Kerboodle - Active Directory(?)

[MrMKellow]

Hello,

 

Just a small question if anyone has had any experience or has tried this. The languages department has purchased Kerboodle and several of the packages and have asked if we could administer the user and group creation for the teacher and student accounts. Is it possible to have AD integrate with Kerboodle or is that each account will needed to be created within the management tools with Kerboodle?

 

Thank you.

[benjie]

Kerboodle as far as I am aware does not integrate with AD. You upload all your user via csv, kerboodle generates the username and password from the firstname and surname. When I initially set this up for the science department, I did ask kerboodle if there was a way that I can set the username, so that they match our internal username format but I was told this was not possible. The groupings are done backwards as well, they organise them class then form.

 

I don't think there is an easy way to create different groups for different departments.

[mikehollingsworth]

Not sure about Active Directory but we ran a report to export the details from SIMS and then imported it using the management console in Kerboodle.

 

Hope that helps?

[Meldrew]

Hi,

 

The old version of kerboodle that was discontinued during summerdid allow usernames that you imported. The management facility of this was written by a chimp and made a simple idea into a nightmare. In this new version we'd hoped they would improve things, but no, they just made it worse. Now you can't choose username & password, so have to get this info to the students. They have to enter their email address, for which they can enter anything, so password recovery is now more difficult than ever.

 

Kerboodle = massive headache.

 

Meldrew.

[MrMKellow]

Thank you all for the very fast response.

 

I think with all the help the course of action for this has been decided. The talk of the management being a pain is somewhat worrying with the idea but it'll have to be overseen. It should be fun though and getting it sorted will keep everyone happy, so all good.

 

Thank you very much, greatly appreciate the information.

[Cache]

Using the new version of Kerboodle is a breeze compared to managing the old one!

 

There can only be one Administrator for it though (if I remember rightly) and you need to be "invited" to be that administrator by a teacher. Took a little bit of working out, but we got there.

[Colindean2000]

I've been given the task of being our Kerboodle administrator, not that impressed with it tbh, the upload csv functions pretty rubbish, can't seem to upload class groups (what do I do if a student is in 3 Kerboodle classes?) I've had to manually make the global groups, name them and then get busy scrolling and ticking... AD Integration just makes sense

[cullingsh]

The management system for this is a complete farce. We have 3 departments using it, upload the csv's, all the classes created but only the last lot imported actually have anyone in as they were taken out of the first two.

 

You can manually assign people to more than one group, so why not in bulk. Queried with Kerboodle and was met with a yes we know, and no, we're not going to do anything about it any time soon.

 

The management platform is basically suited to a single course, not several. The help pages are pretty rubbish. Every time a new course is added by another department, all teachers get access to it rather than just the ones the administrator specifies, you cant specify username/password.

 

All in all a top quality system.

 

Oh, and the other thing I had forgotten - MFL were struggling to access some of the content which they had paid for. They contacted kerboodle who blamed it on our filtering and supplied a list of exceptions to make (thanks, that's actually helpful). Some of the items were specific addresses, later followed by a wildcard entry for the same thing and also twitter supposedly had to be allowed to (which I advised to kerboodle fairly stongly would not happened and they needed to make their platform safe for use in schools). After numerous back and forths, it wasn't our filtering, the content just simply didn't exist yet. Maths had the same problem last year. The products are being sold, even though they might have no content yet!

 

Great....

[MYK-IT]

@cullingsh

 

Similar situation here, 3 different departments using it; and our MFL are having issues with Audio not always working. I know that we had to use Chrome, instead of IE to get Videos working for the English Modules, but not sure why audio is not working although I've added all the URLs I am aware of to our allowed/white list etc. Unless you have been advised of others? Like you, we are not unlocking/allowing Twitter etc.

