Book Image

Moodle 2 Administration

Book Image

Moodle 2 Administration

Overview of this book

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.

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Moodle 2 Administration
Oct, 2011 | 420 pages
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Table of Contents (24 chapters)
Moodle 2 Administration
Moodle 2 Administration
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
PacktLib.PacktPub.com
PacktLib.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Moodle Installation
Moodle Installation
Moodle installation an overview
Installation in a LAMP environment
Installation in a Windows environment
Installation in a Mac OS X environment
Installation via the Command Line Interface
Updating Moodle
Summary
2
The Moodle System
The Moodle System
Moodle architecture
Finding your way around in Moodle
File management
Summary
3
Courses, Users, and Roles
Courses, Users, and Roles
A high-level overview
Moodle courses
Moodle users
Moodle roles
Summary
4
Course Management
Course Management
Course categories
Creating courses
Forms of enrolment
Summary
5
User Management
User Management
User profiles
Standard user actions
Manual accounts
User authentication
Usernames best practice
Summary
6
Managing Permissions: Roles and Capabilities
Managing Permissions: Roles and Capabilities
Moodle predefined roles
Contexts
Assigning roles
Capabilities
Roles management
Summary
7
Moodle Look and Feel
Moodle Look and Feel
Look and feel overview
Customizing your front page
Moodle themes
Accessibility
Summary
8
Moodle Plugins
Moodle Plugins
Plugins an overview
Module plugins
Moodle repositories
Moodle portfolios
Miscellaneous plugins
Summary
9
Moodle Configuration
Moodle Configuration
Collaboration
Localization
Grades and gradebook settings
Miscellaneous pedagogical settings
Communication
Experimental settings
Summary
10
Moodle Reporting
Moodle Reporting
Reporting overview
Moodle's reporting facilities
Statistics
Report generation
Data analysis
Miscellaneous reports
Summary
11
Moodle Security and Privacy
Moodle Security and Privacy
Security an overview
Security notifications
User security
Data and content security
System security
Moodle privacy
Summary
12
Moodle Performance and Optimization
Moodle Performance and Optimization
Performance and optimization an overview
Moodle content
Moodle system settings
Moodle performance profiling and monitoring
Summary
13
Backup and Restore
Backup and Restore
Course-level backup and restore
Site-level backups
System-level backups
Backup and restore applications
Summary
14
Installing Third-party Add-ons
Installing Third-party Add-ons
Third-party software an overview
Good add-ons and bad add-ons
Popular add-ons
Installing third-party add-ons
Uninstalling third-party add-ons
Summary
15
Moodle Integration via Web Services
Moodle Integration via Web Services
Web services an overview
Web services in Moodle
Enabling web services for external systems
Enabling web services for users
The Moodle mobile web service
Summary
16
Moodle Networking
Moodle Networking
Networking overview
Networking prerequisites and security
Peer-to-peer networks
Moodle hubs
Integrating Mahara
Moodle Community Hub (MOOCH)
Summary
Configuration Settings
Configuration Settings
Configuration reference an overview
Configuration reference administration settings
Configuration reference system settings

Web services an overview

It has always been possible to extend Moodle via code (PHP and Javascript). Due to Moodle's open source code base, there has been no limit to the amount of code a developer is able to modify or extend. For you as an administrator, this is not a satisfactory situation, as you have no control over what parts of Moodle are being changed and, equally important, what data is being accessed.

Moodle 2 has a number of APIs that provide an abstract layer to certain functionalities. Examples of these APIs are Portfolio API, Repository API, and File API. These are great for programmers as they reduce the amount of code that has to be (re-)written. In addition to these interfaces, Moodle 2 also introduced web services.

Note

Web services enable other systems to perform operations inside Moodle.

Why would we want web services? Well, there are three main scenarios we can think of. They are as follows:

  • Other systems in your organization; for instance, the HR system, has to trigger...

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