Moodle at Wesleyan

Moodle will be off line every Tuesday from 6:15-6:45 am for maintenance.

Tags: downtime announcements

If you have more than 100 students in a Moodle 2 course, and if you use the LAE Grader Report, be advised that the report will show only the first 100 students. We are looking into a solution, but in the meantime instructors with large classes on Moodle 2 should use the simple Grader Report to view and edit grades.

Tags: announcements, troubleshooting

With the broader issue now largely resolved, any Moodle-specific issues should now have been addressed. Please let us know if you find this is not so.

Wesleyan ITS has been made aware of a problem involving several campus systems, including but not limited to Moodle. We are working to fix the problem as quickly as possible and to keep everyone up to date.

As the semester kicks off, remember that your course may not yet be available to students. You can change the course availability in Moodle 1 or Moodle 2 by following the "Settings" link on your main course page. The "Availability" section is about three quarters of the way down the page. Just change the setting and save the change.

You can watch a brief video demonstration of the process at:

http://moodle.blogs.wesleyan.edu/moodle-in-fifteen/change-course-availability/

Tags: announcements, availability

On Tuesday morning, January 22, 2013 we will apply minor security updates to both Moodle 1 and Moodle 2. The process should be confined to the usual Tuesday-morning downtime (6:15am - 6:45am), and should not affect any functionality, but of course if you notice any oddities, please let us know.

Tags: announcements, upgrades

One of the most common uses of Moodle is to share PDF files. When a user clicks on a PDF file link, Moodle sometimes tries to open its own PDF reader within the user's web browser. Unfortunately that approach causes problems for a number of users. In order to improve that experience we have changed the default file display method on Moodle 2 to "Force download." The change will apply only to new file resources, and it can easily be overriden. In the settings for the file look for the "Display" drop-down:

Using the new default "Force download" will ensure the widest accessibility to your PDF files. For certain other file types, video or images for example, you may prefer to use one of the other display options in order to allow users to view the media in their browser. In that case "Automatic" may be the best choice.

Tags: files, moodle2, pdf

During fall 2012 we have been running a small Moodle 2 pilot while most of the campus continues to use Moodle 1. During spring 2013 we will continue to run Moodle 1 and Moodle 2 side by side, but we will be opening the Moodle 2 pilot to all interested faculty.

There are many reasons an instructor may wish to start using Moodle 2. You can find a summary of advantages and a growing list of introductory videos at:

http://moodle.blogs.wesleyan.edu/two-in-twenty/

To facilitate participation in Moodle 2 this spring, the Moodle Course Request app in the faculty portfolio now offers an option to create courses on either system. While requesting courses in the accustomed way, faculty who wish to do so will easily be able to opt in to Moodle 2.

Our course creation process will automatically create not only the desired course, but also a counterpart redirect course on the other system so that wherever a course is, students will be able to find it easily.

Highlights

• Integration with external calendars such as Google Calendar
• Updated activity icons
• Group assignments
• Blind marking
• Submission date extensions
• Submission statement

For full details on whatever version is currently under development please visit the official Roadmap at:

http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Roadmap

As the first day of fall classes draws near, many faculty will be opening their Moodle courses to their students, so this is just a friendly reminder that you'll find the availability setting for a given course by going through the Administration panel (usually on the left) to Settings > Availability. Change the drop-down in the Availability section to "This course is available to students" and save your change. That's all there is to it.

If you want to see a demonstration, just go to:

http://moodle.blogs.wesleyan.edu/moodle-in-fifteen/change-course-availability/

Tags: announcements, availability, tips

Taking advantage of lower usage during the summer we have brought our Moodles (both 1.9 and 2.3) up to the latest. The changes are minor, so we don't anticipate complications, but please let us know if you find anything unusual.

Tags: announcement, announcements, moodle1.9, moodle2, moodle2.3, upgrade