Moodle 2.0 release notes - immagic.com€¦ · Repository support ... Alfresco, Amazon S3, Box.net ... • Full integration with configured external repositories to import and embed

From docs.moodle.org/en/SCORM_module 1 9 January 2011

Moodle 2.0 release notes Release date: 24th November, 2010

Moodle 2.0 contains a lot of large new features, some completely rewritten features, and hundreds of bug fixes. For full details (more than you probably want!), see the full list of fixed issues in 2.0 [/tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL/fixforversion/10122].

Contents

1 Major new features

1.1 Community hubs

1.2 Repository support

1.3 Portfolio support

1.4 Course completion and prerequisites

1.5 Conditional activities

1.6 Cohorts

1.7 Web services support

1.8 New blocks

1.9 Plagiarism prevention

2 Major improvements to existing core features

2.1 Backup and restore

2.2 Blocks

2.3 Blogs

2.4 Comments

2.5 Enrolment plugins

2.6 File handling

2.7 Filters 2.0

2.8 HTML editor


2.9 Messaging

2.10 My Moodle page

2.11 Navigation

2.12 Ratings

2.13 Roles and permissions

2.14 RSS feeds

2.15 Themes

2.16 Translation system

2.17 User profile pages

3 Major improvements to activity modules

3.1 Lesson

3.2 Quiz module and question bank

3.3 Resource

3.4 SCORM

3.5 Wiki

3.6 Workshop

4 System requirements

5 Upgrading

6 For developers: API changes

7 Credits

8 See also

Major new features

Community hubs

• Anybody can set up a Community hub, which is a directory of courses for public use or for private communities. The code is implemented as separate GPL plugin for Moodle.

• Sites can register to any Community hub (instead of just moodle.org) • Teachers on registered sites can publish their full courses to Community hubs, for

download • Teachers on registered sites can also advertise their courses on Community hubs, for

people to join • Teachers on any site can search all public Community hubs and download courses as

templates for their own courses


• Users on any Moodle site can also search Community hubs for courses (and communities of practice) to participate in. Initially we are encouraging 'communities of teaching practice' but any sort of course can be listed.

Repository support

• File management has undergone a major change in both the interface and function. • The File picker presents a standard way to access the new File bank repository system. • This allows Moodle to integrate with external repositories of content, making it really

simple to bring documents and media into Moodle via an AJAX interface that looks like a standard Open dialogue in desktop applications.

• Initial plugins in 2.0 include: Alfresco, Amazon S3, Box.net, File system on Server, Flickr, Google Docs, MERLOT, Picasa, Recent Files, WebDAV servers, Wikimedia, Youtube. These are simple to develop, so many more are expected.

• You can also import files from your desktop or by specifying a URL. • There are more attributes that can be added to a file, such as license and author.

Portfolio support

• Modules can now export their data to external systems, particularly useful for portfolios where snapshots of forums, assignments and other things in Moodle are useful to record in a journal or a portfolio of evidence

• Different formats are supported (currently LEAP2A, HTML, Images and Text, but others like PDF can be added)

• Initial plugins in 2.0 include: Box.net, Flickr, Google Docs, Mahara and Picasa.

Course completion and prerequisites

• Teachers can now specify a Course completion condition standard for all students. Conditions include activity completion, but could also be by grade, date or a number of other criteria.

• Teachers can use the above standard as a prerequisite to other courses that allows ordered progression and scaffolding.

• Teachers and students can see reports that show the progress within a course, or through a series of courses.

Conditional activities

• Access to activities can be restricted based on certain criteria, such as dates, grade obtained, or the completion of another activity.

• These can be chained together to enable progressive disclosure of the course content, if that is desired.

• Teachers can now specify conditions that define when any activity is seen as completed by a student. For example, when a certain number of posts have been made, or a grade has been reached, or a choice has been made.


Cohorts

• Also known as "Site-wide groups", these are site-wide collections of users that can be enrolled into courses in one action, either manually or synchronised automatically

Web services support

• Support for standards-based web services across the entire Moodle code base, allowing the admin to expose particular functions of Moodle for use by:

o Administrative systems such as HR or SIS applications o Mobile clients

• Framework contains a very high-level of security with a detailed token system and complete control over the range of functions exposed

• All defined functions are automatically available via: o XML-RPC o AMF (Flash) o REST o SOAP (PHP)

New blocks

• Comments block - like a shoutbox, allows comments to be added to any page. Great for student feedback.

