To remedy this I have, for quite some time, maintained a custom bit of very basic Javascript and CSS that sets the default view of news items to hidden, with a clickable link to show the entire list from the My Moodle page:

Nothing fancy, and even as I look at it now I can think of improvements…

We just upgraded to 1.9.8 this semester, and because this snippet modifies Moodle core I had my developer Kevin re-test the snippet before I asked our server admin Paul to replace the existing function as follows:

file Location:            '/course/lib.php'
file line:                    "800"
function to replace: "function print_overview($courses)"

Here’s the actual replacement function:

A Brief Tour of Moodle 2.0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=56W-ZQ3dK3w

2.0 includes an entire rewrite of my favorite Moodle tool, the collaborative Workshops activity:

Moodle Workshops 2.0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCT8Tm32e1k

Because we’ve been anticipating its release since early 2008 my co-worker Ken jokes that Moodle 2.0 is vaporware, the Duke Nukem Forever of LMS. I joked that we should call it Twoodle. But seriously, I’m still hoping we’ll see an official, stable release by Fall 2010.

As I reviewed the video I noticed I had made a handful of mis-statements that I should correct here:

• Martin Dougiamas is from Australia, not New Zealand.
• The book I reference at the beginning as inspiring me to rethink Moodle was Jason Cole’s “Using Moodle”
• Our Banner system talks to Moodle via a Luminus Message Broker plug-in, not LDAP (we use LDAP for WordPress MU)
• When I talk about adaptive quizzing, I meant to refer to educational research on web-based/hypermedia learning from the last decade or so.
• Though the Workshop tool has been dropped from Moodle 2.0, its functionality will not be replaced in the Assignment tool–instead a new Workshop tool is in development for 2.0

An hour after trying to work around various bugs in the awful 1.9 Moodle gradebook I found myself in need of this formula again, and the only place I could find it was in my own post on the old WebCT forums. I’m posting it here for my future reference only, but maybe it will be useful to other Bb Vista or Moodle users:

Drop the Lowest Score of a Series

For this example we need to know the labels (Bb/WebCT) or ids (Moodle) of the columns to be included. Here I use A1, A2, A3.

In this example we want to drop the lowest assignment score for our total, first in Blackboard Visa and then in Moodle:

This calculates the sum total of of the 3 assignments then subtracts the minimum score of the same series.

Drop the Lowest Two Scores of a Series

In this example we want to drop the lowest 2 assignment scores from our total. I’m using 5 assignments to illustrate this in practice.This can get pretty hairy, but once you’ve studied this example it should make sense:

This calculates the sum total of of the 5 assignments then subtracts the lowest possible combination of two scores found in the same series.

The aforementioned example will work for dropping lowest 3 and more using the same principles, but obviously it gets exponentially longer.

Here’s a higher quality flv version:

Intro to OpenShare for Moodle 1.9 (flv)

Tonight I’ve released the first all-new version of the OpenShare modification for Moodle 1.9, which I demonstrated last week at OpenEd 2008.

You may view OpenShare documentation or simply download the OpenShare mod now.

Overview of OpenShare

OpenShare turns Moodle into a veritable open educational resources (OER) or opencourseware (OCW) platform by allowing instructors or designers to mark all or part of their Moodle courses as open (public) or closed (enrolled students and teachers only). The open/closed status of any module applies to Moodle’s anonymous Guest role, but OpenShare goes further, adding an Open Learner role that can actually interact and complete open activities such as quizzes. This feature provides a means by which a fully online distance education or independent study course in Moodle can be released as a self-directed informal-social learning environment for the general public, something not provided by typical opencourseware.

License, Open, or Close Resources & Activities

Though based on our old Open Mod for OER, I have renamed this version and reset the numbering because the scripting is 100% new and based on new logic. I owe a lot of thanks to Mike Franks, Jovca, and Eric Bollens of UCLA for explaining their own Public/Private modification to me, and setting me in the right direction with respect to Groupings.

Further, this version of the mod is a Moodle block that requires no modification of core Moodle code. I do, however, have two add-ons to the block that provide advanced usability of the mod. These will be available soon on the OpenShare page.

An optional modification allows for OpenShare changes on the fly.

