Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project

The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP) is launching several new committees and is looking for volunteers to serve on them. The goals of these committees are to support CLAMP’s efforts outside of our Hack/Doc Fests, help prepare our members for the jump to Moodle 2.0, and provide more opportunities to schools to participate in meaningful ways.

The four committees are:

• Development: work on bug fixes, develop existing and new functionality, and support the release of Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition.
• Documentation: Create and update generic Moodle documentation – including written, audio, and video –  that can easily be adapted to individual colleges.
• Event Planning: Plan brown bag lunches, special talks, and the biannual Hack/Doc Fests.
• Next Generation: research and prepare for the next major version of Moodle; today that’s Moodle 2.0, which has major changes to blocks, modules, themes, and core code.

Here’s the schedule of upcoming committee meetings:

• Event Planning – Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST
• Documentation – Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST
• Next Generation – Thursday, Dec 9, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST
• Development – Friday, Dec. 10, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST

Anyone at a CLAMP school can serve on any committee; no nomination is required.

• Sign up for a committee.

This year two of the inaugural members of the Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP) steering committee, Reed College and Earlham College, will be stepping down as part of our governance rotation. CLAMP is accepting nominations of member colleges to succeed them; terms are for two years.

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+Liberal Arts Edition v1.1 Beta 3 is available for download. This is a beta release meant for testing only; it is not recommended for use on production systems. The Beta 3 release includes some hack/doc developed refinements to the gradebook’s administration settings (MDL-22931, MDL-22928) and a new graphic for TinyMCE’s “Insert File” icon.

• Code freeze was 6/29/2010
• Beta 1 released on 6/26/2010
• Beta 2 was released on 7/2/2010
• Beta 3 was released on 7/14/2010
• The final version will be released on 7/15/2010

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 3 thread in the Redmine forum.

The CLAMP Development Committee has decided to do one final beta release for — Beta 3 — for Moodle 1.9.9+LAE v1.1. This release includes a few bug fixes from Hack/Doc Fest that didn’t make it into the Development branch and tweak to TinyMCE 3 to make the “file upload” icon clearer. The release will be posted Wednesday morning by 10 a.m. EDT; the Development Committee will then conduct its last round of testing on Wednesday and Thursday, with Moodle 1.9.9+LAE v1.1 dropping Thursday afternoon.

The Moodle 1.9.9+LAE v1.1 Beta 2 is available for download. This is a beta release meant for testing only; it is not recommended for use on production systems. The Beta 2 release incorporates a fix for Simple File Upload’s default setting and refinements to the CLAMP Grader view for Gradebook.

• Code freeze was 6/29/2010
• Beta 1 released on 6/26/2010
• Beta 2 released 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 2 thread in the Redmine forum.

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.

CLAMP is running a survey to learn what colleges are using for their eReserves system and what, if any, integration that system has with Moodle. We’ll use answers to this survey to help guide CLAMP’s development efforts in this area.

• Take the Moodle and eReserves Integration survey.

Hack/Doc Fest: Summer 2010 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.

Here are some potential items for Hack/Doc:

• Moodle 1.9.9: Liberal Arts Edition: We will be doing the 1.9.8 code merge before Hack/Doc Fest, so work on this edition will focus on debugging/testing so that we can release it ASAP after the event.
• Moodle 2.0 Beta Evaluation: There weren’t many tires to kick on Moodle 2.0 in January; we’ll be revisiting the new version (currently Moodle 2.0 Preview 1)

Moodle Hack/Doc Fest: Summer 2010 will be held June  23-25, 2010 at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Hack/Doc is being held in conjunction with NITLE Camp’s Moodle User Group Meeting, which takes place Tuesday, June 22, 2010.

As with prior events, Hack/Doc 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.

• Learn more at Hack/Doc: Summer 2010 home page.
• Request Hacks, Docs, Bugs for Hack/Doc Fest: Summer 2010
• Register online.

Questions can be posted as comments below or emailed to Ken Newquist at newquisk@lafayette.edu.