User Authentication in Moodle

[witch]

In Moodle, my boss has set user authentication via AD and email addy, but we do not have enough email addresses for the bottom two years in the school - and can't afford them anyway. Can we set up different authentication for different users or is there any other way around this??

[secretlife]

do you actually use the email addresses? for forum subscriptions etc? If you don't , then just use fake emails and set them to disabled.

[apoth0r]

Yeah fake emails would work, very little comes back from Moodle to these accounts, you can always change passwords within moodle so wouldn't be a problem for forgotten passwords.

 

Are you in a primary school? If so how is Moodle working out for you?

[witch]

We are a 'middle deemed secondary' school and Moodle is working out well: see lvp.lockyersmid.dorset.sch.uk. My boss is very keen!

[apoth0r]

Cool beans, glad it is working out well!

I'm a big fan of Moodle, it's just the battle with the teachers fear now. Slowly getting them onboard, slowly as predicted

moodle.unity.northants.sch.uk

[Devontechie]

It always seem to be a battle getting the teachers to do things in Moodle. I had the fun job of getting teachers onboard in 2 schools!

[witch]

It always seem to be a battle getting the teachers to do things in Moodle. I had the fun job of getting teachers onboard in 2 schools!

 

Without being too 'teacher-bashing' - it is a battle getting many teachers to do ANYTHING new to do with ICT

[apoth0r]

The F(ear) Factor is one of their favourite shows me thinks.

I have turned a few teachers round with regard to it. It's a lot handier if you have the time for training and talking to them though. The majority of my job involves communicating with teachers so becomes handy when you are more 'friends' with them then just saying "we're doing this now....".

Would like things to move quicker but alas, walking pace is better than standing still.

[nadeem]

You can have more than one authenication method, so you could for example set up manual accounts for the other pupils, or to get additional email addresses use the free Live@edu from Microsoft

[mb2k01]

Is there any reason you couldn't use LDAP?

If you need a hand setting up I can lend a virtual hand

Edited December 1, 2009 by mb2k01

[bossman]

Is there any reason you couldn't use LDAP?

 

@witch:

 

Yes I too was going to ask this question?

 

As for the site all I can say is "Perfik" looks good

 

Also why do you have to pay for e-mail accounts?

[mb2k01]

@witch:

Also why do you have to pay for e-mail accounts?

 

I'd hazzard a guess they have RM Easymail and have to buy an additional block of addresses or something.

[witch]

I'd hazzard a guess they have RM Easymail and have to buy an additional block of addresses or something.

 

Yes, that is the case.

 

I will pass on the info about the manual set up or edu@ to my boss who is doing it all.

As for LDAP - don't really understand it - can it be used with different authentications or what?

[gshaw]

Live@Edu is really worth looking into... if you want to be really clever you can authenticate in Moodle using Windows Live ID and get the email up in a Moodle block

[nadeem]

Live@Edu is really worth looking into... if you want to be really clever you can authenticate in Moodle using Windows Live ID and get the email up in a Moodle block

 

I must get back to you about that - and the other customisations!

 

Having said that I think (for other reasons) I've decided to not go with using the Live accounts for my moodle authenication

[moriartythemundane]

In Moodle, my boss has set user authentication via AD and email addy, but we do not have enough email addresses for the bottom two years in the school - and can't afford them anyway. Can we set up different authentication for different users or is there any other way around this??

 

Last year we implemented a whole school email system, free for education, from Google . Try that as a start...

[witch]

We have already sorted out the email addys for two whole school years so changing it all now for them at least is not really an option. It is just the other two years that are the problem

[mb2k01]

Yes, that is the case.

 

I will pass on the info about the manual set up or edu@ to my boss who is doing it all.

As for LDAP - don't really understand it - can it be used with different authentications or what?

 

LDAP basically authenticates in the same way that a user does when they log on to your network.

(I realise that I've automatically assumed you have a domain there... do you?)

 

If you use LDAP authentication then the user logs on with the same username and password that they do to log on to a computer on the network.

 

If you need some help give me a PM or email.

[mb2k01]

We have already sorted out the email addys for two whole school years so changing it all now for them at least is not really an option. It is just the other two years that are the problem

 

Although I've never needed to do it I believe you can have two or more authentication methods.

You could choose email to be the first and then LDAP to be the second - basically it should try one and then if that doesn't work try the other.

[morganw]

You can use the LDAP authentication to authenticate from Active Directory but to lock down the user settings like the email address for the Moodle account you would have to have email addresses set in Active Directory for each user so that it can be pulled through into Moodle.

 

We only have two years of pupils with actual email accounts, but all users have the email field in AD populated so that the Moodle authentication doesn't demand things to be typed in on the first login.

 

My scripting isn't great but I managed to make a visual basic script to step through the user OUs and then set the email field for user accounts to username & "@domain name". That runs every day to set the email field for new accounts. The only problem you would get is if you create an account and someone tries to log into Moodle on that same day before the script has run. Luckily for me no one seems that keen.