Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project

Redmine is a web-based project management tool that’s essential to coordinating CLAMP’s code, documentation and community efforts. At the “Introduction to Redmine” brown bag at 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday, 12/16, Courtney Bentley will explain how we use it, with a particular eye toward coordinating work at our upcoming Moodle Hack/Doc Fest V at Lafayette College.

The brownbag will be held in NITLE’s Elluminate conference room. It is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

• Register for the brown bag.

Hack/Doc Fest V is coming, we’re looking for  suggestions for bug fixes, documentation and new features for Moodle  that the community would like us to address. You can add your requests by making a comment on this blog post. You don’t have to be attending Hack/Doc Fest to make suggestions — we’d like suggestions from the entire community.

Update 1/4/2010:

• Moodle Hack/Doc Fest V Task List: A complete list of bugs, feature requests, and road tests has been been posted to Google Docs. Attendees have edit access; everyone else has view access.

One of CLAMP’s core tasks is develop and maintain new code projects for Moodle. This brown bag will provide an overview of the types of projects we tackle and then focus in on development of a particular project: Simple File Upload. It will be held at 12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009.

Leading the event will be Caroline Moore, Admin/Courseware Developer at Smith College, and will be held in NITLE’s Elluminate conference room. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

• Register for the brown bag now.

UPDATE: Because of a scheduling conflict, this brown bag has been moved from 11/17 to Monday, Nov. 23 at 12 p.m. ET. When registering, you can still use the 11/17 option in the signup form.

Documentation: everyone needs it, but writing it can be a challenge. CLAMP’s made that easier by creating documentation for Moodle grade book, roles and groups that schools can  take and modify for their individual campuses. The “Documentation Overview” virtual brown bag being held Monday, Nov. 23 at 12 p.m. ET. will discuss what’s available, as well as CLAMP’s process for updating and creating new documentation.

This brown bag will be led by Courtney Bentley, Instructional Technology Program Coordinator at Lafayette College, and will be held in NITLE’s Elluminate conference room. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register for the brown bag now.

Introduction to Elluminate - the first of CLAMP’s Fall 2009 brown bags – will be held Wednesday, Nov. 11 at noon ET. This session will server as a primer for using Elluminate for conference participants. We’ll run down the basic components of the online conferencing tool, and troubleshoot any audio/video problems you might experience. If you plan on attending, visit the Elluminate Support page before the brown bag to download the software and verify that it works on your machine.

The event is free to the public, but registration is required. Register for the brown bag now.

The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP) added 13 member  institutions to its roster over the last few months. To get everyone  up to speed — and to show case the work we’ve been doing — we’re  hosting several virtual brown bags in November and December:

• Introduction to Elluminate, 12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Nov. 11
• Documentation Overview, 12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Nov. 18
• Code Development Overview, 12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Dec. 2
• Introduction to Redmine, 12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Dec. 16
• Introduction to Version Control, 12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Dec. 23

All of these events will be held in NITLE’s new Elluminate video  conferencing room. The brown bags are free, but registration is  required so that we can send attendees the conferencing link.

For more information about these brown bags, visit our Events Web Page. To register, use the online registration form.

Moodle Hack/Doc Fest V will be held January 5-7, 2010 at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. The event will feature programmers and instructional technologists coming together to improve Moodle. We expect to continue work on CLAMP’s Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition project, fix outstanding Moodle bugs, and craft new training materials. We also hope to test drive Moodle 2.0, which is scheduled for a beta release at the end of 2009.

With this Hack/Doc, CLAMP returns to its “pay your own way” funding model. Lafayette will be providing breakfast, lunch and snacks for attendees, but they will need to pay for their own transportation, lodging, and dinner. In addition to the conventional Hack/Doc Fest, we’re planning on coordinating a virtual component to Hack/Doc Fest that will allow people to participate from their own campuses.

Visit the event home page for more information and to register.

“The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project: A Case Study” is available on AcademicCommons.org. The case study looks at our efforts to transform our informal Hack/Doc Fests into a more formal organization with the help of a grant from the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE).  The case study is part of the September 2009 issue, which features a number of case studies provided by NITLE schools.

At Hack/Doc Fest we set a release date of July 31, 2009 for Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition v1.0, a packaged version of Moodle which incorporates our most-used modules, bug fixes, and home-grown and add-ons. Go to the Liberal Arts Edition v1.0 for a complete inventory.

The release date has been delayed until August 7, 2009 in order to give us more time to test code and put the finishing touches on our Subversion repository. Most of the LAE is completed, and we plan to start releasing stand-alone code next week. A test version of the final LAE build will be available on Wednesday, and the finished version will be available on Friday.

Those who have access to Redmine can download the current development version of the code through Subversion (and we welcome the additional testers). Instructions for doing so can be found in the Development project.

All of the NITLE schools attending Hack/Doc Fest are eligible for reimbursement of food, travel and lodging expenses of up to $1,200. Requirements for reimbursement are as follows:

1. The reimbursement deadline is June 17, 2009
   • Your receipts must be received by Lafayette by this date.
     
2. We are following the Lafayette College reimbursement rules for food, which allow $50 per diem, including one alcoholic beverage. You may include tips in your reimbursements.
3. The milage rate is .55.
4. Your receipts for lodging and travel must show a zero balance, which means that the receipt should include:
   • the cost of your ticket or hotel stay
   • the credit card charge (or other payment) showing your paid the bill
   • a final balance of $0.
   • Note: This usually means you need to use your final bill, not the confirmation (which typically shows the cost, but not your payment).
5. You must include all your original receipts. Printouts (e.g. for airplane ticket purchases) are ok.
   • Note: Scans of the receipts aren’t ok; we need the originals. We recommend that you make copies of your receipts before sending in the originals.
6. Mail your completed reimbursement to:
   • Kenneth Newquist
   • David Bishop Skillman Library
   • 710 Sullivan Road
   • Lafayette College
   • Easton, PA 18042-1797

The reimbursement form:

• Hack/Doc Fest Reimbursement Form (Excel/xls format)

Contact Information

• Ken Newquist
• newquisk@lafayette.edu
• 610-330-5759