Recommendations for importing users into Moodle

[Ric_]

We have a RBC-hosted instance of Moodle which we intend to use. This has no access to our LAN so I cannot use LDAP (or other) authentication methods as I would like

Does anybody have any recommendations for importing the 1200 or so users into Moodle with relative ease? I'm sure that some kind of SIMS or NOVA export could be done to do this.

[unixman]

The moodle website has all you need to know http://docs.moodle.org/en/Flat_file

[Geoff]

We have a RBC-hosted instance of Moodle which we intend to use. This has no access to our LAN so I cannot use LDAP (or other) authentication methods as I would like

Have you considered hosting internally and using CLEO's reverse proxy for external access. That would allow you to use LDAP. (It's what we do here).

[Ric_]

@unixman: I know how to import the users but I wondered what information others imported and how class sets were organised, etc.

@Geoff: I could do that but it's one more thing for me to maintain, set up and get CLEO to do - I'm STILL waiting for my VPN!!!

[Geoff]

I could do that but it's one more thing for me to maintain

To be fair, there's not that much to do once it's running other than keep the machine up to date with the security fixes. 90% of the work goes on with the actual VLE (content, training, etc), which you have to do anyway, regardless of where it's hosted.

set up and get CLEO to do

You fill a form in, say what IP the machine is running on and what dns name you'd like (something.yourschool.lancs.sch.uk) and then send the form off. I think Martin Quinn (sp?) is the guy to talk to about it.

I'm STILL waiting for my VPN

If you get really impatient, I'll see if you can borrow ours. Once you dial into to CLEO there's no restriction on which school you can connect to. So you can potentinally login with a Carr Hill account and connect to Baines.

[Ric_]

set up and get CLEO to do

You fill a form in, say what IP the machine is running on and what dns name you'd like (something.yourschool.lancs.sch.uk) and then send the form off. I think Martin Quinn (sp?) is the guy to talk to about it.

Just like with the VPN!!!

I will at some point be asking them for a number of reverse proxy setups (just to be a pain).

The maintenance is going to be the biggest pain. One more thing to patch, backup, monitor. That's before sorting out some kit to stick it on.

[Geoff]

Ubuntu server has proven to be painless and hassle free for me.