• My private files block - allows access to a user's private files, which can then be accessed by them anywhere with the File picker. There is quota management available.

• Community block - keeps track of external courses one is interested in • Course completion status block - reports on the completion status of your courses

Plagiarism prevention

• Moodle supports integration with plagiarism prevention tools such as Turnitin

Major improvements to existing core features

Backup and restore

• Completely rewritten Backup/Restore framework, no longer bound by memory (can work with any size course).

• Completely new backup format. • Improved interface. • Backup can be made of whole courses, but also specific sections or activities.

Blocks


• Blocks are now consistently implemented on every page in Moodle • No longer any limit to placing blocks in only the left and right column regions but also at

the top, center or bottom of areas of pages) • Any block can be forced to appear in all the page contexts below it (for example, in every

course or throughout a course). • Blocks can placed in the Dock area on the side of the screen (if the theme supports it)

Blogs

• Support for comments on each blog entry • Removal of group-level and course-level blogs (these are converted into forums on

upgrade) • Support for external blog feeds (synchronised to Moodle blog)

Comments

• User comments (Glossaries, Databases, Blogs, etc) are now all consistently handled and displayed throughout Moodle, using AJAX if available

Enrolment plugins

• Major improvements in the handling of guests and guest accounts • Support for multiple forms of enrolment at the same time • More detailed control over enrolment in courses

File handling

• There is a new File picker interface that manages files for resources and when they are used in an activity, such as including an image in a content page.

• Full support for Unicode file names on all operating systems. • Metadata about each file (author, date, license, etc) and what the file is used for are stored

in the database. • Duplicate files (for example, a large video file use in two different courses) are only

stored once, saving disk space. • Security has been improved because files have the same contexual permissions as the

activity that uses them. (For example, a file may belong to a file resource, a forum post or a wiki page ). Files are no longer just "uploaded to the course".

Filters 2.0

• In the past, you had to use the same filters everywhere in your Moodle site, and this could only be changed by admins.

• Now, you can have different filters in different courses, activities or categories. • For example, you could turn on the LaTeX filter just for courses in the Maths and Physics

categories. • Or you could turn off glossary linking in the end of course exam.


HTML editor

• New editor based on TinyMCE • Works on more browsers • Resizable editing area • Cleaner XHTML output • Full integration with configured external repositories to import and embed media into text

Messaging

• All email sent by Moodle is now treated as a message • A message overview panel allows users to control how messages are sent to them • Initial message output plugins in Moodle 2.0 include: Email, Jabber and Popups

My Moodle page

• More customisable My Moodle page with new blocks for showing relevant information • Admin can design (and optionally force) site-wide layouts for My Moodle • My Moodle page given more prominence as the main "home page" for users

Navigation

• Standard "Navigation" block on every page showing contextual links, while allowing you to jump elsewhere quickly

• Standard "Settings" blocks on every page shows contextual settings as well as settings for anything else you have permissions for

Ratings

• User ratings (Glossaries, Databases, Forums, etc) are now all consistently handled and displayed throughout Moodle, using AJAX if available

• Aggregation of using ratings into activity grades is now standardised in all activities

Roles and permissions

• Simplified permission evaluation logic • Improved and simplified AJAX interfaces for defining and assigning roles • Improved and simplified interfaces for tweaking permissions in any given context • New "Archetypes" concept replacing the "Legacy roles" concept. • New archetype "manager" to define the role of most people with system-wide editing

rights, separate from "admin" role. • Permission of "Administrator" superusers can not be modified

RSS feeds

• All RSS feeds are now secured using a random per-user token in the URL


• Tokens can be updated by the user at any time (if they suspect a feed URL has been compromised)

• RSS feeds are now more accurate (eg they support forums with separate groups), and are generated efficiently whenever required

Themes

• Many new themes in the core distribution - see Theme credits for a list • All HTML and JS ouput is now far more efficient (server-side caching) and consistent

(tableless layout, new CSS, YUI Framework) • Themes can change the HTML of the page if they wish • Core support for custom menus in all themes (for example at the top of the page)

Translation system

• New web portal to make it easer for groups to collaborate on translating Moodle, and to keep their translations up-to-date.

