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)

Understanding capabilities

So far, we have assigned existing roles to users in different Moodle contexts. In the following few pages, we will look inside a role where capabilities dictate what functionality is allowed and what isn’t. Remember, a role is a collection of capabilities with corresponding permissions. Once we have understood capabilities, we can modify existing roles and create entirely new ones.

Role definitions

The existing roles can be accessed via Site administration | Users | Permissions | Define roles. The screen shown is the one from earlier when we explored Moodle’s predefined roles. When you click on a role name, its composition is shown. You might recall the role element shown in Figure 6.1. Let’s zoom in on the role to see what its elements are:

Figure 6.11 – Role structure

Each role contains a unique Short name (utilized in batch operations), a Custom full name, and an optional Custom description. The...