SF Developer HackFest
Developer meetings > San Francisco 2008 Developer HackFest
The HackFest was on Monday 9 June 2008 in San Francisco. We had around 50 participants. Thanks to Remote-Learner.net for sponsoring this event.
Overview
- Overview of development for Moodle 1.9 and Moodle 2.0 (Martin)
- Current Moodle 2.0 Roadmap run-through (Martin)
- Brainstorming session to vote on priorities (Martin and all)
Wish list
- file / repositories 12
- student info api 8 (eg banner, peoplesoft)
- user testing / usability 6
- performance/caching 6
- web services / standard API functions 5
- gradebook interface / ajax 5
- mobile/offline learning support 4
- FERPA 3
- group based enrollments / site-wide groups 3
- case studies on implementations 3
- better navigation for students (terms/my moodle) 2
- opensocial API/docs/forum 2
- statistics reports 2
- module api (classes, add tabs to user profile) 2
- section/course templates 1
- LDAP enrollment plugins 2
- course formats / pagelib 1
- auomating backup/restore more 1
- randomization in quiz essays 1
- agents for automating tasks for teachers 2
- better handling of course instances 1
- email / messaging 1
- delete sections 1
- more capabilities (eg for course settings) 1
- new wiki 2
- more control over page layout in themes 1
- chat speed / robustness 1
- developer training 1
- gradebook improvements (eg calculated outcomes, easier extra credit) 3
- module quality review 2
- eportfolio / outcomes 1
- early warning systems 1
- progress tracking / competencies 2
- more collaborative tools 2
- file sharing 2
- offline gradebook 1
- video handling 1
- whiteboard / conferencing 2
- moodle networking polishing 1
- forum improvements (compiling, usability) 1
- roles user interface improvements 1
- conditional activities 1
- assign activities to users 1
Round table discussion: Options for getting Moodle to communicate with external systems
Existing plugins include:
- Gradebook import / export plugins
- Auth plugins inc. single sign-on
- Enrollment plugins
- Backup / restore
- Question bank
- Glossary import / export
- Database import / export
- Upload users
Martin L advises avoiding using LDAP unless absolutely necessary. With large systems e.g. Banner, export then import using an enrolment plugin. Use an intermediate database table for enrolment info so as not to be completely dependent upon the student information system. Consider error handling.
Tim H talked about the gradebook export function in XML format for pushing gradebook data into external systems. Martin D mentioned that there's also an option to publish data through a URL. The gradebook has an option to export only changed grades. Michael P said that any gradebook changes should appear immediately in the external system.
Martin D explained that student info APIs are really complex, so all we can do in Moodle is build and document a toolset.
Future options: Web services API
Round table discussion: APIs
Round table discussion: Further plug-ability and expandability
Michael P demonstrated flexpage format (see also Using Moodle New format- Flexible Page forum discussion).
Mark N then described his proposed format plugin changes (see Proposed format plugin changes forum discussion).
Tim H demonstrated the shared activities system, an abuse of the course format ;-) (see the modules and plugins database entry Shared activities system).
Martin concluded that we need a course formats spec for developing it.