• More efficient storage format for language strings should slightly improve performance.

User profile pages

• Site-wide user profile page can be customised by users with blocks, news, feeds and so on

• Course-specific user profile pages show course blocks and standard profile information, plus information for teachers of that course

Major improvements to activity modules

Lesson

• Refactored internal code • Forms are now standard Moodle forms

Quiz module and question bank

• Quiz navigation improvements for students • Flagging questions during a quiz attempt Student can mark a question that stays with

their quiz. • Quiz report enhancements - Major improvements to the quiz reports, especially regrading

and item analysis • Quiz report statistics - A brief guide • Quiz editing interface improvements • Different settings (open/close date, number of attempts, password, time limit) for each

group or student (MDL-16478) • Administration page for question types • Question tagging and improved searching in the question bank


• MDL-8648 Essay questions can now be randomised by random questions

Resource

• All the resource types have been refactored into real modules, and cleaned up o File - for displaying a file, possibly with supporting files (like a HTML mini-site) o Folder - for displaying a collection of documents o URL - for displaying a page with a given URL o Page - for a single page, edited online using the HTML editor o IMS - for showing a regular IMS content package

• Better XHTML-compliant support for frames, iframes and embedding in all these modules

SCORM

• New SCORM module settings - display attempt status, display course structure, force completed, force new attempt, lock after final attempt - allowing the behaviour dictated to the SCORM object by the authoring package to be changed MDL-11501

• New reporting interface including sortable/collapsible table with group select box and ability to download in Excel, ODS and text format MDL-21555

• New SCORM player UI with better navigation, improved performance and better handling of stage size MDL-22951

Wiki

• Completely re-written from scratch, based on NWIki from UPC • Support for Mediawiki-style syntax, as well as Creole • Interface improvements

Workshop

• Completely rewritten from scratch • Vastly improved interface for managing stages and users

System requirements

Since Moodle 2.0 is such a major release, we are allowing ourselves some increases in the requirements.

• PHP must be 5.2.8 or later (it was released 08-Dec-2008), PHP 5.3.3 or later is recommended

• Databases should be one of the following: o MySQL 5.0.25 or later (InnoDB storage engine highly recommended) o PostgreSQL 8.3 or later o Oracle 10.2 or later o MS SQL 2005 or later


• Any standards-supporting browser from the past few years, for example: o Firefox 3 or later o Safari 3 or later o Google Chrome 4 or later o Opera 9 or later o MS Internet Explorer 7 or later (Even Google don't support IE6 any more) o etc

Upgrading

When upgrading to Moodle 2.0, you must have Moodle 1.9 or later. if you are using an earlier version of Moodle (eg 1.8.x) then you need to upgrade to Moodle 1.9.x first. We advise that you test the upgrade first on a COPY of your production site, to make sure it works as you expect.

For further information, see Upgrading to Moodle 2.0 [http://docs.moodle.org/en/Upgrading_to_Moodle_2.0].

For developers: API changes

See Development:Migrating contrib code to 2.0

• Development:Plugin system changes in Moodle 2.0 - all the different types of plugin are now handles more consistently when it comes to installation and upgrading, capabilities, events, and so on.

• Database layer changes - you will need to update your code. • File handling changes - you will need to update your code. • Rendering layer changes - should be mostly backwards compatible, but you are advised

to upgrade your code. • Require capability used to do an automatic require_login. It no longer does so. All pages

must explicitly call require_login if they need it. MDL-19882 • Changes to the question type API • MNet has been refactored and tidied up - related third party code needs to be checked • Changes and improvements to the Local customisation system. • Javascript • YUI • custom profile fields values are loaded into $USER->profile array instead of directly into

$USER object

Credits

These people made check-ins to Moodle 2.0 code. Thanks to all of them, of course. Some of these people represent a team of people who actually worked on the code.

