Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project

CLAMP is pleased to announce the release of Moodle 2.2.1+Liberal Arts Edition v2.0, the inaugural edition of the LAE for Moodle 2.2. The goal of LAE is to provide a coherent package for modules, patches, and code developed (or improved) by the Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project.

This is a beta release, and is recommended for use on development or pilot instances; it is under active development as we assess what issues to resolve and features to include in the LAE. It is based on work done at Moodle Hack/Doc Fest at Tulane University in January 2012.

Visit the release’s home page to download the code:

• http://www.clamp-it.org/code/moodle-2-2-1liberal-arts-edition-v2-0/

CLAMP is pleased to announce the release of Moodle 1.9.16+LAE v1.6. Full details about this release can be found in the LAE_readme.txt file in the download. This version release merges the Liberal Arts Edition with Moodle 1.9.16.

Visit the release’s home page to download the code:

• http://www.clamp-it.org/code/moodle-1-9-16lae-v1-6/

Moodle Hack/Doc Fest at Tulane University is a month away and 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.

• Evaluation and testing of Moodle 2.2
  • Moodle 2.2 load tests
  • Moodle mobile app testing
  • Moodle mobile theme testing
  • Luminis Message Broker Discussion and Debugging
• Evaluation and testing of Moodle 2.2 plugins
  • Quickmail
  • Scheduler
  • Filtered Course List
• Planning Moodle 2.0 pilots
• Documentation for Moodle 2.0

Moodle 1.9.12+LAE1.2.1 released is available for download. This is a maintenance and security release that incorporates Moodle 1.9.12. It supersedes the Moodle 1.9.11+LAE1.2 releases.

In addition to Moodle 1.9.12, it includes two new backup options: 1) if ZipArchive is installed on the server, Backup will use that instead of the regular zip routines 2) you can now specify whether to skip courses of a certain size when creating backups. This replaces a hardcoded value of 512 MB from the previous version of the LAE.

Moodle 1.9.12+LAE v1.2.1 Beta 2 is available for download. This release fixes a bug in the forum code that caused the upgrade to 1.9.12 to fail. Many thanks to Lael for reporting the bug.

After careful assessment, CLAMP has concluded that Moodle 2.0.1 is not production ready. This assessment is based on extensive testing  conducted at Moodle Hack/Doc Fest VII at Furman University in January 2011 as well as a re-evaluation of Moodle 2.0.x progress in April 2011. CLAMP recommends using Moodle 1.9.x during the 2011-2012 academic year.

Our full report outlines notable improvements to Moodle 2.0, as well as progress since January 2011,  known blockers, possible blockers and other potential issues that affect its production readiness. Download the full report [PDF]

CLAMP will be supporting Moodle 2.0 at the upcoming Moodle Hack/Doc Fest at Hampshire College in June 2011. We plan to:

• identify and begin writing essential Moodle 2.0 documentation at Hack/Doc
• create a timeline for converting any remaining plugins or blocks
• update this report on the status of blockers and potential blockers
• establish a group of CLAMP schools interested in piloting Moodle 2.0 in 2011-12

Moodle 1.9.11+LAE1.2 released is available for download. This is a maintenance release that incorporates Moodle 1.9.11. It supersedes the Moodle 1.9.9+LAE1.1.4 releases. It includes incorporates new bug fixes and features from Moodle Hack/Doc Fest at Furman University, as well as a specific bug with TinyMCE 3.0 that was introduced in the LAE1.1.2 release.

Moodle 1.9.9+LAE v1.1 is available for download. This release includes a number of new features including:

• Simple File Upload: Upload individual files without having to deal with the full Moodle upload interface
• Assignment ZIP: Download all the files associated with an assignment with one click.
• LAE Grader View: A cleaner, easier-to-navigate gradebook view.
• Anonymous Forums: A mod for Moodle forums that allows for anonymous forum posting (note: those in the administrator and teacher roles can still see the IP addresses associated with posts in the log file).

Full release notes and the release download can be found on the Moodle 1.9.9+LAE v1.1 project page.

The Moodle 1.9.9+LAE v1.1 Beta 1 is available for download. This is a beta release meant for testing only; it is not recommended for use on production systems.

• Code freeze will be on the end of the day on June 29.
• We will release Beta 2 on 7/2/2010
• The final version will be released on 7/9/2010.

This version of the LAE incorporates a number of bug fixes and new features developed at Hack/Doc Fest VI at DePauw University. We need help testing these features and verifying that they work for you.

• Go to the project home page to download the code.

Please post feedback as a comment on the project page. CLAMP members can post feedback to the Moodle 1.9.9+LAE v1.1 Beta 1 thread in the Redmine forum.

Recently, Moodle.org announced a security advisory about a potential vulnerability involving course backups. The specifics of this vulnerability were included in an email to Moodle server admins, but in a nutshell, when doing full course backups, Moodle backs up local users and their passwords. Read the rest of this entry »