Extending Moodle Across the Institution: Integration Strategies and Methods Academic Technology, San Francisco State University Andrew Roderick, Technology Development Manager Clifford Tham, MOODLE Developer Daniel Koepke, Software Developer

Workshop Agenda Introduction What Is Integration? Worldview Case Study – Lecture Capture Integration in Practice Open Discussion, Questions, Comments

About Us San Francisco State 1,500 faculty and 30,000 students Commuter campus Moodle since 2007 Branded as iLearn; customized Moodle in Fall 2,400 courses

Who Are You Your name Your institution Your role Why are you here? Favorite classic rock song?

Why Integrate?

An Integrated World Blackboard buys Elluminate, Wimba Moodlerooms releases Joule API’s now a selling point Key purchasing decision (“will it integrate with my existing environment”) “Should I be integrating?” is now “What should I integrate?”

Our Worldview Choose the best options for our users Build, buy, and/or download Focused is better than monolithic Experience, functionality matter most Is it nice to use? Does it do what people need it to do?

Design the Experience Understand your environment Think about the gestalt Pick your pieces carefully Don’t just choose what’s available, easy Don’t let technology dictate the choices Take control of your design!

Do Not Want!

Integration Wire together the pieces we have Loose coupling Choose what to expose, what to hide Façades hide seams between systems Not all or nothing: might make it seamless for students, but show the software to faculty

Integration with the LMS Bring content and functionality into the learning context Courses Activities Not just about delivery of static content Expose content’s functionality Expose content to LMS’s functionality

How About A Case Study?

Case Study – CourseStream How it works Faculty presents lecture Lecture is processed into multiple formats (rich media (flash), video only, audio only) Faculty distributes content

Case Study – CourseStream Workflow w/o Integration Faculty login to Echo360 system Copy links Distribute – via , web page Other options include rss, publisher plugins

Case Study – CourseStream Integrate into LMS (Moodle) Users already using Simplify faculty workflow Hide multiple systems faculty don’t need to know about Automate distribution

Case Study – CourseStream Echo360’s Moodle Publisher Plugin Publishes to Moodle Calendar Out of course context Out of faculty’s control Calendar may not be heavily used component

Case Study – CourseStream Integrate into Moodle Put it further into context of the learning experience Give control back to faculty Allow faculty to integrate into teaching Focus on teaching and course design instead of technical details

Case Study – CourseStream SF State’s Echo360 / Moodle Integration Resource Block Management Component Administrative Component

Case Study – CourseStream Use Case Place in topic w/ other resources Place all in one topic Block, populating auto Block, by topic Reuse

Case Study – CourseStream Removed faculty’s necessity to acknowledge the existence of echo360 server Simplified Workflow Still allowed faculty flexibility Faculty can focus on course design

Design of Integration Resource – Method of distributing content (PDFs, MP3, DOCs, Web Page, Text Page) Blocks – Method of delivery content, activities secondary to course materials Management Interface – Method of distributing content (PDFs, MP3, DOCs, Web Page, Text Page)

Resource Seamlessly integrate lectures into course design using the Echo360 Resource

Resource Integrate lectures into course design By topic/theme By chronology By course materials –Quizzes, Lectures, Assignments, etc

Block Group several lecture captures together and present as one unit with the Echo360 block

Creating / Editing a Block Select format to distribute to students Choose the order in which lectures appear for students

Block Group Reuse / Repurpose Contextualize

Managing Your Lectures View all the captured lectures available to your Moodle course

Managing Your Lectures View and manage the captures available for your Moodle course View list of lectures available for use Rename lecture captures Preview lecture format without placing in course View lecture capture metadata

Managing Your Lectures Preview lecture without placing in course Lists lectures that are available for use Rename captures View capture metadata

Integration is like Watercolor

Integration in Practice What to integrate? How to integrate? Application readiness Moodle readiness

Prioritize real, known needs Improve the things people already do Software people already use Why does it make sense… In the LMS context? In your environment? To your users? What to Integrate?

What to integrate? Getting Input. Needs assessments/task analysis Governance Usage/Impact Applicability to teaching and learning tasks

How to Integrate? Link to or embed Content, functionality, interactivity Many integrations will mix-and-match Façade for display, common functionality Jump into application for more Where does it belong in Moodle? Resources, blocks, activities, etc.

Application Readiness What does the application provide? Application Programmer’s Interface (API) Syndication (Atom/RSS) IFRAME Link Authentication/authorization

Moodle Readiness Moodle provides most extensibility with Blocks Resources You may need to change core code to handle more advanced cases Moodle 2.0 changes things up Repository API, more

Taming Moodle Option 1 Limit changes to modules, blocks Avoid changes to core code, work around obstacles Option 2 Make wholesale changes to Moodle Re-architect many underlying structures Best Option Minimize changes to core code, but change what is necessary for your campus Balance between changes to core code and foregoing usability, maintainability

What to Turn Off in Moodle

Integration examples Available API or Custom (roll your own) SIS, Authentication, other institutional data Syndication Repository Application

How Much Is Too Much? Issues to consider: Interface Multiple integrations doing the same thing (ex: repository + library) Technical (scalability, performance) Security