' - texts in different languages, one directory per language
:''lib/'' - libraries of core Moodle code
:''login/'' - code to handle login and account creation
:''mod/'' - all the main Moodle course modules are in here
:''pix/'' - generic site graphics
:''theme/'' - theme packs/skins to change the look of the site.
:''user/'' - code to display and manage users

== Run the installer script to create config.php ==

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, look below for more information about some of common things that might be holding you up.

=== Check web server settings ===

Firstly, make sure that your web server is set up to use index.php as a default page (perhaps in addition to index.html, default.htm and so on). In Apache, this is done using a DirectoryIndex parameter in your httpd.conf file. Mine usually looks like this:

'''DirectoryIndex''' index.php index.html index.htm

Just make sure index.php is in the list (and preferably towards the start of the list, for efficiency).

Secondly, '''if you are using Apache 2''', then you should turn on the ''AcceptPathInfo'' variable, which allows scripts to be passed arguments like <nowiki>http://server/file.php/arg1/arg2</nowiki>. This is essential to allow relative links between your resources, and also provides a performance boost for people using your Moodle web site. You can turn this on by adding these lines to your httpd.conf file.

'''AcceptPathInfo''' on

Thirdly, Moodle requires a number of PHP settings to be active for it to work. '''On most servers these will already be the default settings'''. However, some PHP servers (and some of the more recent PHP versions) may have things set differently. These are defined in PHP's configuration file (usually called '''php.ini'''):

magic_quotes_gpc = 1 (preferred but not necessary)
magic_quotes_runtime = 0 (necessary)
file_uploads = 1
session.auto_start = 0
session.bug_compat_warn = 0

If you don't have access to '''httpd.conf''' or '''php.ini''' on your server, or you have Moodle on a server with other applications that require different settings, then don't worry, you can often still OVERRIDE the default settings.

To do this, you need to create a file called '''.htaccess''' in Moodle's main directory that contains lines like the following. This only works on Apache servers and only when Overrides have been allowed in the main configuration.

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm

<IfDefine APACHE2>
'''AcceptPathInfo''' on
</IfDefine>

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc 1
php_flag magic_quotes_runtime 0
php_flag file_uploads 1
php_flag session.auto_start 0
php_flag session.bug_compat_warn 0

You can also do things like define the maximum size for uploaded files:

LimitRequestBody 0
php_value upload_max_filesize 2M
php_value post_max_size 2M

The easiest thing to do is just copy the sample file from lib/htaccess and edit it to suit your needs. It contains further instructions. For example, in a Unix shell:

cp lib/htaccess .htaccess

=== Creating a database ===

You need to create an empty database (eg "''moodle''") in your database system along with a special user (eg "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.

::Bear in mind that currently (as of 1.5.x) Moodle doesn't work with MySQL 5.x's new "STRICT_TRANS_TABLES" setting. So if you are using MySQL 5.x, edit MySQL's configuration file (called "my.ini" in Windows and "my.cnf" on Unix/Linux) and comment out that option (or simply delete it). You have to restart MySQL after changing this setting.

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

The '''Cpanel''' system is one of the most popular of these. To create a database in Cpanel,

# Click on the "'''MySQL Databases'''" icon.
# Type "moodle" in the database field and click "'''Add Database'''".
# Type a username and password (not one you use elsewhere) in the respective fields and click "'''Add User'''".
# Now use the "'''Add User to Database'''" button to give this new user account "'''ALL'''" rights to the new database.
# Note that the username and database names may be prefixed by your Cpanel account name. When entering this information into the Moodle installer - use the full names.

If you have access to Unix command lines then you can do the same sort of thing by typing commands.

Here are some example Unix command lines for MySQL (the red part is for Moodle 1.6 and later, leave it out for Moodle 1.5.x or earlier):

# mysql -u root -p
> CREATE DATABASE moodle DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.*
TO moodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
> quit
# mysqladmin -p reload

If you are using MySQL 4.0.2 or later, you need to specify CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES as well in the GRANT statement:

> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES,
DROP,INDEX,ALTER ON moodle.*
TO moodleuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';

And some example command lines for PostgreSQL:

# su - postgres
> psql -c "create user moodleuser createdb;" template1
> psql -c "create database moodle with encoding 'unicode';" -U moodleuser template1
> psql -c "alter user moodleuser nocreatedb;" template1
> psql -c "alter user moodleuser with encrypted password 'yourpassword';" template1
> su - root
# /etc/init.d/postgresql reload

=== Creating a 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 this directory for you but if it fails then you will have to create a directory for this purpose manually.

For security, it's best that this directory is NOT accessible directly via the web. The easiest way to do this is to simply locate it OUTSIDE the web directory, but if you must have it in the web directory then protect it by creating a file in the data directory called .htaccess, containing this line:

deny from all

To make sure that Moodle can save uploaded files in this directory, check that the web server software (eg Apache) has permission to read, write and execute in this directory.

On Unix machines, this means setting the owner of the directory to be something like "nobody" or "apache", and then giving that user read, write and execute permissions.

On Cpanel systems you can use the "File Manager" to find the folder, click on it, then choose "Change Permissions". On many shared hosting servers, you will probably need to restrict all file access to your "group" (to prevent other webhost customers from looking at or changing your files), but provide full read/write access to everyone else (which will allow the web server to access your files).

Speak to your server administrator if you are having trouble setting this up securely. In particular some sites that use a PHP feature known as "Safe Mode" may ''require'' the administrator to create this directory properly for you.

== 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 the "admin" page for the rest of the configuration.

The first time you access this admin page, you will be presented with a GPL "shrinkwrap" 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. Firstly, the main database tables are created. You should see a number of SQL statements followed by status messages (in green or red) that look like this:

{| border=1
|<nowiki>CREATE TABLE course ( id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, category int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', password varchar(50) NOT NULL default '', fullname varchar(254) NOT NULL default '', shortname varchar(15) NOT NULL default '', summary text NOT NULL, format tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '1', teacher varchar(100) NOT NULL default 'Teacher', startdate int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', enddate int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', timemodified int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0', PRIMARY KEY (id)) TYPE=MyISAM</nowiki>

SUCCESS
|}

...and so on, followed by: Main databases set up successfully.