• Robert Allerstorfer (anet.at)


• Aaron Barnes, Peter Bulmer, Matt Clarkson, Jonathan Harker, Piers Harding, Luke Hudson, Martin Langhoff, Dan Marsden, Francois Marier, Donal McMullan, Jonathan Newman (catalyst.net.nz)

• Howard Miller (e-learndesign.co.uk) • Iñaki Arenaza (mondragon.edu) • Andreas Grabs (grabs-edv.de) • Jamie Pratt (jamiep.org) • Anthony Borrow (jesuits.net) • Gordon Bateson (kanazawa-gu.ac.jp) • Samuli Karevaara (lamk.fi) • Penny Leach (liip.ch) • Dan Poltawski (luns.net.uk) • Matt Oquist (majen.net) • Roberto Pinna (mfn.unipmn.it) • Michael Ketcham (microsoft.com) • Mitsuhiro Yoshida (mitstek.com) • Aparup Banerjee, Dongsheng Cai, Nicolas Connault, Andrew Davis, Martin Dougiamas,

Helen Foster, Sam Hemelryk, Eloy Lafuente, Jerome Mouneyrac, David Mudrak, Mathieu Petit-Clair, Petr Skoda, Rossiani Wijaya, Yu Zhang (moodle.com)

• Mark Nielsen (moodlerooms.com) • Andrea Bicciolo (mtouch.it) • John Beedell, Nicholas Freear, Jenny Gray, Tim Hunt, Sam Marshall, Gareth Morgan,

Derek Woolhead (open.ac.uk) • Ashley Holman (netspot.com.au) • Patrick Malley (newschoollearning.com) • Eric Merrill (oakland.edu) • Mike Churchward (oktech.ca) • Shane Elliott (pukunui.com) • Shamim Rezaie (rezaie.info) • Joseph Rezeau (rezeau.org) • Lukas Haemmerle (switch.ch) • Urs Hunkler (unodo.de) • Jordi Piguillem (upc.edu.es) • Pierre Pichet (uqam.ca) • Gustav Delius (york.ac.uk) • Ethem Evlice, Valery Fremaux, Dariem Garces, Wen Hao Chuang, Luis Rodrigues, Olli

Savolainen, John Stabinger

See also

• Moodle 2.0 Preview 1 release notes - May 4, 2010 • Moodle 2.0 Preview 2 release notes - May 17, 2010 • Moodle 2.0 Preview 3 release notes - May 31, 2010 • Moodle 2.0 Preview 4 release notes - June 30, 2010 • Moodle 2.0 Release Candidate 1 release notes - September 21, 2010


Retrieved from "http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_2.0_release_notes" Categories: Release notes | Moodle 2.0

This page was last modified on 23 December 2010, at 10:57.


SCORM module Editor�s Note: These sections are for context. Most relate to previous versions of Moodle.

The SCORM/AICC module is a course activity which allows you (the teacher) to upload any SCORM or AICC package to include in your course.

SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) is a collection of specifications that enable interoperability, accessibility and reusability of web-based learning content. SCORM content can be delivered to learners via any SCORM-compliant Learning Management System (LMS) using the same version of SCORM.

What is SCORM

SCORM was developed as a result of collaboration in the public and private sectors. The President of the United States, Bill Clinton issued an Executive Order that created an agency (ADL) to oversee the standard for developing and distributing online learning. All Federal agencies are mandated to use programs that meet those standards. SCORM is one result of that order.

There's a really simple "What is SCORM" introduction here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=3757#p18828

A slightly more detailed introduction here: http://www.rusticisoftware.com/resources/whatisscorm/What%20Is%20SCORM.htm

Compatibility with Moodle

SCORM 1.2 is supported in Moodle 1.9.3(or higher) and Moodle 1.8.7(or higher) and passes all the tests in the ADL Conformance test suite 1.2..7 for SCORM 1.2. Moodle 1.9.5 is certified SCORM 1.2 compliant.

SCORM 2004 is not completely supported in Moodle Core at this stage. Parts of the API have been implemented, but others such as Navigation and Sequencing are not yet supported. If you require a fully certified SCORM 2004 Player in Moodle, Rustici Software have a Moodle plugin which connects to their commercial SCORM Cloud service turning Moodle into a fully compliant SCORM 2004 LMS.


