moodle at the ou moodle moot 2010
TRANSCRIPT
Moodle at the OU
Ross MackenzieThe Open University
In the Beginning
Before Moodle• May 2005
• Major review of OU learning and teaching systems
Before Moodle• May 2005
• Major review of OU learning and teaching systems
The Big Decision• 6th July 2005
• “A momentous day for Britain”
• “The most fantastic opportunity to do everything we ever dreamed of”
The Big Decision• 6th July 2005
• “A momentous day for Britain”
– Tony Blair
• “The most fantastic opportunity to do everything we ever dreamed of”
– Seb Coe
The Big Decision• 6th July 2005
• “A momentous day for Britain”
– Tony Blair
• “The most fantastic opportunity to do everything we ever dreamed of”
– Seb Coe
The Big Decision• 6th July 2005
• Also the day when the OU decided we could go with Moodle
– it did lots of what we needed– we could make it do what it didn’t – it would scale to our traffic levels
Initial Plans• Formal decision in November 2005
• Initial (pilot scale) launch in May 2006
• Full launch in February 2007• Follow-up release in February 2008
• All developments would be released back to the Moodle community
Initial Plans• Formal decision in November 2005
• Initial (pilot scale) launch in May 2006
• Full launch in February 2007• Follow-up release in February 2008
• All developments would be released back to the Moodle community
Initial Plans• Formal decision in November 2005
• Initial (pilot scale) launch in May 2006
• Full launch in February 2007• Follow-up release in February 2008
• All developments would be released back to the Moodle community
Roadmap 1
OU - Moodle.org developments• OU funded/part-funded several major developments
– Roles & Permissions (in 1.7)
– Accessibility improvements (in 1.8)
– Gradebook (in 1.9)
• In each case we went live with beta releases
OU In-house Developments• ForumNG• OU Blog• OU Wiki
• ResourcePage• Study calendar course
format
• Shared activities system• Newfeed• MyStuff
• Dataplus
• And more
• Most available via Moodle contrib, others elsewhere
Quiz developments• Quiz Module development and maintenance
• OpenMark
– http://www.open.ac.uk/openmarkexamples/
– http://openmark.dev.java.net/
Other stuff…• Elluminate
– Bridged link between Moodle and Elluminate
• Content Authoring– Structured Content– XML-based authoring via Microsoft Word
Changes to Moodle 1.x• In addition to commissioned developments and local
modules/blocks
• In addition to changes to core
• Localisations
– 2000 changes to standard Moodle– remade each time we sync with a new Moodle release
OU Development Model• Parallel Development Model
• Quarterly releases – re-sync with stable Moodle release once/quarter
• Three month development period / two month (two stage) test period ahead of each release
RequirementsGathering
Development
Functional Testing
Pre-release Testing
In Service
Craigellachie
Fettercairn
Knockando
We Are Here
Local OU releases• Annual/six-monthly/fourth-monthly
• Quarterly
– limited changes between releases– regular requirements gathering – regular re-prioritisation
What have we learnt so far• Don’t go live with beta releases
– Resist the temptation
• Release early / release often– Annual cycles don’t cut it / Rolling releases hard to test
• Your VLE is never finished– There’s always more to do
What have we learnt so far• Keep soliciting requirements
– People will keep coming up with good ideas
• Never underestimate the traffic– There’s always another bottle neck
• Keep evangelising– Sell, sell and sell again
Where are we Now ?
Moodle at Scale• 5330 sites on main VLE, 579 currently live
• 648,000 users in database, 168,000 currently active
• In 24h period 35,000 - 50,000 unique users
• Concurrency? – maybe 2,000 – 2,500
OU Moodle Architecture• Three layer architecture – Red Hat-based
• 5 webservers – 4 load-balanced serving users, 1 running cron
• Database cluster – postgreSQL 8.3• NFS cluster
• Storage Area Network
Webservers
Database servers File servers
Storage Area Network
Multiple Systems• Live Systems
• Acceptance Test – near mirror of Live
• Technical Testing system – replica of development
• Development systems – one (or more) for each developer
Multiple Systems• Live Systems
• Acceptance Test – near mirror of Live
• Technical Testing system – replica of development
• Development systems – one (or more) for each developer
People• Development Team
• Support Team
• Testing Team
• Evangelists
Current Developments• Incremental Developments
– Collaborative Tools (ForumNG, OUBlog)– Assessment (new quiz engine)
– Structured Content (richer learning material)– Reporting systems
• Working with Google Apps for Education
• Associate Lecturer Dashboard
Where Next ?
Moodle 2
Moodle 2• Raises lots of questions
• We’ve already working on elements of Moodle 2
– Conditional Activities– Quiz Engine (maybe Moodle 2.1?)
• We’re not making any decisions until beta, and (this time) not doing anything until there is a stable release
Moodle 2• We’re going to be working on migrating the modules
we’ve developed (don’t yet know scale of problem)
• We will be looking at the cost of remaking localisations
• I’ve committed to understanding the costs of moving to Moodle 2 by end of June (beta permitting - )
Moodle 2 options• Ignore it – stick with Moodle 1.9 – and do our own thing
• Adopt it – remaking our localisations
– Likely to be expensive
• Adopt it – but accept many fewer localisations
– Do more the Moodle way / Less the OU way
OU Learning and Teaching Systems Roadmap
Further out• Life in the Clouds
• Already exploring Google Apps
– Initial light integration (SSO)– Later tighter integration (groupings level)
• Cloud Hosting – more likely using e.g. Amazon EC2/S3 than full external hosting….
OU at the MoodleMoot• Sam Marshall
• Tim Hunt
• Jason Platts
• Anthony Forth
• Phil Butcher
• Tim Lowe
