#228 Poster

Monday 16 April 15:00 - 17:15 Bar/Conservatory

Moodle 2 for OER: the good, the bad and the ugly

Jenny Gray & Guy Barrett, The Open University, UK           

Conference Theme: Innovation

Summary: As Moodle 1.9 ends, we look at the good, the bad and the ugly in Moodle 2 for OCW and seek others to help us make it better.

Abstract: Moodle 1.9 is no longer being actively developed. By July 2012 it will reach end-of-life meaning that even serious security issues will no longer be addressed.  All sites, whether for paying students or Open Educational Resources, hosted on Moodle 1.9 (and earlier) should be working on a migration plan.
This presentation will look at the way the Open University of the United Kingdom tackled the problem for their student-facing systems and LearningSpace OCW site, both of which were based on the same heavily-customised Moodle 1.9 platform.
We will briefly cover how we assessed alternative platforms, looking at how well they implement our required functionality and the cost of migration.  We continue to wish to use open technologies, and to manage LearningSpace in a sustainable way based on mainstream activities.
We will share our thoughts on what’s good, bad and downright ugly about Moodle 2 for OER, looking at everything from support for license choice and other IP issues, publishing RSS feeds, support for peer-to-peer learning, search engine optimisation, ease of re-use, support for ratings and reviews, activity tracking, self-assessment, flexibility of structuring materials, mobile learning, support for content authoring and management…
We hope the audience will share their experiences as well.  We wish to continue to collaborate with other educational institutions and the Moodle community to improve Moodle 2 so that it better meets the needs of OER.  Our aim is that as a result of this presentation we will have a better picture of the problems facing not just the OUUK but the wider OER Moodle community.  We hope to gather offers of help in any of the following areas: setting requirements, developing code, testing, translating or documenting new features.  These can be taken to the core Moodle development team help us make better progress together.