Distance Education

1/16/09 - Initial LDAP testing between MyGateway and Moodle (test version) appears to be successful. The test involves a successful login into MyGateway and immediate authentication to the test Moodle system without any additional information provided by the user. Development is ongoing.

1/14/09 - An SCE program has been selected to take part in a pilot training plan to educate staff and instructors on how to use Moodle for creating, uploading, and customizing content. A section for staff/instructor training will also be set up within Moodle, as well as a “sandbox” course for users to train and experiment.

1/09/09 - While testing out the restore functionality in Moodle (specifically transferring student grades), a problem arose while uploading (through Moodle itself) a large (36.4MB) backup file. Moodle indicated that the file size exceeded the set limits. After some research, it was found that the php.ini file and a setting in Moodle security section needed to be modified. Changes were made to the php.ini file (limit now is 64MB), rebooted Apache, and made another Moodle setting change. Now, Moodle seems to accept up to 32MB, but kept resetting the connection on larger file sizes. Further research is needed to figure out why that is happening.

1/7/09 - The first week brought about a number of topics that will be explored as the term progresses. Topics under discussion include: single sign-on to Moodle through MyGateway, password changes, Moodle gradebook, course transfer to SCE Moodle server, virtualization, and staff training. Details and updates on each of these topics will be posted to the blog as they become available. Stay Tuned.