 

Thanks,

[cullingsh]

This is the list I was passed at the start of September:

d1ros97qkrwjf5.cloudfront.net

da56of7pvr6ar.cloudfront.net

d2o3wn66umuzgh.cloudfront.net

d3mqcfogy3tx99.cloudfront.net

d28hraxyi7zz1z.cloudfront.net

flatsite-test1.s3.amazonaws.com

use.typekit.net

platform.twitter.com

cdn.syndication.twimg.com

syndication.twitter.com

fdslive.oup.com

*.oxbox.co.uk

*.oxfordsecondary.co.uk

*.webtrendslive.com

*.google-analytics.com

*.twitter.com

*.webtends.com

*.oup-avallain-author.org

*.runtime.production.oxed.oup-avallain-author.org

 

I probably wildcarded cloudfront.net, ignored the twitter and worked out what was really needed from the rest.

Regards,

Shaun

[its_sam]

We're in the same boat.

 

Unable to playback audio on the MFL course. Contacted support who happily provided me with a list of urls to white list but this has made no difference.

 

Great piece of software...

[cullingsh]

Given past experience, you probably find the audio content doesn't actually exist yet.

 

Allthough, in fairness to the web filtering issue - has anyone tried the audio content outside of school?

[its_sam]

In my case, the audio does play from home which points to a filtering issue inside school.

[Sylv3r]

I am guessing you lot haven't received these e-mails....

 

Sent 27th October.

 

As you know, we have been working hard to improve a number of issues that we have been experiencing with our Modern Languages Kerboodle courses. Thank you once again for your patience this term.

 

We want to keep you updated with our progress and let you know what we will be working on over half term.

 

Hotspotting

 

The Digital Books for GCSE French 1st Edition Foundation and Higher and GCSE Spanish 1st Edition are now hotspotted. Hotspots include all audios and activities that are referenced in the book. We aim to complete this work for GCSE German 1st Edition and all the A Level courses over half term.

 

Course structures

 

We have now completed our work on the course structures for all GCSE 1st Editions and A Level courses. These structures now match those in the books, making the courses easier for you to navigate. Over half term, we will continue to work on how the content in each course is titled to make it even simpler for you to find what you need.

 

Assessment content

 

Test content, including On Your Marks for all GCSE 1st edition and A Level courses, practice assessment questions and Examination-style questions, has moved from Resources into the Assessment module. Any item marked as 'Test' in Assessment can now be assigned to students and results can be tracked in the Markbook. Remember to select any associated audio support files.

 

Audio files

 

We are also addressing the issues with opening audio files and aim to complete this across all GCSE 1st edition and A Level courses over half term.

 

We would like to apologise for the inconvenience that these issues have caused. We will be back in contact after half term to further update you on our progress. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact the Kerboodle helpdesk directly on 01536 452960 or email [ mailto:[email protected] ][email protected].

 

Sent 5th November

 

We contacted you before half term to update you on our progress as we work to improve the issues surrounding our Modern Languages Kerboodle courses.

 

 

 

We are now able to confirm that we have completed the following work:

 

 

 

Hotspotting

 

 

 

All GCSE 1st edition and A Level digital books are now hotspotted. Hotspots include audios and activities that are referenced in the book.

 

 

 

Renaming content

 

 

 

In addition to the work we have completed on the course structures, we have now renamed the content in the GCSE 1st edition and A Level courses. This will make it easier for you to find the content that you need.

 

 

 

Audio files not opening

 

The error that was preventing audio files from opening has now been fixed. If you continue to experience issues, these may be caused by your local settings. Please contact our Kerboodle helpdesk using the contact details below and our team will be happy to talk you through the correct settings.

 

 

 

GCSE 2nd Edition courses

 

 

 

We are starting work on the GCSE 2nd edition courses this week. We will first be working on improving the course structures. We will contact the users of these courses shortly to keep you updated on our progress.

 

 

 

Once again, we apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience this term. If you have any further questions, our Kerboodle helpdesk will be happy to help. Call 01536 452960 or email [ mailto:[email protected] ][email protected].