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. Check that PHP isn't in a restricted "Safe Mode" (commercial web hosts sometimes have safe mode turned on). You can check PHP variables by creating a little file containing '''<?php phpinfo() ?>''' and looking at it through a browser. Check all these and try this page again.

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".

If (and only if) you find yourself getting stuck on this page, unable to continue, then your server probably has what I call the "buggy referrer" problem. This is easy to fix: just turn off the "secureforms" setting, then try to continue again.

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 green.

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.

'''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.'''

(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 returned to the home page of your new site! Note the administration links that appear down the left hand side of the page (these items also appear on a separate Admin page) - 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 menu, such as:

* creating and deleting courses
* creating and editing user accounts
* administering teacher accounts
* changing site-wide settings like themes etc

But you are not done installing yet! There is one very important thing still to do (see the next section on cron).

== Set up cron ==

Please refer to the [[Cron|cron instructions]].

== Create a new course ==

Now that Moodle is running properly, you can try creating a new course to play with.

Select "Create a new course" from the Admin page (or the admin links on the home page).

Fill out the form, paying special attention to the course format. You don't have to worry about the details too much at this stage, as everything can be changed later by the teacher. Note that the yellow help icons are everywhere to provide contextual help on any aspect.

Press "Save changes", and you will be taken to a new form where you can assign teachers to the course. You can only add existing user accounts from this form - if you want to create a new teacher account then either ask the teacher to create one for themselves (see the login page), or create one for them using the "Add a new user" on the Admin page.

Once done, the course is ready to customise, and is accessible via the "Courses" link on the home page.

==See also==

* [[Installation FAQ]]
* [[Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP]]
* [[Upgrading Moodle]]
* [[Windows installation|Windows installation]]
* [[RedHat Linux installation|Step by Step Installation Guide for RedHat]]
* [[Debian GNU/Linux installation|Step by Step Installation Guide for Debian GNU/Linux]]
* Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=42688 Selecting a webhost for Moodle] forum discussion
* [[masquerading]] - Running Moodle behind a masquerading/NAT firewall

[[Category:Core]]
[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Installation]]

[[es:Instalación de moodle]]
[[fr:Installation de Moodle]]
[[nl:Installatiegids]]
[[ja:Moodleのインストール]]
[[zh:安装Moodlezh:]]

Documentation philosophy

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{{Help}}

* Focus on '''Moodle Docs''' as the central Moodle knowledge-base
* Transfer content from [http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5 Using Moodle] forum discussions (e.g. answers to how-to questions, ideas/suggestions of ways of using a particular feature) to Moodle Docs
* Encourage newcomers to contribute to Moodle Docs
:"New users are ideal for writing system-level documentation aimed at new users. They have the point of view and experience with the current software at the system level rather than at the library level. The most common evidence of this is FAQ lists, in which issues repeatedly raised on mailing lists and chat sessions are answered." Source: [http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/documentation.xml Documentation issues in open source]
* Encourage Using Moodle regulars to contribute to Moodle Docs by adding content in response to a question in the forums, then provide a link to the Moodle Docs page in the forum discussion
* Provide "See also" links in Moodle Docs to additional information in Using Moodle discussions e.g. [[Forums]] (though if the Using Moodle discussion leads to a conclusion/agreement then this should be transferred to MoodleDocs)

==See also==

*[[MoodleDocs development]]

[[Category:MoodleDocs]]

[[es:MoodleDocs:Filosofía de la documentación]]
[[zh:文档的哲学]]

MoodleDocs:Style guide

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{{Help}}

==Categories==

*Please add at least one category to each page by typing one or more of the following at the bottom of the page:
:<code><nowiki>[[Category:Teacher]]</nowiki></code>, <code><nowiki>[[Category:Administrator]]</nowiki></code>, <code><nowiki>[[Category:Developer]]</nowiki></code>
*[[Special:Categories&article=MoodleDocs%3AStyle_guide|Categories]] lists all Moodle Docs categories.

==Screenshots==

* You are encouraged to illustrate documentation with screenshots. Please use the official [http://demo.moodle.com/ Moodle demo site], or any other site or course using one of the standard themes, and ensure that the screenshot is as small as possible.
* Screenshots should be GIF, JPEG or PNG format, with 72ppp resolution, and maximum width 800px.
* Screenshots may be uploaded using the toolbox [[Special:Upload|Upload file]] link.
* Please name screenshots descriptively to avoid confusion.
* To include the screenshot in an article, use a link in the form <code><nowiki>[[Image:Screenshot.jpg]]</nowiki></code> or <code><nowiki>[[Image:Screenshot.png|alt text]]</nowiki></code>.
* Please do not apply effects such as borders, watermarks or drop shadows to screenshots. This will allow others to add or replace screenshots over time and still maintain a consistent look and feel to articles.
* For help on image placement and adding an image caption, please refer to the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Picture_tutorial|Wikipedia Picture tutorial]].

==Templates==

* In MediaWiki, a template is a page which can be inserted into another page. For example, the Moodle Docs help block on this page is a template.
* A template may be added to a page by typing <code><nowiki>{{Name}}</nowiki></code> for Template:''Name''.
* [[Special%3AAllpages&from=&namespace=10|All pages (Template namespace)]] lists all Moodle Docs templates.
* Please refer to the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template MediaWiki Template help] for further information.

[[Category:MoodleDocs|Style guide]]

[[es:MoodleDocs:Guía de Estilo]]
[[fr:MoodleDocs:Guide de style]]
[[zh:MoodleDocs:风格指引]]

Background

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{{About Moodle}}
Moodle is an active and evolving work in progress. Development was started by [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=1&course=1 Martin Dougiamas] who continues to lead the project:

''I've been working on it, in some way or other, for several years. It started in the 90's when I was webmaster at [http://www.curtin.edu.au/ Curtin University of Technology] and a system administrator of their WebCT installation. I encountered many frustrations with the WebCT beast and developed an itch that needed scratching - there had to be a better way (no, not Blackboard :-)''

''I also know a lot of people in schools and smaller institutions (and some big ones!) who want to make better use of the Internet but don't know where to start in the maze of technologies and pedagogies that are out there. I've always hoped there would be a Free alternative that such people could use to help them move their teaching skills into the online environment.''

