Category: News

Hack/Doc at Hampshire: The Sprint Day

Wildflowers
Wildflowers on the Hampshire College campus. Photo credit: Bonnie Solivan

PDF annotation, instructor download files, accessibility, plugin and mobile app evaluations, H5P, and Moodle 3.3 review are among the topics that CLAMP queued up during the sprint day for Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, Summer 2017.

The biannual Hack/Doc is being held at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. The event kicked off on Tuesday, June 20, 2017 with the sprint day. The event runs through Friday, June 23, 2017. The following tasks are queued up for Hack/Doc:

  • Improvements to PDF annotation–Google Drive is available as a backend in 3.3
  • New Course Overview block
  • Stealth mode for activities
  • Evaluate Poster plugin
  • Evaluate Lightbox gallery
  • Boost: how are folks using it? What are the gotchas?
  • Instructor download files: can we turn a core hack into a plugin?
  • Where do we stand with group and user overrides in various activities
  • H5P integration
  • Continue to look at accessibility in Moodle: discussion about Swarthmore’s PDF plugin, discussion about documentation
  • Review Moodle 3.3
  • Review Moodle Mobile 3.3
  • Better understand the Automatic Display setting in the URL resource
  • Package and test LAE 3.3.0 release

In addition, we are kicking around a number of group discussions:

  • How to use competencies
  • Are you tasked with preserving courses after the end of a semester?
  • Develop a survey for CLAMP schools (environments, event attendance)
  • Lafayette moving to a modified More theme
  • How do we use tools outside of Moodle?
  • How to handle streaming video in Moodle

Update after Sprint Day Activities

PDF Accessibility Scan

  • Swarthmore has a tool that scans through PDF documents in Moodle and checks them for images that need to be converted to text.
  • It was suggested that it be turned into a local Moodle plugin with a scheduled task to scan files.
  • Will be discussed more on Friday morning during our accessibility discussion with Rob Eveleigh, the Four College Accessibility Coordinator who works with Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and Smith Colleges.

Poster Plugin

  • Used it in Clean and Boost
  • UX is not great
  • Block parking

Accessibility discussion scheduled

  • Rob Eveleigh, Four College Accessibility Coordinator working with Smith, Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, and Hampshire will be on campus and facilitating an accessibility discussion with Hack/Doc attendees at 10 a.m. Friday, June 23.

Group and User Overrides

  • Allowable in Assignment, Lesson, and Quiz
  • User overrides trump Group overrides
  • Extensions trumps overrides

Posts from Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, Summer 2017 at Hampshire College: Homepage | Sprint | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

New Moodle LAE Releases for 2.7.20, 3.0.10, 3.1.6, 3.2.3

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 their project pages:

The next stable releases on the 3.2 and 3.1 branches are scheduled for mid-July. Moodle HQ has ended support on the 3.0 and 2.7 branches. Moodle HQ released Moodle 3.3 today; CLAMP will evaluate it and prepare a beta at the forthcoming Hack/Doc Fest at Hampshire College.

These releases were developed, packaged, and tested by Joe Bacal (Smith College) and Kevin Wiliarty (Hampshire College).

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, Centre College, Connecticut College, Kenyon College, Lafayette College, Occidental College, and Union College.

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

The deadline for nominations is June 1, 2017.

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 2016-17, 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 June 1, 2017.

Nominate a CLAMP member for a recognition award »

Deadlines approaching for Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, Summer 2017

This summer’s Moodle Hack/Doc Fest at Hampshire College is coming up fast. The event will be held Wednesday, June 21 through Friday, June 23, 2017 at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. A pre-Hack/Doc documentation and coding sprint will be held Tuesday, June 20, 2017. The registration deadline is Thursday, June 1, 2017.

For this first time, CLAMP is making travel grants available for attendees. CLAMP will reimburse an applicant’s institution for travel costs of up to $500. CLAMP will make three grants available for each Hack/Doc event. Any employee of a liberal arts institution with significant responsibility for supporting or maintaining Moodle is eligible to apply. Preference will be given to first-time participants in a CLAMP Hack/Doc, applicants from schools which have never participated in a Hack/Doc before, and to applicants affiliated with institutional CLAMP members. Please see the CLAMP website for more information. The deadline to apply for a travel grant is May 10, 2017.

CLAMP has arranged lodging at the University Lodge and Holiday Inn Express. The deadline for lodging is Saturday, May 20, 2017.

Please see https://www.clamp-it.org/clamp-events/moodle-hackdoc-fest-summer-2017/ for complete information about the event or register using the online form. If you have questions about the event, please contact Sarah Ryder (sryder@hampshire.edu) or Charles Fulton (fultonc@lafayette.edu).

New Moodle LAE Release for 3.2.2

CLAMP has completed work on its release for Moodle 3.2.2. There are no new LAE features; this is a maintenance release only. Please see Monday’s announcement for the new releases for Moodles 3.1.5, 3.0.9, and 2.7.19.

You can download the update from its project page: Moodle 3.2.2+Liberal Arts Edition 12.0.1.

The next stable release on the 3.2 branch is expected in mid-May. This release was developed, packaged, and tested by Charles Fulton (Lafayette College) and Kevin Wiliarty (Hampshire College).