Book Image

Moodle 4 Administration - Fourth Edition

By : Alex Büchner
Book Image

Moodle 4 Administration - Fourth Edition

By: Alex Büchner

Overview of this book

This updated fourth edition of the classic Moodle Administration guide has been written from the ground up and covers all the new Moodle features in great breadth and depth. The topics have also been augmented with professional diagrams, illustrations, and checklists. The book starts by covering basic tasks such as how to set up and configure Moodle and perform day-to-day administration activities. You’ll then progress to more advanced topics that show you how to customize and extend Moodle, manage authentication and enrolments, and work with roles and capabilities. Next, you'll learn how to configure pedagogical and technical Moodle plugins and ensure your LMS complies with data protection regulations. Then, you will learn how to tighten Moodle’s security, improve its performance, and configure backup and restore procedures. Finally, you'll gain insights on how to compile custom reports, configure learning analytics, enable mobile learning, integrate Moodle via web services, and support different types of multi-tenancy. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to set up an efficient, fully fledged, and secure Moodle system.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)

Ensuring user security

A critical security aspect lies in ensuring that only privileged users can access your system and, once they are authenticated, they only have access to their privileged areas in Moodle.

Here is a quick recap of the key elements concerning security in the magic Moodle triangle – users, courses, and roles:

  • Ensuring the correct authentication setup is critical to ensuring a secure Moodle system, especially when self-registration or guest access has been activated. We dealt with internal, external, provider-based, and system authentication methods in Chapter 5, Managing Users, Cohorts, and Authentication.
  • Once users have authenticated with Moodle, you have to ensure that they can only enrol in courses where they should have permission to do so, which is controlled by enrolment methods, as discussed in detail in Chapter 4, Managing Courses and Enrolments.
  • When users are enrolled in courses or access any other area of Moodle, it is crucial...