Category: News

Hack/Doc at Smith: The Sprint Day

Two-story building with glass entry
Hillyer Art Library at Smith College. Photo credit: Charles Fulton

LTI integration and the Women’s World Cup are among the topics discussed during the sprint (half) day at Smith.

The biannual Hack/Doc is being held at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The event kicked off on Monday, June 24, 2019 with the sprint day, and runs through Thursday, June 27. The following tasks are queued up for Hack/Doc:

  • Evaluating Moodle 3.7
  • Trying out alternatives to Mozilla Backpack with OpenBadges 2.0
  • Refactoring CLAMPMail to work better in Boost
  • Group discussion about Swarthmore’s PDF accessibility block
  • Workflows for a potential Workday integration
  • Using competencies for an information literacy curriculum
Conference table with people sitting around it
Daniel Landau leads the LTI workshop

Daniel Landau from Reed College kicked us off with a workshop in LTI integrations. LTI is a protocol for interoperation between remote resources and a learning management system. It eliminates the need to build custom integrations for a specific LMS such as Moodle or Canvas.  Resources from the remote system can be embedded in the LMS, which handles the authentication. Typically an iframe handles the actual rendering of the data. The experience for the student is seamless.

We also had a spirited discussion about what qualifies as a penalty in soccer, with high points corresponding to the yellow card on Megan Rapinoe and her go-ahead goal against Spain at 76′. The US vs. France quarterfinal will be on Friday. Previous attendees recalled watching the US Men’s team in the 2014 World Cup while attending the Hack/Doc Fest at Macalester College.

New Moodle LAE Releases for May 2019

There are four new Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition releases. There are no new LAE features; these are maintenance releases only. You can download the updates from the CLAMP code release archive.

The next stable releases are scheduled for mid-July. We expect Moodle HQ to release Moodle 3.7 on or about May 20; CLAMP will evaluate it and prepare a beta at the forthcoming Hack/Doc Fest at Smith College. CLAMP evaluated Moodle 3.6 at the Brandeis University Hack/Doc Fest in January 2019; please see CLAMP’s daily reports for details: Sprint Day, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

These releases were developed, packaged, and tested by Kevin Wiliarty (Hampshire College) and Andrew Zito (Lafayette College).

Join Us for Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, Summer 2019

CLAMP Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, Summer 2019 will be held Tuesday, June 25 through Thursday, June 27 2019 at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. A pre-Hack/Doc documentation and coding sprint as well as a workshop on LTI applications will be held on Monday, June 24.

The lodging deadline is Wednesday, May 29, 2019. The event registration and travel grant application deadline is Friday, June 7, 2019.

Nominations Open

Nominations are now open for new members of the Steering Committee and this year’s Recognition Awards.

Steering Committee

CLAMP is accepting nominations of member colleges to serve on the Steering Committee; terms are for three years. You need not specify who will represent the college on the committee now, and you can nominate schools other than your own.

The nomination criteria are:

  • The institution must be a four-year liberal arts college or institution.
  • The institution must be a member of CLAMP

Our current steering committee members are: Beloit College, Carleton College, Centre College, Hampshire College, Kenyon College, Smith College, and Wesleyan University.

Beloit College, Centre College, and Kenyon College rotate off the committee this year. The current committee members will choose the three new members based on nominations submitted by the community, with an eye towards maintaining geographical diversity.

The deadline for nominations is May 31, 2019.

Nominate a CLAMP school for steering committee membership »

Recognition Awards

The CLAMP Recognition Awards are awarded annually to one programmer (e.g.; hacker) and one instructional technologist (e.g.; doc’er) to acknowledge outstanding achievement as members of the organization. These achievements include work on Moodle development, Moodle documentation, CLAMP organization and/or recruitment to CLAMP.

In 2018-19, the value of this award is $500. To receive the award, individuals:

  • must be a member of a current CLAMP school
  • can not be currently serving on the steering committee

This year, the the Steering Committee will accept nominations from member schools. Nominations must be submitted by May 31, 2019.

Nominate a CLAMP member for a recognition award »

New Moodle LAE Releases for March 2019

There are four new Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition releases. There are no new LAE features; these are maintenance releases only. You can download the updates from the CLAMP code release archive.

The next stable releases are scheduled for mid-May. We expect Moodle HQ to release Moodle 3.7 around that time; CLAMP will evaluate it and prepare a beta at the forthcoming Hack/Doc Fest at Smith College. CLAMP evaluated Moodle 3.6 at the Brandeis University Hack/Doc Fest in January 2019; please see CLAMP’s daily reports for details: Sprint Day, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

These releases were developed, packaged, and tested by Kevin Wiliarty (Hampshire College) and Andrew Zito (Lafayette College).