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Moodle 2 Administration

Moodle 2 Administration

by Alex Buchner
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Release Date: October 2011
ISBN: 9781849516044
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Book Description

Moodle is the world’s most popular virtual learning environment and this book will help systems administrators and technicians administer the system effectively. Based on real-world scenarios with plenty of screenshots, it’s an essential practical guide.

  • An administrator's guide to configuring, securing, customizing, and extending Moodle
  • A complete guide for planning, installing, optimizing, customizing, and configuring Moodle
  • Learn how to network and extend Moodle for your needs and integrate with other systems
  • A complete reference of all Moodle system settings

In Detail

Moodle has evolved from an academic project to the world's most popular virtual learning environment. During this evolution, its complexity has risen dramatically and so have the skills that are required to administer the system.

Moodle 2 Administration is a complete, practical guide to administering Moodle sites. It covers how to set up Moodle in any learning environment, configuration and day-to-day admin tasks, as well as advanced options for customizing and extending Moodle.

The author, who has been administering systems for over 20 years, has adopted a problem-solution approach to bring the content in line with your day-to-day operations. The practical examples will help you to set up Moodle for large groups and small courses alike.

This is a one-stop reference for any task you will ever come across when administering a Moodle site of any shape and size.

"

Table of Contents

  1. Moodle 2 Administration
    1. Table of Contents
    2. Moodle 2 Administration
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. About the Reviewers
    6. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Discounts
      2. Free eBooks
      3. Newsletters
      4. Code Downloads, Errata and Support
    7. PacktLib.PacktPub.com
    8. Preface
      1. What this book covers
        1. Part I – Getting started
        2. Part II – Moodle configuration
        3. Part III – Moodle maintenance
        4. Part IV – Enhancing Moodle
        5. Part V – Appendix
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
        1. VLE job functions
        2. Obligations and skill sets of a VLE administrator
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Errata
        2. Piracy
        3. Questions
    9. 1. Moodle Installation
      1. Moodle installation—an overview
        1. Choosing the best setup
        2. Moodle prerequisites
          1. Hardware requirements
          2. Software requirements
      2. Installation in a LAMP environment
        1. Downloading Moodle
        2. Creating the Moodle database and the data directory
          1. Using a hosted server
          2. Using the command line
          3. Creating the Moodle data directory
        3. Running the installer script
        4. Finalizing the installation
        5. Setting up the cron process
      3. Installation in a Windows environment
      4. Installation in a Mac OS X environment
      5. Installation via the Command Line Interface
      6. Updating Moodle
        1. Manual update
          1. Creating a backup
          2. Creating your new Moodle system
          3. Running the update script
        2. Updating Moodle via CLI
        3. Updating Moodle via CVS and GIT
      7. Summary
    10. 2. The Moodle System
      1. Moodle architecture
        1. The LAMP architecture
        2. The Moodle layer
        3. Code and data locations
      2. Finding your way around in Moodle
        1. Breadcrumbs
        2. Administrator search facility
        3. Moodle bookmarks
        4. Moodle Docs and Help
      3. File management
        1. Moodle file management interface
        2. Web host file management
        3. File management via the File system repository
      4. Summary
    11. 3. Courses, Users, and Roles
      1. A high-level overview
      2. Moodle courses
      3. Moodle users
      4. Moodle roles
      5. Summary
    12. 4. Course Management
      1. Course categories
        1. Course categories—an overview
        2. Managing course categories
          1. Adding course categories
          2. Course sub-categories
          3. Deleting course categories
          4. Organizing courses
      2. Creating courses
        1. Course requests—enabling teachers to ask for new courses
        2. Creating courses and categories in bulk
      3. Forms of enrolment
        1. Internal enrolment
          1. Manual enrolment