''My strong beliefs in the unrealised possibilities of Internet-based education led me to complete a Masters and then a PhD in Education, combining my former career in Computer Science with newly constructed knowledge about the nature of learning and collaboration. In particular, I am particularly influenced by the epistemology of social constructionism - which not only treats learning as a social activity, but focusses attention on the learning that occurs while actively constructing artifacts (such as texts) for others to see or use.''

''It is crucial to me that this software be easy to use - in fact it should be as intuitive as possible.''

''I'm committed to continuing my work on Moodle and on keeping it Open and Free. I have a deeply-held belief in the importance of unrestricted education and empowered teaching, and Moodle is the main way I can contribute to the realisation of these ideals.''

A number of early prototypes were produced and discarded before he released version 1.0 upon a largely unsuspecting world on August 20, 2002. This version was targeted towards smaller, more intimate classes at University level, and was the subject of research case studies that closely analysed the nature of collaboration and reflection that occurred among these small groups of adult participants.

Since then there has been steady series of new releases adding new features, better scalability and improved performance.

As Moodle has spread and the community has grown, more input is being drawn from a wider variety of people in different teaching situations. For example, Moodle is now used not only in Universities, but in high schools, primary schools, non-profit organisations, private companies, by independent teachers and even homeschooling parents. A growing number of people from around the world are contributing to Moodle in different ways - for more details see the [[Credits]] page.

An important feature of the Moodle project is [http://moodle.org/ moodle.org], which provides a central point for information, discussion and collaboration among Moodle users, who include system administrators, teachers, researchers, instructional designers and of course, developers. Like Moodle, this site is always evolving to suit the needs of the community, and like Moodle it will always be Free.

In 2003, the company [http://moodle.com/ moodle.com] was launched to provide additional commercial support for those who need it, as well as managed hosting, consulting and other services.

For more about our future plans for Moodle, see the [[Future]] roadmap.

[[Category:Core]]
[[Category:Administrator]]

[[es:Antecedentes]]
[[ja:背景]]
[[zh:背景]]

Help:Contents

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{{Help}}

*You are welcome to explore Moodle Docs using the links on the [[Main Page|main page]] and/or browse the various [[Special:Categories|categories]]. Alternatively, you may try [[MoodleDocs:Searching|searching]] Moodle Docs.
*Please feel free to [[MoodleDocs:Guidelines for contributors|contribute]] to Moodle Docs and help create the best documentation for Moodle!
*If you wish to ask a question about Moodle, please visit the moodle.org [http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5 Using Moodle] forums.
*If you'd like to experiment with this wiki, please do so in the [[Sandbox|sandbox]].

==Contact==

* Email: ''docs AT moodle DOT org''

[[Category:MoodleDocs]]

[[es:MoodleDocs:Ayuda]]
[[zh:帮助:目录]]

About Moodle

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{{About Moodle}}
Moodle is a software package for producing internet-based courses and web sites. It's an ongoing development project designed to support a [[Philosophy|social constructionist]] framework of education.

Moodle is provided freely as [http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.html Open Source] software (under the [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU Public License]). Basically this means Moodle is copyrighted, but that you have additional freedoms. You are allowed to copy, use and modify Moodle provided that you agree to: '''provide the source to others; not modify or remove the original license and copyrights''', and '''apply this same license to any derivative work'''. Read the [[License|license]] for full details and please contact the [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=1&course=1 copyright holder] directly if you have any questions.

Moodle will run on any computer that can run [http://www.php.net/ PHP], and can support many types of database (particularly [http://www.mysql.com/ MySQL]).

The word Moodle was originally an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, which is mostly useful to programmers and education theorists. It's also a verb that describes the process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity. As such it applies both to the way Moodle was developed, and to the way a student or teacher might approach studying or teaching an online course. Anyone who uses Moodle is a Moodler.

Come [http://moodle.org/community/ moodle with us]!

==See also==

*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle Moodle at Wikipedia]
*[[Using Moodle book]]
*[[Moodle presentations|Presentations]]
* Moodle Conferences: [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=moodlemoot Moodlemoots]

[[es:Acerca de Moodle]]
[[fr:À propos de Moodle]]
[[nl:Over Moodle]]
[[de:Was ist Moodle?]]
[[hr:O_Moodle_rješenju]]
[[ja:Moodleとは]]
[[zh:关于Moodle]]
[[Category:Core]]
[[Category:Administrator]]
[[Category:Teacher]]

Development:Developer documentation

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==Guidelines==
The following guidelines are crucial reading for anyone wanting to contribute to the Moodle code base:
*[[Coding|Coding guidelines]] have to be followed by all Moodle developers
*[[Moodle architecture]] spells out the basic design goals behind Moodle
*[[Interface guidelines]] aim to provide a common feel to the Moodle user interface
*[[CVS (developer)|Moodle CVS for developers]] explains how to work with the Moodle code in CVS
*[[Unit tests]] explains how to run the unit tests, and how to write new test cases.
*[[Tracker]] explains the Moodle Tracker for keeping track of bugs, issues, feature requests etc

== Resources and tools ==

*[[Developer FAQ]] - frequently asked questions, especially useful for newcomers to Moodle
*[http://tracker.moodle.org/ Moodle bug tracker] - bug reports, feature requests and other tracked issues
*[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=55 General developer forum]
*[http://moodle.cvs.sourceforge.net/moodle/moodle/ CVS code] - browse the Moodle code via the web
*[http://moodle.org/xref/nav.html?index.html Cross reference] - phpxref output for browsing Moodle source code
*[http://moodle.sourceforge.net/dhawes-phpdoc/ Moodle PHP doc reference] - automatically generated documentation
*[http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5#4 Development news and discussion] section of Using Moodle course
*[http://developer.yahoo.com/yui YUI documentation] - YUI is the official AJAX library in moodle.
*[[Setting up Eclipse for Moodle development]] - Eclipse is a great editor to use for php development, if you can work out how to set it up.
*[[Unmerged files]] - changes on the stable branch in CVS that have not been merged to HEAD

