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

Web services overview


It has always been possible to extend Moodle via code (PHP and JavaScript). Due to Moodle's open source code base, there can be no limitation to what code a developer is able to modify or extend. For you as an administrator, this was 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 or altered.

Moodle has a number of APIs that provide an abstract layer for certain functionalities. Examples of this are the Portfolio API, Repository API, and the 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 also provides us with an ever growing number of web services.

Tip

Web services enable other systems to perform operations inside Moodle.

Why would we want this? Well, there are three main scenarios we can think of:

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