Student view of SCORM activity 1.9

From tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-11501 14 9 January 2011

Scorm New attempts and reviewing

Details Type: Improvement Status: Closed Priority: Minor Resolution: Fixed Affects Version/s: 1.8, 1.8.1, 1.8.2 Fix Version/s: 2.0 Component/s: Course, SCORM Labels: None Environment: N/A

Affected Branches: MOODLE_18_STABLE

Fixed Branches: MOODLE_20_STABLE

Description

When i create a new course, that course has one Adobe Captivate 3 quiz/training session, exporting with SCORM 1.2. All of our quizzes are going to allow for unlimited attempts, but I really think the Mode, Start new Attempt, and enter course button could be vastly improved.

I think that every time the user clicks the enter course button, it should always start a new attempt if available or prompt me asking if i want to start a new attempt. I think my users will miss the start a new attempt check box and get frustrated and just stop trying. I think the whole mode thing with the radio buttons toggling between Preview and Normal mode should just be removed alltogether as well as removing the start a new attempt checkbox.

So ideally all you would see below that scorm content is:

1) If it is your first attempt at the scorm content you only see an enter course button. 2) If it is your second attempt or greater you see a Review button which reviews your highest scoring attempt or your last attempt and an Enter Course button that starts a new attempt. 3) If you have made a perfect score you should only see the review button, and not the Enter Course button. 4) If you have exhausted all of your attempts you should only see the review button as well.

Would this improvement be possible?

Issue Links

Duplicate

This issue is duplicated by: MDL-20195 Problem with SCORM setting '1 attempt' MDL-21353 Review mode is potentially a big issue in real life tracked items delivering


Activity

Comments

Piers Harding added a comment - 17/Sep/08 4:31 AM

To help with player behaviour issues, and interaction with SCORM packages, I am making a series of changes that will allow a course administrator to influence the player/package interation. There are 5 new switches configurable for a SCORM package:

• display attempt status - show the status of current attempts and the grading passed into the grade book

• display course structure - display/supress the course structure on the (mod/scorm) course outline page

• force completed - for SCORM 1.2 package, force the status to be completed if a score has been issued, this will be useful for buggy legacy packages.

• force new attempt - make every revisit to a package a new attempt, this will inhibit attempt revisiting to improve scoring.

• last attempt locked - lock out the package when all attempts have bee consumed.

Additional to this there is the suppression of the start new attempt (point 1 and 2 above).

tim rhymer added a comment - 20/Sep/08 1:21 AM

This is great news! Will this be effective in new builds of Moodle or which version should I expect to see this change?

Piers Harding added a comment - 20/Sep/08 7:52 AM

Hi - this was commited into 2.0 (HEAD), and because it requires schema changes it is usually held back to the next major release (which is 2.0 as far as I'm aware).

I'll see what Dan thinks.

Cheers.

Dan Marsden added a comment - 24/Sep/08 4:37 PM

Yeah - Piers is right, this can't go into the 1.9stable build due to the schema changes. but it would be nice if we could provide a patch for people to be able to use that would add the fields to the db and the changes to the mod_form.php page.... especially as Reporting is a big issue for a lot of people.


but I don't really like the fact that a patch touches so many files, and it will be difficult for us to maintain/support if lots of people install it, and then want to update to newer versions.

looking at locallib.php - a lot of that could be committed to stable couldn't it (would need a few checks to isset() before checking some vars as they won't normally exist) - Piers can we commit "some" of this patch to stable to limit the patch we would provide to add the functionality to a 19stable install? - if you get a chance could you post a potential "partial" patch to 1.9stable here

for review?

Dan Marsden added a comment - 01/Dec/08 1:55 PM

I'm flagging this as fixed - Piers has committed fixes to 2.0 that provide greater flexibility over SCORM packages, and allows changing the behavior dictated by the SCORM object by the authoring package. Anything not covered by these changes to 2.0 should be added in a new Tracker issue.

NOTE: - these changes will not be in 1.9 stable as they require db schema changes.

thanks!