==How you can contribute==

The M in Moodle stands for 'Modular'. There are many different types of components that you can contribute that can be plugged into Moodle to provide additional functionality. When you have developed a new component please publish it in the [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009 database of Moodle modules and plugins]. The following types of plugins currently exist (in alphabetical order):
*[[Modules (developer)|Activity modules]]
*[[Assignment types]]
*[[Authentication|Authentication methods]]
*[[Blocks Howto|Blocks]]
*[[Course formats]]
*[[Database fields (developer)|Database fields]]
*[[Database presets]]
*[[Enrolment plugins (developer)|Enrolment plugins]]
*[[Filters (developer)|Filters]]
*[[Question_engine]]
*[[Question import/export formats]]
*[[Question types|Question types teacher docs]]
*[[Question_engine#Question_types|Question types developper docs]]
*[[Quiz reports]]
*[[Resource types]]
*[[SSO plugins]]

There are also ways you can contribute that don't involve PHP programming:
*[[Themes]]
*[[Translation]]
*[[Database Schemas|Database schemas]]

You can also help a lot by
*[[Tests|Testing]]
*[[Bug tracker|Participating in the bug tracker]]

==Plans for the future==
Ideas for and details of planned future features of Moodle are initially discussed on the forums in the [http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5 Using Moodle] course at moodle.org. That developer discussions are intermixed with user discussions in the same forums may seem strange at first but is one of the reasons for the success of Moodle. It is important that both end-users and developers discuss the future features together.

Once ideas begin to crystalize on the forums they can be summarized in this wiki, either as part of the [[Roadmap]] or in the form of [[Developer notes]]. These pages then form the basis for further discussion in the forums.
*[[Roadmap]]
*[[Developer notes]]
*[[Student projects]]
*[[Developer conference|Developer conferences]]

==Documentation for core components==
This section is for documentation of specific components of the existing core Moodle code. Discussion of components that are under discussion or in development can be found in the [[Developer notes]] or on the [[Roadmap]].

*[[UTF-8 migration|Migration to UTF-8]]
*[[Question engine]]
*[[Quiz developer docs|Quiz module]]
*[[SCORM schema|SCORM module 1.5 schema]]
*[[Authentication API]]
*[[Stats package]]
*[[Email processing]]
*[[Cookieless Sessions]]

==Documentation for contributed code==
Many Moodle users contribute code for the benefit of other Moodle users. This can take the form of new activity modules, blocks, themes, resource plug-ins, assignment plug-ins, question type plug-ins, question import/export formats, quiz report plug-ins, course formats, ... This code is initially posted on the forums in the [http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5 Using Moodle] course and then often go into the [http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/moodle/contrib/ contrib area] of the Moodle [[CVS]] repository. When you have developed a new component please publish it in the [http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009 database of Moodle modules and plugins]. Developer documentation for these components should be listed here.

==See also==
*[http://security.moodle.org/ Moodle Security Centre]
*[http://moodle.com/partners/ Moodle Partners] - providers of custom Moodle development services

[[Category:Developer]]
[[es:Documentación para Desarrolladores]]
[[fr:Documentation développeur]]
[[zh:开发者文档]]

Help:Contents

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MoodleDocs:Guidelines for contributors

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{{Help}}

You are welcome to '''contribute to Moodle Docs'''. Find something that can be improved, either in content, grammar or formatting, and fix it!

* If you've not done so already, please [[Special:Userlogin|login]].
* Please note that all contributions are released here under [[License|GNU General Public License]].
* Moodle 1.6 will have a button on each page that links to pages in Moodle Docs with the same path as the pages in Moodle. You can see this already on [http://moodle.org moodle.org] and, from an administrator's perspective, on the [http://demo.moodle.com/ Moodle demo site].
* Please note that the [http://moodle.org/help.php?file=index.html Moodle help files] will remain in each language pack and so their text need not be included in this documentation.
* You are encouraged to illustrate documentation with screenshots. Please refer to the [[MoodleDocs:Style guide|style guide]] for further information.
* If you find any page requiring deletion, please type <code><nowiki>{{Deletion}}</nowiki></code> at the top of the page.

==Creating new pages==

* You are welcome to create pages for additional documentation. Simply type the name of your new page between double brackets <code><nowiki>[[New page name]]</nowiki></code> and follow the link to start editing the new page. Please choose a short name and capitalize the first word only (with a few exceptions, such as the word Moodle).
* Please follow the [[MoodleDocs:Style guide|style guide]], in particular ensuring that new pages are categorised.
* Page titles may be changed in the future by redirecting/moving pages, as part of documentation restructuring.

==Inter-language linking==

* You are welcome to add inter-language links between pages in different languages. Simply type, for example, <code><nowiki>[[es:Corresponding page title in Spanish]]</nowiki></code> in the English MoodleDocs, or <code><nowiki>[[en:Corresponding page title in English]]</nowiki></code> in the [[:es:Portada|Spanish MoodleDocs]], at the bottom of the page, below the category link. Inter-language links will appear automatically in the "In other languages" block.

== Page comments ==

* For comments about a particular page, and/or short discussions, please use the corresponding talk page (click on the page comments tab). Please sign and date your talk page contribution by typing four tildes <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>.
* For longer discussions about the documentation, please use the Using Moodle [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=5838 Documentation forum].

[[Category:MoodleDocs|Guidelines for contributors]]

[[es:MoodleDocs:Normas para colaboradores]]
[[fr:MoodleDocs:Recommandations pour contributeurs]]
[[ja:MoodleDocs:寄稿のガイドライン]]
[[zh:MoodleDocs:贡献者指引]]

Teacher documentation

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The purpose of this page is to give an overview of a course, which is the overall organizing feature that most teachers will use in Moodle.

If you are a '''new user''' and would like a list of all the documents that are for teachers in MoodleDocs have a look at the [[:Category:Teacher | teacher category index by clicking here]] or the See Also section at the bottom of this page for other links, including good old fashion books in PDF files. We encourage you to try the search feature on the left side of this page to find other useful pages.

