It’s a cool and crisp morning at the foot of Brandeis University. Photo credit: Charles Fulton
PDF accessibility, the Course Overview block, preferred names, and Moodle 3.6 are among the topics discussed during the sprint (half) day at Brandeis.
The biannual Hack/Doc is being held at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. The event kicked off on Monday, January 7, 2019 with the sprint day, and runs through Thursday, January 10. The following tasks are queued up for Hack/Doc:
Evaluating Moodle 3.6, including changes to the Course Overview block
Improvements to how Moodle handles preferred names
Evaluating Swarthmore’s PDF accessibility tool
Evaluating Brandeis’ Support Staff tool
Exploring NameCoach integration possibilities
Improving the default behavior of course end dates and the number of sections in weekly course formats
Allowing users to view individual files from the folder resource
Packaging and testing the Moodle 3.6 Liberal Arts Edition release
We had a long discussion about the best ways to support preferred names, pronouns, and mononymous students. We’re hoping to develop some guidance and patches over the next few days for the first two issues. Mononymity remains a significant challenge.
Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, Winter 2019 will be held Tuesday, January 8 through Thursday, January 10, 2019 at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. A pre-Hack/Doc documentation and coding sprint will be held the afternoon of Monday, January 7, 2019.
The lodging and registration deadlines are Friday, December 21, 2018. An additional lodging option is forthcoming.
Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, Winter 2018 will be held Tuesday, January 9 through Thursday, January 11, 2018 at Centre College in Danville, KY. A pre-Hack/Doc documentation and coding sprint will be held Monday, January 8, 2018.
The lodging deadline is Friday, December 22, 2017. The registration deadline is Friday, December 15, 2017.
Please join CLAMP for a webinar presentation which will be held Friday, September 22, from 10:30-11:30 am (CST) in Zoom (https://zoom.us/j/630284326).
Sonya Johnson PhD, professor of Religious Studies at Beloit College, will share about her experience coming to Moodle, anxieties and expectations she had, challenges she faced and how Moodle helped her meet those challenges. She will also share about the ways in which Moodle, the quiz module in particular, supported her pedagogy. Sonya will finally share lessons learned/take-away’s and her future plans for her courses in Moodle.
Future sessions will consist of a faculty member presenting a 20-ish minute session about a particular method or tool they utilize within Moodle for their teaching. Faculty from each of the 30+ CLAMP schools are invited to lead these sessions as we continue with the series.
Each of session will be broadcast live via Zoom for participants at other schools to watch synchronously and hopefully gather faculty for discussion after the presentation. Sessions will also be recorded for those who cannot make the live session, and posted on the CLAMP YouTube channel. Our hope is that members of the CLAMP community are able to schedule a shared viewing of these presentations, whether live or recorded, with members of their own faculty to use as a springboard for discussion of how the presented material could be used at each of your respective institutions.
Accessibility discussion with Rob Eveleigh, Five Colleges, Inc. Accessibility Coordinator. Photo credit: Sarah Ryder
The last day of Hack/Doc, as usual, was a bit shorter due to attendee travel plans. We wrapped up around lunch time after some discussions about Moodle 3.3, Boost, upgrade plans, and accessibility.
Moodle 3.3, Boost, and Upgrade Plans
The Hack/Doc group didn’t have major concerns with Moodle 3.3; some CLAMP schools are planning to upgrade to 3.3 for the fall semester and others are sticking with 3.1 or 3.2 for now. A few notes from the discussion:
The ability to choose a different document converter is nice.
The course overview bug is a concern, though it’s likely to be remedied in 3.3.1.
The expansion of user group and overrides is nice for students needing accommodation.
Review of the poster plugin functions as advertised, which helps some of the Boost concerns about a lack of a home for blocks.
One consideration of going to 3.3 is that it requires PHP 5.6.
Who is using or planning to use Boost?
One school is using Boost already and the feedback from faculty so far has been positive, but they just made the switch in May.
Another school is planning to roll it out in July.
Some other schools are considering it, but no solid plans to make the move at this point.
Accessibility
Rob Eveleigh, the Five Colleges, Inc. Accessibility Coordinator working with Hampshire, Amherst, Smith, and Mount Holyoke Colleges, joined us for a lively discussion around accessibility. Some of the items mentioned were:
Using semantic markup effectively
Providing alt text for images
Using descriptive and unique link text
Choosing colors with sufficient contrast
Captions, transcripts, and audio description
Clarity of language and layout
Ensuring accessibility of non-HTML content, such as PDFs and
Form labels
Skip navigation
Data table headers
ARIA
Javascript
Moving, blinking, or scrolling content and ensuring that the user can control the functions
Andrew presenting about a file scanner. Photo credit: Sarah Ryder
File Scanner Demo
Andrew Ruether from Swarthmore College worked on a tool that scans PDF files in Moodle. The local plugin runs whenever cron is set to run and evaluates the newest files first. Working on a small amount of files each time, it shows if the PDF is an image or text. Andrew created a block for Moodle to show a summary of the PDFs in the course for teachers. The database table keeps the content hash of the PDF, whether it was checked, page count, and OCR status. It might include scan quality down the road. It could potentially include the ability to spell check the OCR document. Ideally, it’d be nice if the non-OCR file could be converted on the fly.
A Little Bit of Git
Kevin Wiliarty from Hampshire College spent some time going over git techniques with other folks. One of the best aspects of Hack/Doc, in my opinion, is the ability to collaborate with and learn from others while feeling like you’re part of a supportive community. Thanks to everyone who attended and participated this week!
