Book Image

Moodle 3 E-Learning Course Development - Fourth Edition

By : Susan Smith Nash, William Rice
Book Image

Moodle 3 E-Learning Course Development - Fourth Edition

By: Susan Smith Nash, William Rice

Overview of this book

Moodle is a learning platform or Course Management System (CMS) that is easy to install and use, but the real challenge is in developing a learning process that leverages its power and maps the learning objectives to content and assessments for an integrated and effective course. Moodle 3 E-Learning Course Development guides you through meeting that challenge in a practical way. This latest edition will show you how to add static learning material, assessments, and social features such as forum-based instructional strategy, a chat module, and forums to your courses so that students reach their learning potential. Whether you want to support traditional class teaching or lecturing, or provide complete online and distance e-learning courses, this book will prove to be a powerful resource throughout your use of Moodle. You’ll learn how to create and integrate third-party plugins and widgets in your Moodle app, implement site permissions and user accounts, and ensure the security of content and test papers. Further on, you’ll implement PHP scripts that will help you create customized UIs for your app. You’ll also understand how to create your first Moodle VR e-learning app using the latest VR learning experience that Moodle 3 has to offer. By the end of this book, you will have explored the decisions, design considerations, and thought processes that go into developing a successful course.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Installation step 5 – Creating the (moodledata) data directory


While the Moodle data directory stores files uploaded by students and some larger files, the Moodle database stores most of the information in your Moodle site. By default, the installer uses the moodledatabase name and the moodleuser username. Using these default settings gives any hacker a head start on breaking into your site. When creating your database, change these to something less common. At least make the hackers guess the name of your database and the database username.

You should also choose a strong password for the Moodle database user. The following are some recommendations for strong passwords:

  • Include at least one number, one symbol, one uppercase letter, and one lowercase letter
  • Make the password at least 12 characters long
  • Avoid repetition, dictionary words, letter or number sequences, and anything based on biographical information about yourself

You will need to create the Moodle database and the database user before...