==Getting started==
We are assuming that your site administrator has set up Moodle and given you a new, blank course to start with.
{| align="left"
|rowspan="2"| [[Image:Course_edit_on_new_2.jpg ]]
|-
|}
You will need to be [[Log in | logged into]] the course using an account that has been assigned [[Teacher|teacher status]] (with editing rights) on that course to use most of the features below. We have some tips if you are having [[Can not log in | trouble logging in]].

Now onto the real details. You will find the [[Course homepage|course homepage]] is broken down into [[Course sections]]. A course is created by [[Adding resources and activities|adding resources and activities]]. When writing text in Moodle you have a range of [[Formatting options]] including using [[HTML in Moodle]]

The example on the left shows a new course set up with topic sections, edit is on and there are blocks on the right side of the topics. Resourses and activities are ready to be added.
 

==Editing A Course==

To add or alter activities or resources you will need to [[Turn editing on|turn editing on]]. You can do this by pressing the button at the top right of the course homepage or following the turn editing on link in the administration block. You can turn editing off again by pressing the button or the admin block link again (now renamed turn editing off)

When editing is on you will see the following icons:

:[[Image:Edit.gif]] - the edit icon lets you alter/update whatever resource or activity it is next to by taking you to its setup page.

:[[Image:Help.gif]] - the help icon will pop-up a relevant help window.

:[[Image:Open.gif]] - the open-eye icon means an item is visible to students. Clicking it will make the item invisible to participants and change the icon to the closed eye.

:[[Image:Closed.gif]] - the closed-eye icon means an item is hidden from students. Clicking it will make the item visible to participants and change the icon to the open eye.

:[[Image:Right.gif]] - the left icon is used to outdent course elements. There is also a right icon for indenting items.

:[[Image:Move.gif]] - the move icon allows course elements to be moved up or down throughout the course.

:[[Image:Movehere.gif]] - the move here icon appears when moving a course element. It appears only after you've clicked the move icon, and indicates the destination of the item you're moving.

:[[Image:Delete.gif]] - the delete icon will permanently delete something from the course after you confirm a warning on a second page.

:[[Image:Marker.gif]] - the marker icon allows you to make a section current.

:[[Image:One.gif]] - the one icon hides all other sections of the course, showing only this one.

:[[Image:All.gif]] - the all icon redisplays all sections in a course.

If you are running version 1.6 or above you will see a '''Student View''' toggle button at the top right of the course homepage. This allows you to see the course almost exactly as your students will see it.

==Activity modules==
{| align="left"
|rowspan="2"| [[Image:Activity_dropdown.JPG]]
|-
|}
There are a number of interactive learning [[Modules (teacher)|activity modules]] that you may [[Adding_resources_and_activities | add to your course]].

Communication and collaboration may take place using [[Chats]] and [[Forums]] for conversational activities and [[Choices]] to gain group feedback. Adding [[Wikis]] to your courses is an excellent way to allow students to work together on a single piece.

Work can be submitted by students and marked by teachers using [[Assignments]] or [[Workshops]]. Automatic marking can be achieved by using [[Quizzes]]. You can even integrate your Hot Potato quizzes by adding a [[Hotpot]] activity.

Content may be delivered and supported using [[Lessons]] and [[SCORM]] activities. Key words can be added to [[Glossaries]] by yourself or, if you allow it, your students.

[[Surveys]] and [[Database module|Databases]] are also very powerful additions to any course.

If all of that isn't enough for you then you can also [[Non-standard modules|add other modules]] that are not part of the official Moodle release!
 

==Resources==
{| align="left"
|rowspan="2"| [[Image:Resource_pulldown_menu.JPG]]
|-
|}
Moodle supports a range of different [[Resources|resource types]] that allow you to include almost any kind of digital content into your courses. These can be added by using the [[Adding_resources_and_activities | add a resource]] dropdown box when editing is turned on.

A [[Text page]] is a simple page written using plain text. Text pages aren't pretty, but they're a good place to put some information or instructions. If you are after more options for your new page then you should be thinking about adding a [[Web page]] and making use of Moodle's WYSIWYG editor.

Of course the resource may already exist in electronic form so you may want to [[File or website link|link to an uploaded file or external website]] or simply display the complete contents of a [[Directory|directory]] in your course files and let your users pick the file themselves. If you have an [[IMS content package]] then this can be easily added to your course.

Use a [[Label|label]] to embed instructions or information in the course section.
 
==Blocks==

Each course homepage generally contains blocks on the left and right with the centre column containing the course content. Blocks may be added, hidden, deleted, and moved up, down and left/right when editing is turned on.

A [[Blocks (teacher)|wide range of blocks]] exist that provide additional information or functionality to the learner or teacher. These are included with the standard Moodle package but a range of [[Non-standard blocks]] exist which an administrator can add.

===Administration Block===

All of the links in the administration block are only available to teachers of the course. Students will receive their own version of the block which will display a link to their own gradebook and, if enabled, their own course logs.

Features in the administration block allow teachers to manage [[Students | student]] and [[Teachers | teacher]] enrollments and their [[Groups | groups]], view the course [[Grades | gradebook]], create custom [[Scales | grading scales]] and access the Teacher forum. The teacher forum is a private forum only available to teachers of that course. It can be used to discuss the course content, the direction the course could take or even to attach files to that can be shared among the course teachers.

You can change the way students (and other teachers) access and view your course by exploring the [[Settings]] option in the [[Administration | administration block]].

There are lots of possible ways to set up a course using blocks, but teachers may be particularly interested in [[Settings#Format | course formats]] which change how the course is presented to the learner. The weekly format is suitable for courses that have a clear start date and activities are presented in weekly blocks. Topic formatted courses are actually presented in a similar way but with the dates removed so activities can belong to general or specific areas of study. The social format doesn't use much content at all and is based around just one forum which is displayed on the main course page.

In the course homepage there is a white square icon on the top right of a [[Course_sections | section]] which can be used to expand and collapse sections. You can also use the lightbulb icon to mark a topic as current.