There are several exciting applications of the OpenShare mod:

• open all or part of live Moodle courses during the semester(s) they are offered; students do not mingle with public unless you so desire
• duplicate complete or self-contained Moodle courses and open them up for public self-enrollment
• duplicate a live Moodle server with courses intact and serve those courses with self-enrollment

One of the most significant advantages of this mod is that it provides an alternative to redundant OER/OCW publishing platforms, and diminishes the need for dedicated OER/OCW staff by putting the power to control the license and release of resources and activities in the hands of the course creators.

From informal conversations and feedback I recognize that the next step is to tackle the problem of getting OER out of Moodle so it is interoperable.

For more info see my OpenShare documentation & download page.

One passage in particular percolated my sense of irony. In addressing the idea that institutions may have more flexibility to innovate with open source solutions, Michael Chasen…

…argued that there are benefits to the corporate model of software publishing, too. “I have 300 people on my development team working full time on our products and services,” he said. “I don’t know if there are 300 full-time people currently working on Sakai. Maybe there are. I have a multimillion-dollar hardware-testing lab just to test scalability.”

“At a minimum,” he said, “we are at least just as innovative as open source.”

At least as innovative as open source! With millions in expenditures on hardware and developers Bb is proud of the fact that they are at least as innovative as open source, which runs on the power of volunteers and sheer passion? Chasen’s statement can be read both ways, confirming what I’ve believed for the past two years: that free, oss platforms such as Moodle etc. are now on par with Bb and the other Big Boys, and thus a monumentally better deal for educational institutions. Instead of investing money in licensing, invest that money in people, and shape the direction of the LMS in ways that are best-suited to your institution’s needs.

Chasen poo-poo’s the evidence that institutions are leaving Bb for Moodle, yet his self-assured statement on the matter reveals a flaw in his logic: “There’s not more people leaving now than there were yesterday.” If I have 10 people on Bb on Monday and 1 person leaves, I have 9 on Tuesday. If 1 person then leaves (same count of attrition), that’s down to 8 I have on Wednesday. There may not be an increase in the number of people leaving now than there were yesterday, but the conversion rate is still being whittled away. To exacerbate this fact, I don’t see herds of institutions stampeding towards adopting Bb for the first time (Q4 2009 call reports new higher ed customer increase at about 5%).

Blackboard insists that it’s patent claims will not be asserted against open source software LMS development, but if they really are as shark-like as the Chronicle suggests, what other plans might Chasen et al have to deal with the growing “threat” of Moodle and other oss platforms to their marketshare? The recent Bb partnership with Sakai to develop an open source integration tool may provide some insight. Michael Feldstein highlighted this excerpt from the August 6, 2008 Bb earnings conference call wherein Chasen reported,

our learning system will be able to load other course management system courses through our interface. …a lot of campuses have standardized on the Blackboard system… but there maybe an individual teacher or a very small department that is using either a home-grown system or maybe an open-source solution…

It sounds to me as if a developing Bb strategy is to partner with or leverage open source projects to produce integration or transmogrification tools in order to sweep dissident teachers and courses into Bb.

Thinking about Bb’s modus operandi, the patent debacle, and of course the cost of licenses has already conjured some new, bitter slogans to post on John Krutsch’s >Blackboard Customer-ized Mug Maker. It looks like a great place to vent for disgruntled Bb users; let’s just hope he doesn’t receive his own cease and desist notification.

Presentation slides are now available and you are welcome to participate in the backchannel through the chat window provided below.

Presentation Slides

openmod.ppt

Web Sites Referenced

• OpenCourseWare Consortium
• Open Educational Resources Commons
• David Wiley’s OpenContent Wiki
• David Wiley’s OpenContent blog
• Utah Open High School
• Creative Commons licenses
• MIT’s “Making the Case for OCW”
• Why a Reputation Economy?
• UK’s Open University LearningSpace
• OpenContentDIY
• Leigh Blackall’s slide on Another Way

P.S. After my presentation was over, I came back to my hotel to find this bus in the parking lot. It’s nothing less than a sign for a questioning open education convert.

Of course, prior to the conference Ken and I will have to work pretty aggressively with Clark Nielsen and John Krutsch to ensure that the mod’s features and functionalities are stable and presentable.