Book Image

Moodle 3 Administration - Third Edition

By : Alex Büchner
Book Image

Moodle 3 Administration - Third Edition

By: Alex Büchner

Overview of this book

Moodle is the de facto standard for open source learning platforms. However, setting up and managing a learning environment can be a complex task since it covers a wide range of technical, organizational, and pedagogical topics. This ranges from basic user and course management, to configuring plugins and design elements, all the way to system settings, performance optimization, events frameworks, and so on. This book concentrates on basic tasks such as how to set up and configure Moodle and how to perform day-to-day administration activities, and progresses on to more advanced topics that show you how to customize and extend Moodle, manage courses, cohorts, and users, and how to work with roles and capabilities. You’ll learn to configure Moodle plugins and ensure your VLE conforms to pedagogical and technical requirements in your organization. You’ll then learn how to integrate the VLE via web services and network it with other sites, including Mahara, and extend your system via plugins and LTI. By the end of this book, you will be able to set up an efficient, fully fledged, and secure Moodle system.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
Moodle 3 Administration Third Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Contexts


Contexts are the areas in Moodle where roles can be assigned to users. A role (remember, a collection of capabilities with corresponding permissions) can be assigned within different contexts. A user has a role in any given context; a context can be a course, a course category, an activity module, a user, a block, or Moodle itself. Moodle comes with seven contexts that you will come across a lot in this chapter:

Context

Scope

System

The entire Moodle system (also known as core or global context)

Course category

A category and sub-category organizing courses

Course

A single course

Activity module

A course activity and resource

Block

A Moodle block

User

A user

Front page

The front page and files that can be accessed outside courses

Each context is like a ring-fenced area or boundary in which certain actions can be carried out. It is also sometimes referred to as a scope. You can compare this to a large company with multiple divisions and departments. A manager of...