Another much used feature of the adminstration block is the [[Files]] link. From here you can upload any digital content for inclusion in an activity, resource, course section or for a direct download. These files can be moved, renamed, edited directly on the server (if they are HTML or text) or deleted. You can also create a directory and display the whole contents of that directory to course students using the add resource drop down in any course section.
Of course if your content resides out on the web then you don't need to upload the files at all - you can link directly to them from inside the course using the link to file or website option.

==General Advice==

* Subscribe yourself to all of the [[forum]]s so that you can keep in touch with your class activity.
* Encourage all of the students to fill out their [[Edit profile|user profile]] (including photos) and read them all - this will help provide some context to their later writings and help you to respond in ways that are tailored to their own needs.
* Keep notes to yourself in the private "Teacher's Forum" (under Administration). This is especially useful when team teaching.
* Use the [[Logs]] link (under Administration) to get access to complete, raw logs. In there you'll see a link to a popup window that updates every sixty seconds and shows the last hour of activity. This is useful to keep open on your desktop all day so you can feel in touch with what's going on in the course.
* Use the [[Recent_activity|Activity Reports]] (next to each name in the list of all people, or from any user profile page). These provide a great way to see what any particular person has been up to in the course.
* Respond quickly to students. Don't leave it for later - do it right away. Not only is it easy to become overwhelmed with the volume that can be generated, but it's a crucial part of building and maintaining a community feel in your course.
*Don't be afraid to experiment: feel free to poke around and change things. It's hard to break anything in a Moodle course, and even if you do it's usually easy to fix it.
* Use the [[Navigation bar|navigation bar]] at the top of each page - this should help remind you where you are and prevent getting lost

== See also ==
*[[Teaching with Moodle]] - inspiring links
*[[Teaching do's and don'ts]] - hints
*[[Moodle manuals]] - A list of links to manuals and books
*[[Using Moodle book]] - A real book you can reprint!
*[[Teaching FAQ]] - common questions
*[http://moodle.tokem.fi/mod/book/view.php?id=5116&chapterid=256 A course checklist in english]
*[[Tips and tricks]] -
*[[Student FAQ]] - students have questions about technology?
*[[Presentations]] - PowerPoints and stuff on different subjects relating to Moodle
*[https://docs.moodle.org/en/Category:Lesson Lesson Module Basics] - Index of Lesson topics

For an index of teacher topics go [[:Category:Teacher | here ]] or below:

[[Category:Teacher]]
[[es:Documentación para Profesores]]
[[fr:Documentation enseignant]]
[[nl:Documentatie voor leraren]]
[[ru:Учителям]]
[[zh:教师文档]]

Administrator documentation

2006-08-28T16:22:05Z

Sunner: Add Chinese interlink

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

== Installation ==

*[[Installing Moodle]]
*[[Installing AMP|Installing Apache, MySQL and PHP]]
* [[Installation Quickstart]]
*[[Installation FAQ]]
*[[Upgrading|Upgrading Moodle]]

==Security and performance==

*[[Security]]
*[[Performance]]

== Configuration ==

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

==Users==

*[[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 admins]]

==Other==

*[[Courses (administrator)|Courses]]
**[[Course formats|Course formats]]
*[[Logs]]
*[[Site files]]
*[[Moodle database|Database]]
*[[Environment]]

==See also==

*[[CVS (administrator)|CVS documentation]]
*[[Email processing]]
*[[Search engine optimization]]
*[[Messaging]]
*[[Migration]]
*[[Metacourses]]
*[[Block layout]]
*[[Backup FAQ]]
*[[Administration FAQ]]
*[[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]]
[[es:Documentación para Administradores]]
[[fr:Documentation administrateur]]
[[nl:Documentatie voor beheerders]]
[[zh:管理员文档]]

User talk:Helen Foster

2006-07-22T13:31:57Z

Sunner:

== More hierarchy ==

Hi Helen, I think this wiki is very useful and I would like to thank you for the work you are putting into it. I like your navigation boxes on the module pages. I have a suggestion for extending these: I think it would be nice to have an extra link that allows one to go higher up in the hierarcy to [[Teacher_documentation]]. What do you think? --[[User:Delius|Delius]] 17:48, 26 January 2006 (WST)

:Hi Gustav, thanks for your kind words. Your contributions to the documentation are most welcome. Please feel free to edit [[Template:Quizzes]] or any other template page. You may also wish to consider further use of category pages e.g. [[:Category:Teacher]] for navigation. -- [[User:Helen|Helen]] 18:26, 26 January 2006 (WST)

== Do you monitor every article and talk page? ==

Helen, I have posted another question for you on [[Talk:mod/quiz/index]]. Do you get alerted to anything I put on any talk page or should I post on this page if I want you to see it? --[[User:Delius|Delius]] 18:01, 26 January 2006 (WST)

:Hi Gustav, please note that I often check [[Special:Recentchanges|Recent changes]] or the rss feed. --[[User:Helen|Helen]] 18:26, 26 January 2006 (WST)

::Yes, the [[Special:Recentchanges|Recent changes]] page is very useful. You can tell that I have never used a wiki intensively before. Thanks for your tips. --[[User:Gustav|Gustav]] 18:35, 26 January 2006 (WST)

:::Hey, let's discover the wiki way together! :-) --[[User:Helen|Helen]] 00:24, 27 January 2006 (WST)

Helen, Just a thanks for your wonderful edits which make things look good and are reminders to me to hit that show preview button..again... and again....and then review the whole page. But I have so little to do, so much time :) Bless you.--[[User:chris collman 2|chris collman 2]] 21:13, 28 June 2006 (WST)

:Hi Chris, your kind words are much appreciated :-) Thanks for your contributions to the documentation. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 06:50, 29 June 2006 (WST)

==Moodle profile==

Helen- I think you should link to your moodle profile like Martin does (assuming you have one, which I assume <grin>). -- D.I. 29Jan06
Wow, you're fast.. .or I'm confused. --D.I. 29Jan06

:Hi D.I. thanks for your suggestion, which [[User:UrsHunkler|someone else]] seem to be following up! ;-) --[[User:Helen|Helen]] 05:00, 30 January 2006 (WST)

== German moodle docs possible? ==

Hello Helen,

thank you very much for these nice and structured doc pages.
When do you plan to launch a german part of the docs.moodle.org pages?
I ask these question because i can translate some of the english doc pages to german.