          2. Self enrolment
          3. Guest access
        2. Cohort enrolment and synchronization
        3. Database-driven enrolment
          1. LDAP
          2. External database
          3. Flat file
          4. IMS Enterprise file
        4. Meta courses—sharing enrolment across courses
        5. Enrolment with payment
          1. PayPal
      4. Summary
    13. 5. User Management
      1. User profiles
        1. Profile fields
          1. General category
          2. User picture category
          3. Interests category
          4. Optional category
        2. Creating user-defined profile fields
          1. Profile categories
          2. Profile fields
      2. Standard user actions
        1. Browsing users
        2. Filtering users
        3. Bulk user actions
      3. Manual accounts
        1. Adding individual users
        2. Bulk uploading and updating users and their pictures
          1. Text file format
            1. Required fields
            2. Optional fields
            3. Custom fields
            4. Enrolment fields
            5. Special fields
          2. Uploading users
          3. Setting default values and templates
          4. Loading of data
          5. Uploading user pictures
        3. Manual account settings
      4. User authentication
        1. Common authentication settings
        2. Email-based self-registration
        3. LDAP server
          1. LDAP Settings
          2. Data field mappings
        4. External databases
          1. Connection settings
          2. Data field mappings
        5. Other authentication mechanisms
          1. External Moodle authentication methods
          2. Internal Moodle authentication methods
      5. Usernames—best practice
      6. Summary
    14. 6. Managing Permissions: Roles and Capabilities
      1. Moodle predefined roles
      2. Contexts
      3. Assigning roles
        1. System context
        2. Course category context
        3. Course context
        4. Module context
        5. Block context
        6. User context
        7. Front page context
        8. Multiple roles
      4. Capabilities
        1. Role definitions
        2. Modifying roles
        3. Overriding roles
        4. Creating custom roles
          1. Example roles
          2. Parent/Mentor role
          3. Testing new roles
      5. Roles management
        1. Allowing roles assignments and overrides
        2. Assigning of default roles
        3. Moodle role assignment—best practice
      6. Summary
    15. 7. Moodle Look and Feel
      1. Look and feel overview
      2. Customizing your front page
        1. Front page settings
        2. Arranging front page blocks
          1. Log in from a different website
        3. Other front page items
          1. Front page roles
          2. Front page filters
          3. Front page backup and restore
          4. Front page questions
        4. Customizing navigation
          1. My Moodle and Profile pages
        5. Replacing the front page
      3. Moodle themes
        1. Selecting a Moodle theme
        2. Theme types
        3. Theme settings
        4. Customizing themes
          1. Theme customization basics
      4. Accessibility
        1. Guaranteeing accessibility through Moodle themes
        2. Accessibility support through the Moodle editor
        3. Screen reader support
      5. Summary
    16. 8. Moodle Plugins
      1. Plugins—an overview
      2. Module plugins
        1. Activities modules
        2. Configuration of blocks
        3. Configuration of filters
      3. Moodle repositories
        1. Internal repository plugins
        2. External repository plugins
          1. Data storage repositories
          2. Application repositories
        3. File management
      4. Moodle portfolios
      5. Miscellaneous plugins
          1. Text editors
          2. Question types and behaviours
          3. Plagiarism prevention
      6. Summary
    17. 9. Moodle Configuration
      1. Collaboration
        1. Blogs
        2. Comments
        3. Tags
      2. Localization
        1. Languages
          1. Language packs
          2. Language settings
          3. Language customization
        2. Calendric information
          1. Calendars
          2. Time zones
      3. Grades and gradebook settings
      4. Miscellaneous pedagogical settings
      5. Communication
        1. Synchronous communication
          1. Instant messaging
          2. Video conferencing
        2. Asynchronous communication
          1. Messaging configuration
            1. Email configuration
            2. Jabber configuration
            3. Default message outputs
            4. Support contact
          2. RSS feeds configuration
