Trip Report – Moodle Moot Austin

August 2-3, 2010

Mike Algozzine

Web Applications Developer, Center for Teaching and Learning

Moodle Moot was an opportunity to become involved in the global Moodle community, enhance Moodle knowledge, and develop instructional technology skills, beyond specific issues that are encountered while performing my CTL job duties.

I attended three keynote sessions and eight breakout sessions. Several themes emerged, representing major new categories of functionality that could be incorporated into Moodle. These themes included reporting and analytics, content repositories, early warnings, electronic portfolios, and standards of learning. Remote-Learner and Moodlerooms both offer product suites designed to provide most, if not all, of this functionality. Standalone products are also available from other providers.

Reporting and Analytics

There is an opportunity to leverage Moodle reports created by other institutions and share reports we’ve already created. We can continue creating ad-hoc reports to meet our immediate needs, but a comprehensive data warehousing solution will eventually be needed.

Goals:

  • Make sense of the vast amounts of data collected by Moodle.
  • Move from informational (static) reports to adaptive (interactive, actionable within a narrow scope) reports and then transformative (automated, actionable within a broader scope) reports.
  • Establish a relationship between student engagement, as measured by Moodle usage, and student achievement. Enable predictive analytics for identifying at-risk students.
  • Integrate reporting and analytics with other Moodle functions, such as early warnings and standards of learning.
  • Balance automation and ease-of-use for non-technical users with advanced analytical capabilities for power users.
  • Provide data warehousing for longitudinal trend analysis, data integration from multiple sources, such as demographics and academic transcripts from Banner, etc.

Solutions:

  • Remote-Learner’s offering is an implementation of Jaspersoft Enterprise Edition, an open-source business intelligence platform.
  • Moodlerooms has a limited dashboard offering and they’re currently working on additional reporting solutions.
  • Distributing reports in Excel can be a viable alternative in certain situations. There is a case to be made for reporting solutions that are not delivered within the Moodle environment – more control over usability, authentication, sharing, etc.

Content Repositories

This isn’t just about files uploaded to Moodle – it’s a much larger issue that’s interconnected with other issues. For example, many electronic textbook platforms include an integrated content repository.

Goals:

  • Allow users to choose between “public” and “private” repositories for their documents. These terms are somewhat vague, because users can grant access to private documents, form semi-private groups within the larger public community, etc.
  • Provide “unlimited” storage for any file type – documents, pictures, videos, etc.
  • Integrate content repositories with other Moodle functions, such as student assignments and electronic portfolios.

Solutions:

  • Remote-Learner’s offering is an implementation of Alfresco Enterprise, an open-source enterprise content management system.
  • Moodlerooms has a content repository offering.
  • Campus Pack Social Learning Platform by Learning Objects includes a content repository as part of itscomprehensive social learning platform.

Early Warnings

Early warning systems are used to warn students about poor performance in a course. The goal is to warn them early in the semester, so they can adjust their performance before it impacts their final grade. Early warning systems may also provide a summary of the student’s performance in an entire academic program.

Goals:

  • Use data from Moodle as the basis for a comprehensive early warning system.
  • If standards of learning are implemented, then early warnings can be based on the student’s progress toward standard outcomes.

Solutions:

  • Remote Learner’s offering is ELIS Notification Manager.
  • Moodlerooms provides reporting and analytics for this purpose, but not a comprehensive early warning system.

Electronic Portfolios

There is an increasing need for students to provide an electronic portfolio to potential employers during a job search. Students may need to provide similar information when applying for graduate or doctoral programs. In addition to their resume, the portfolio might contain relevant work samples from class assignments, many of which were submitted in Moodle. These portfolios may be created by the student while they are currently enrolled, but they still need access to the portfolios after they graduate. Faculty members may also need to create similar portfolios.

Goals:

  • Enable instructors and students to create electronic portfolios that contain material from Moodle, but are not dependent on Moodle. Material should not be course-specific and should be available to the student even after the Moodle course is no longer available.

Solutions:

  • Remote-Learner’s offering is an implementation of Mahara, an open-source electronic portfolio and social networking package.
  • Moodlerooms has an electronic portfolio offering.

Standards of Learning

The case studies presented at the conference were all initiated in response to standards established at the state or local level. It could be done without a governmental mandate, but only with strong commitment by individual departments or instructors. The case studies provide a good model for reporting and analytics, even in situations where standards of learning are not implemented.

Goals:

  • Integrate “outcomes” or standards of learning into Moodle, as mandated by State Boards of Education, local school districts, individual institutions, etc.
  • Measure actual performance against previously established benchmarks – student, teacher, course, department, college, etc.
  • Connect course activities to standard outcomes. If you know the desired outcome, Moodle can tell you which activities are associated with it, although the instructor still has complete control over the activities included in a particular course.

Solutions:

  • Remote Learner’s offering is ELIS Outcomes Manager.

Other Opportunities

Mobile Moodle is on the horizon and approaching quickly.Moodle access can be provided as an application running on the mobile device or a Web site accessed from the device’s Web browser. Both options have advantages and disadvantages and no strong preference was observed.

Web 2.0 technologies:

  • Blogs, wikis, podcasts, vodcasts, journals, RSS feeds, etc.
  • Facilitate collaboration and community learning.
  • Integration with Moodle assignments – for example, students submit wikis for group projects instead of Word documents.
  • Kaltura is the provider-of-choice for integrated video. The Moodle video solution that was recently released by CTL is a Kaltura product offered by Remote-Learner.
  • Campus Pack Social Learning Platform by Learning Objects is a comprehensive social learning platform with strong Web 2.0 integration.