wesleyw Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 Does anyone know of a way of keeping a live connection between moodle and sims say for classes by form group? I've heard of a school doing this so it is possible. Wes
GrumbleDook Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 I think it was Parrs Wood in Manchester that have a regular script that pulls directly out of the SIMS database as part of a proof of concept.
Geoff Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 Sun are developing Sims.Net and Moodle intergration as part of their BSF contract for Birmingham(?). Obviously this will be released as Open Source.
StArbiter Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 Have a look at this thread on the Moodle forum http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=15012 - the IMS route is the way that both SUN and Parrs Wood are using as it prevents having a direct connection to the SIMS database - frowned upon I believe.
Geoff Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 it prevents having a direct connection to the SIMS database - frowned upon I believe. It's not allowed under the Sims EULA. Even simply using the provided API's requires a developer license.
wesleyw Posted March 20, 2007 Author Posted March 20, 2007 So theoretically if I bought the developer license from Capita I could then write a connection between the two? Which would then allow for a legal connection directly into SIMS .Net? Wes
CyberNerd Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 Can it be done by accessing a mirror or image of the database without breaking the EULA?
CyberNerd Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 ok, now I just looked at the thread referenced by starbiter. I seem to be having a bad posting day today
Geoff Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 There's some background reading people need to do so we don't end up repeating ourselves. Review the following threads and what they reference. http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=28038 http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=35090 http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=45987 So theoretically if I bought the developer license from Capita I could then write a connection between the two? Which would then allow for a legal connection directly into SIMS .Net? Yes but I doubt you can afford a developer license. Can it be done by accessing a mirror or image of the database without breaking the EULA? If you can think of a way of mirroring the database without directly accessing the database, yes.
wesleyw Posted March 20, 2007 Author Posted March 20, 2007 Well I've emailed capita will be fun to find out. Wes
ChrisH Posted March 20, 2007 Posted March 20, 2007 To expand slightly. If a company wants to interface to SIMS, we charge £5000 for a copy of SIMS so that they can develop their interfaces etc. A school with a licenced copy of SIMS can develop export routinues for their own use and can sell their work to others without any licencing fees from us. If a third party writes back to SIMS we do licence that on a per school basis - this is because any company that uses our Buiness Objects is supported by our helpdesk and this costs!
bossman Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 Apparently so i have been informed (whether right or not) that if you have LEA support that they should be able to provide you with the SDK kit that you need to parse the Sims database without direct constant conection. I have asked my LEA support team and they just frowned upon it and told me that they don't encourage it end of story. I have been working with a company called "School Software Company" who developed a behavioural piece of software namely Seuth and have gone on to integrate it with Sims doing exactly what we are discussing. Will let you all know how that goes later on in the year when it should upgrade the kids automatically fingers crossed.
wesleyw Posted March 21, 2007 Author Posted March 21, 2007 From the horse's mouth as it were: "Use the IMS link - no licence fee required. Contact your local SIMS support unit to activate the licence. " Wes
Geoff Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 Ah yes, the IMS link. That's fine and dandy up until the point where your local SIMS support unit refuses to active it.
Geoff Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 Here's a moodle doc's link with a brief description and links to the spec. http://docs.moodle.org/en/IMS_Enterprise
TechMonkey Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 Is the IMS the same as the SDK? The SDK didn't need any activation, it is just a command line interface to run ready made reports. Well as far as I can see. The documentation we got sent through wasn't fantastic and it kind of got pushed to the way side.
Geoff Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 No, IMS is an XML-RPC based link between Moodle and Sims.NET.
wesleyw Posted March 21, 2007 Author Posted March 21, 2007 Has anyone got this working between moodle and sims? Wes
kylewilliamson Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 When we did this, it was a case of manually exporting the timetable from Nova. Not great, but worked reasonably well.
StArbiter Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 Bossman wrote I have asked my LEA support team and they just frowned upon it and told me that they don't encourage it end of story. - which LA is this ? I suggest you contact Capita and they may supply the SDK documentation direct. I have been working with a company called "School Software Company" who developed a behavioural piece of software namely Seuth and have gone on to integrate it with Sims doing exactly what we are discussing. Will let you all know how that goes later on in the year when it should upgrade the kids automatically fingers crossed. - interesting software. We were quiet enthused with this a couple of years ago but it seems to have stood still compared to SIMS .net. It only allows data to be imported from SIMS .net through a couple of reports you can download. Not exactly integration - and no plans to write back. I think we will slowly move to using SIMS.net only fairly soon.
GrumbleDook Posted March 21, 2007 Posted March 21, 2007 I have asked my LEA support team and they just frowned upon it and told me that they don't encourage it end of story. - which LA is this ? I suggest you contact Capita and they may supply the SDK documentation direct. I have been working with a company called "School Software Company" who developed a behavioural piece of software namely Seuth and have gone on to integrate it with Sims doing exactly what we are discussing. Will let you all know how that goes later on in the year when it should upgrade the kids automatically fingers crossed. - interesting software. We were quiet enthused with this a couple of years ago but it seems to have stood still compared to SIMS .net. It only allows data to be imported from SIMS .net through a couple of reports you can download. Not exactly integration - and no plans to write back. I think we will slowly move to using SIMS.net only fairly soon. We have been using it for some time and have gone from elated to frustrated to elated to frusted on too many occassions now. We are also going to move away in about 18 months due to the lack of web front end and lack of proper integration with SIMS.net ... we do still believe that for most schools who have *no* system it is pretty much spot on for getting you up and going.
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