Greetings Christoph

:Hi Christoph, thanks for your kind offer of translation. Please email ''docs AT moodle DOT org'' so I may get in touch with you easily when the German Moodle documentation is launched. --[[User:Helen|Helen]] 05:17, 30 January 2006 (WST)

== German User Docs ==

Thanks a lot, Helen, for all your work.
I would also like to help with the German version.

Ulrike

:Hi Ulrike, thanks for your kind offer too. MoodleDocs in other languages will happen soon, for sure! --[[User:Helen|Helen]] 08:30, 31 January 2006 (WST)

== Documentation for different versions ==

Helen

Is there a mechanism for specifying which version of Moodle a particular document refers to? If, for instance, a feature is only available in version 1.6, how would a 1.5.3 user know they couldn't follow these instructions?

Equally, if something is done differently in two versions, how would we stop an edit war breaking out between 1.5.3 and 1.6 users?

I appreciate this probably isn't an issue just yet, but it's possible it may become one in later versions.

Cheers,

[[User:CHRISF|CHRISF]] 19:20, 1 February 2006 (WST)

:Hi ChrisF, thanks for highlighting the issue of differences in Moodle versions. Perhaps a Moodle 1.6 template, inserted using the code <code><nowiki>{{Moodle 1.6}}</nowiki></code>, may be used to show features specific to Moodle 1.6. What do you think? --[[User:Helen|Helen]] 04:22, 4 February 2006 (WST)

::Good idea. I think that would clear it up nicely. [[User:CHRISF|CHRISF]] 18:08, 7 February 2006 (WST)

==Hungarian Moodle Docs==

Hello Helen,
I may be knocking at the wrong door.
Could you please create a folder for me to start Moodle documentation in Hungarian please?
Thanks a lot.
Karoly

(Karoly Fabricz, kfabricz AT vnet DOT hu)

:Hi Karoly, thanks for your kind offer. Please read the information on [[MoodleDocs:Starting MoodleDocs|starting Moodle Docs in another language]]. I'll be in touch soon. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 17:09, 15 March 2006 (WST)

== Belarusian Docs is possible? ==

Dear Helen,

I would like to manage Moodle documentation on Belarusian. Could you create a folder for me to start Moodle documentation in Belarusian, please? Аlphabetic acronym of Belarusian language is be.

Sincerely,
Maryia Davidouskaia
(maryia at iatp dot by)

:Hi Maryia, thanks for your kind offer. As I said to Karoly, please read the information on [[MoodleDocs:Starting MoodleDocs|starting Moodle Docs in another language]], and remember that the more people that are involved in creating the documentation, the better it will be. I'll be in touch soon. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 17:09, 15 March 2006 (WST)

Ok, You are a STAR!

== Template styles ==
Hi Helen! I noticed that you reverted my edits on [[Template:Book]] and [[Template:Assignments]]. You were right -- I didn't realise that the [[MoodleDocs:Styling|style]] doesn't match [[MoodleDocs:Style guide|moodle.org style]]. However, the current template doesn't look right either. It should float to the right instead of occupying a substantial part of the upper screen (for eg. on [[Calculated question developer docs]] page) -- this wil provide easier navigation. Also, the tempalate should be colorful and/or bordered -- this looks more attractive and the reader can understand that it is not a part of the article. May be we can have orange or similar colored templates (such as [[Template:Large Installations]] and [[Template:excerpted from Jason Cole]]) that match with moodle.org style? Is there any official style documentation? Is there a moodle.org style guide which describes styles for templates -- I couldn't find one? [[User:Utkarshraj Atmaram|Utkarshraj Atmaram]] 17:40, 30 March 2006 (WST)

:Hi Utkarshraj, thanks for your contributions to Moodle Docs. As you've found, [[MoodleDocs:Style guide]] and [[MoodleDocs:Styling]] contain all the Moodle Docs styling documentation to-date. Please add your comments about template styling to [[MoodleDocs talk:Styling]]. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 17:26, 31 March 2006 (WST)

::Thank you! I've started the discussion at [[MoodleDocs talk:Styling]]. [[User:Utkarshraj Atmaram|Utkarshraj Atmaram]] 19:14, 31 March 2006 (WST)

:::LoL, I just realized that the problem is not with the templates, but with themes. Templates just look find with the MoodleDocs theme, but when I am logged in, I use MonoBook theme -- it doesn't display them as right-aligned (at Wikipedia, we explicity make the templates right-aligned). Sorry for wasting your time! [[User:Utkarshraj Atmaram|Utkarshraj Atmaram]] 14:44, 18 April 2006 (WST)

== Slovak Moodle Documentation ==

Hi, Helen. We would like to start work on translation on Moodle Slovak (sk) documentation. Please, do you think is it possible? Thank you.

Sincerely, Juraj Chlebec
havran@gmail.com

:Hi Juraj, thanks for your offer. Please note that, for non iso-8859-1 languages we need to wait for moodle.org to be converted to UTF-8 (since Moodle Docs authenticates against moodle.org) before setting things up. I'll be in contact when this is done. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 22:05, 10 April 2006 (WST)

== Polish Moodle Documentation ==

Hello, Helen. I saw Your comments to Juraj's post, so just want to let you know that we are ready to start polish translation. Hope the situation will change soon.

== Removing erroneous pages ==

How can unsuitable pages be removed? I just found [[RHLANGUAGE]] which is not documentation-quality...
Maybe you could do it (please) Helen? Not sure.

Best, Dan
--[[User:Dan Stowell|Dan Stowell]] 04:24, 4 May 2006 (WST)

:Thanks Dan, for future reference please add the deletion template, <code><nowiki>{{Deletion}}</nowiki></code>, to any unsuitable page you find. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 04:45, 5 May 2006 (WST)

== Request for help (check) ==

Hi, Sun, could you check this page: https://docs.moodle.org/en/Release_Notes
all the info written both in 1.6 and 1.5.4 relative to the Authorize plugin? Ethem Evlice requested me to do so, but you know, I'm not the best English checker in the world! ;-) [[User:Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)|Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)]] 17:35, 11 May 2006 (WST)

:NP Sol, I've done as requested :-) --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 19:51, 15 May 2006 (WST)

== Moodle Doc Is Great ==

You have done a great job and inspired me to use Media Wiki!

