Hosted Moodle..how to setup with Courses etc.

[kennysarmy]

Hi,

 

After deciding on a VLE - Moodle.

Then deciding we want it hosted externally as it will mainly be used for homework etc as an extension to the school. (Rather than using the VLE to manage all lessons in school).

 

I am now a bit stuck as to how to move forward.

 

I've installed Moodle on a workstation on my desk so I can have a play.

 

I've discovered the following:

 

+ve

The CLEO MIS upload tool will allow you to upload your SIMS classes and users so when creating courses you can easily pick the students to populate them.

 

-ve

The CLEO MIS upload tool won't allow me to choose SIMS username as the username style.

 

-ve

The CLEO MIS upload tool does nt auto create any courses.

 

+ve

There is a an upload user feature in Moodle that allows me to create a CSV file and create all my users in one go.

 

-ve

The upload user feature will ONLY add users to existing courses and NOT auto create courses that do not exist. The same is true for groups within courses.

 

+ve

I've found a uploadcourse.php which seems to work and allows the batch creation of courses.

 

-ve

There is no guarantee this uploadcourse.php will suddenly fail/fall over if I move to future versions of Moodle.

 

 

Is anyone else trying to work out the best way to setup a hosted Moodle so that all categories/courses/groups/users are created/populated with as little work required by either the teachers or IT staff as possible?

 

...and then comes the question of who and how do you administer a set change when little johnny is moved from one group/course to another?

 

grrrrrrrrrrr

[apoth0r]

That is one of the main reasons we bought a box and hosted it ourselves.

You can use the LDAP stuff to integrate with the Active Directory, it takes out all the hassle!

I'd very much recommend it from an administration point of view, obviously depending on your time constraints to the VLE itself. I'm pretty much the VLE guy here.

[kennysarmy]

Thanks for your comments Steve.

 

We decided we did nt want the hassle of purchasing new hardware nor the expense of a salary for one person to run the moodle.

 

Also by hosting internally we are relying on our internet connection / power / other servers to be running 24/7. We'd be resonsible for backup and patching. Like I said the Moodle will be predominately used by students in the evenings.

 

We figured to have it hosted externally by a moodle partner would give the users a faster experience and leave us to worry about the content and not the workings.

 

Do you think our thoughts above are mis-guided?

 

Without LDAP then, is there no solution to our dilema?