      6. Experimental settings
      7. Summary
    18. 10. Moodle Reporting
      1. Reporting overview
      2. Moodle's reporting facilities
        1. Live logs
        2. Error reports
        3. Export of logs
        4. Course and user reports
      3. Statistics
        1. Statistics settings
        2. Statistics view
      4. Report generation
        1. Configurable Reports
        2. Totara report generation
      5. Data analysis
        1. Web Log Analyzers
        2. Google Analytics
      6. Miscellaneous reports
      7. Summary
    19. 11. Moodle Security and Privacy
      1. Security—an overview
      2. Security notifications
        1. Moodle notifications
        2. Security report
      3. User security
        1. Access to Moodle
          1. Self-registration
          2. Guest access
          3. Protection of user details
          4. Course contacts
        2. Moodle passwords
        3. Security in roles
        4. Spam prevention
      4. Data and content security
        1. Content created within Moodle
        2. Visibility of content
        3. Site policy
        4. Antivirus
      5. System security
        1. Configuration security
          1. Accessibility of dataroot
          2. Cron process
        2. HTTP security
        3. IP blocker
        4. Module security
        5. Safe Exam Browser integration
      6. Moodle privacy
        1. Information stored about users
        2. Information available to other users
      7. Summary
    20. 12. Moodle Performance and Optimization
      1. Performance and optimization—an overview
      2. Moodle content
        1. Content creation
        2. Content volume
        3. Content types
        4. Moodle filter settings
      3. Moodle system settings
        1. Caching
        2. Session handling
        3. Memory management
          1. Cron optimization
          2. Course backups
          3. Search settings
        4. Module settings
          1. Gradebook optimization
          2. Chat optimization
          3. Forums
        5. Miscellaneous settings
          1. Large logfiles
          2. System paths
          3. Front page courses
          4. Roles
      4. Moodle performance profiling and monitoring
        1. Built-in profiling
        2. System profiling
      5. Summary
    21. 13. Backup and Restore
      1. Course-level backup and restore
        1. Course backup
          1. Initial settings
            1. Backup Default Values
            2. Content-only backup versus full-course backup
          2. Schema settings
          3. Confirmation and review
          4. Finalizing backup
        2. Course restore
          1. Restore destination
          2. Restore settings
          3. Backup schema
          4. Finalizing restore
        3. Course import
      2. Site-level backups
        1. Backup settings
        2. Backup reports and notifications
        3. Backup strategy
        4. Drawbacks of site-level backups
      3. System-level backups
        1. Moodle backups
          1. Moodle software
          2. Moodle data
        2. Snapshot creation
      4. Backup and restore applications
        1. Year-end procedure
        2. Course templates
      5. Summary
    22. 14. Installing Third-party Add-ons
      1. Third-party software—an overview
      2. Good add-ons and bad add-ons
      3. Popular add-ons
      4. Installing third-party add-ons
        1. Installing the Configurable Reports plugin
        2. Installing the Book module via GIT
        3. Installing other add-ons
      5. Uninstalling third-party add-ons
      6. Summary
    23. 15. Moodle Integration viaWeb Services
      1. Web services—an overview
      2. Web services in Moodle
      3. Enabling web services for external systems
      4. Enabling web services for users
      5. The Moodle mobile web service
      6. Summary
    24. 16. Moodle Networking
      1. Networking overview
      2. Networking prerequisites and security
        1. Required PHP extensions
        2. Networking security
      3. Peer-to-peer networks
        1. Adding a peer
          1. Peer services
          2. Peer logs
          3. Profile fields
        2. Network authentication
        3. Allowing roaming
        4. Network servers block
        5. Network enrolment
      4. Moodle hubs
      5. Integrating Mahara
        1. Mahoodle
        2. Mahara networking
        3. Adding Mahara to Moodle
        4. Mahara portfolio
      6. Moodle Community Hub (MOOCH)
      7. Summary
    25. A. Configuration Settings
      1. Configuration reference—an overview
      2. Configuration reference—administration settings
      3. Configuration reference—system settings
        1. Default parameters
        2. Optional parameters
    26. Index