:Thanks Martin, though it's everyone's contributions that make Moodle Docs a great resource! --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 06:36, 24 May 2006 (WST)

== Moodle Docs Wiki accidentally switched to Portuguese? ==

Hi Helen, all of the built in Mediawiki content is appearing in Portuguese for me, both before and after I log in. Perhaps an admin setting that's been accidentally changed? --[[User:David Scotson|David Scotson]] 17:36, 27 Maio 2006 (WST)

:To clarify, only some of the Mediawiki content is in Portuguese. If I go to to the user preferences and choose Portuguese it changes even more text. Changing back to English only returns some text to English. However, choosing French changes all Mediawiki text to French. From this I'm guessing that someone may have overwritten some of the english language files on the server with Portuguese ones. --[[User:David Scotson|David Scotson]] 17:40, 27 Maio 2006 (WST)

::Hi David, yes the [[Special:Allmessages|System messages]] were overwritten by accident. Anyway, it's fixed now and I've learnt from the experience ;-) --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 19:39, 28 May 2006 (WST)

== tr wiki ==

Hi Helen,

Can you arrange for a wiki https://docs.moodle.org/tr (Türkçe) to be set up.

:Thanks Ethem, I'll do so as soon as possible. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 17:12, 15 June 2006 (WST)

== Finnish Moodle Docs? ==

Hello Helen!

I'm interested in starting and overlooking the Moodle Docs in Finnish. Can you set up https://docs.moodle.org/fi/? My email is samuli DOT karevaara AT lamk DOT fi.

Regards, --[[User:Samuli Karevaara|Samuli Karevaara]] 14:14, 12 June 2006 (WST)

:Helen, thanks, I see that https://docs.moodle.org/fi/ just happened :-). And by the way, you already undid my "This section is unfinished" that I wrote on the front page two minutes before you wrote the "Welcome to Moodle Docs in Finnish" :-) --[[User:Samuli Karevaara|Samuli Karevaara]] 01:04, 14 June 2006 (WST)

::Wow Samuli, you're so fast! Sorry for deleting your text. You're now an admin so you may rollback changes if necessary ;-) --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 01:53, 14 June 2006 (WST)

== Translation to Bosnian languages ==

Hi Hellen,

I'm exploring the Moodle environment for DLE LMS support for one projec that I work in the former Yugoslavia countries. I'll translate documentation for my own sake, and if I can contribute to Moodle have translated documentation in four south-east europen conutries (Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia) it will be my pleasure. Just give me the hint how I can start this.

Best, Latif

:Hi Latif, thanks for your kind offer. Please read the information on [[MoodleDocs:Starting MoodleDocs|starting Moodle Docs in another language]]. Croatian is included in the list of [[MoodleDocs talk:Starting MoodleDocs|languages currently awaiting Moodle Docs]]. I hope it will be set up soon. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 17:42, 15 June 2006 (WST)

== Word Censorship Page ==

Hi Helen,

Note sure why you deleted some of this page. The idea is (partly) to provide instructions on how to use the settings page of the filter. You also removed the 'see also' back to the main filters administration page. I'm not sure what's wrong with that either. Your advice appreciated :-)

--[[User:Howard Miller|Howard Miller]] 22:54, 20 June 2006 (WST)

:Oh, sorry Howard for not explaining my changes to [[Word censorship]]. I deleted text duplicated on the Word censorship settings page in Moodle and removed the See also link since [[Filters (administrator)]] is listed in [[:Category:Filter]]. However, please feel free to revert any/all of my changes. Your contributions to the documentation are always appreciated :-) --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 17:03, 21 June 2006 (WST)

::That's cool Helen. So is that the rule - don't put stuff in the docs that is already in the built-in help?? --[[User:Howard Miller|Howard Miller]] 18:15, 21 June 2006 (WST)

:::The [http://moodle.org/help.php?file=index.html Moodle help files] will remain in each language pack and so it is not necessary to include their text in this documentation, however sometimes it makes things clearer to do so, at least to start with. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 15:46, 22 June 2006 (WST)

== translation moodle docs to Korean... ==

You did great jobs! Thanks...
We want to translate Moodle Docs to Korean languages.
Please open ko field...

:Hi, thanks for your offer. Please read the information on [[MoodleDocs:Starting MoodleDocs|starting Moodle Docs in another language]] and find out how many people are interested by discussing Moodle Docs in your moodle.org [http://moodle.org/course/category.php?id=3 community discussion] course. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 15:42, 22 June 2006 (WST)

== Contrib code documentation ==

Hi Helen,

Where would you suggest I document contrib code. I have some documentation for the Moodle for Mobiles project which installs in {yourmoodleroot}/mobile The code is in cvs in contrib/mobile. It is general documentation about what MFM does.

I guess the place to put it would be https://docs.moodle.org/en/mobile

Jamie

:Hi Jamie, actually the project already has a page, [[Moodle for Mobiles]] ;-) though [[mobile]] could redirect to it. You're also welcome to use any documentation pages linked to Moodle for Mobiles pages in Moodle 1.6. --[[User:Helen Foster|Helen Foster]] 15:56, 22 June 2006 (WST)

::Thanks Helen!! Adding the documentation now. Will redirect from mobile as well. [[User:Jamie Pratt|Jamie Pratt]] 16:08, 22 June 2006 (WST)

:::Cool Helen you did the redirect for me. Thanks for your very speedy response to my enquiry and all your help! -- [[User:Jamie Pratt|Jamie Pratt]] 16:22, 22 June 2006 (WST)

== Chinese Moodle Documentation==
Hi Helen,

I'd like to launch the Chinese Moodle Documentation translation. As I know, MediaWiki has the function that convert charset between Simplified Chinese(GB2312, GB18030) and Traditional Chinese(BIG5). So maybe it's no need to create two.

Now I'm a translator of moodle and maintain a special moodle Chinese version.

--[[User:Sun Sunner|Sun Sunner]] 21:31, 22 July 2006 (WST)