People

Assignee: Piers Harding Reporter: tim rhymer Participants: Dan Marsden, Piers Harding, tim rhymer QA Assignee: Nobody Vote (0) Watch (3)

Dates

Created: 29/Sep/07 12:46 AM Updated: 17/Dec/10 1:08 PM Resolved: 01/Dec/08 1:55 PM


Moodle / MDL-21555 Scorm report improvement

Editor�s note: Some text and comments omitted.

Details

Type: Improvement Status: Closed Priority: Major Resolution: Fixed Affects Version/s: 1.9.7 Fix Version/s: 2.0 Component/s: SCORM Labels: None

Database: MySQL


Fixed Branches: MOODLE_20_STABLE

Description

I've added some changes to the scorm report, the modified files are attached.

The modifications includes : Complete recoding of the report.php based on mod/quiz/report/overview/report.php, this enable the following features :

! group select box ! sortable table ! collapsable table ! download in Excel, ODS and text format ! report preferences : number of elements per page, show scorm details or not, show all

students, only attempted or not attempted results ! tabs navigation to switch between the sco info page and report page. In the

scorm/view.php i get rid of the top link "show xxx users"

Two new files :

! tabs.php for the tabs ! reportsettings_form.php for the preference form (based on MDL-18836)

Solution for this MDL-21421 and an improvement of MDL-16184 : The problem is in scorm_get_sco_runtime (locallib.php), because it takes all scoes track ordered by timemodified, and then select the scoes track again but ordered by scoid to take the first one


(which is not necessarily the first accessed). For me, the changes i've made give more relevant results (the first access is really the first access and the last really the last). By using x.start.time, the previous patch takes in facts the last opening of the first sco and not really the first access.

Sorry but my patch also includes this one : MDL-18835, because it's not included in Moodle 1.9.7

And sorry for my bad english,

People

Assignee: Dan Marsden Reporter: valerian Participants: Dan Marsden, ivan, MJ, valerian QA Assignee: Nobody Vote (0) Watch (2) Dates

Created: 08/Feb/10 11:21 PM Updated: 13/Dec/10 6:40 PM Resolved: 29/Apr/10 2:36 PM


Moodle / MDL-21555 replace SCORM player with similar player from IMSCP Module

Editor�s note: Some text and comments omitted.

Details

Type: Bug Status: Closed Priority: Major Resolution: Fixed Affects Version/s: 2.0.1 Fix Version/s: none Component/s: SCORM Labels: None


Description

As part of the Moodle 2.0 work, Petr Skoda has written a new IMSCP module for Moodle 2.0 which provides a really nice clean "player" to display an IMS object and TOC - I'd like to propose that we replace the existing SCORM player with the same style interface.

This proposal is discussed here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=152895

This change will remove the settings "width" and "height" from the SCORM settings page (which don't work reliably anyway) and rely on the theme/player to set the stage size like is managed in the new IMSCP module.

If you click on an item in the TOC of the IMSCP module it opens a new window - this behaviour will not be replicated in the SCORM module - it will behave like the TOC in SCORM currently does - opening the item in the same page.

As this bug will "remove" settings from SCORM I'd like as much feedback as possible before we progress with it - please post in the forum and vote on this bug if you have any feedback you would like to share.


IE7-1.png 70 kB 16/Jul/10 10:11 AM

IE7-2.png 52 kB 16/Jul/10 10:11 AM


moodle_scorm_interface_prob.jpg 137 kB 09/Jul/10 7:59 AM

moodle_scorm_interface.jpg 139 kB 09/Jul/10 6:59 AM People

Assignee: Piers Harding Reporter: Dan Marsden Participants: Dan Marsden, Piers Harding(2), , Ron Meske, Tim Ganly QA Assignee: Nobody Vote (1) Watch (12)


Dates Created: 28/Jun/10 5:37 AM Updated: 13/Dec/10 6:14 PM Resolved: 22/Jul/10 9:06 AM

Documents

Moodle 2.0 release notes - immagic.com€¦ · Repository support ... Alfresco, Amazon S3, Box.net ... • Full integration with configured external repositories to import and embed