Moodle Administration: An administrator's guide to configuring, securing, customizing, and extending Moodle

In Detail

Moodle has evolved from an academic project to the world's most popular virtual learning environment. During this evolution, its complexity has risen dramatically and so have the skills that are required to administer the system. While there is plenty of literature for Moodle course creators, there has been, with the exception of some disparate online resources, no Moodle administrator book. Until now!

This book is a complete, practical guide to administering Moodle sites. It covers how to set up Moodle in any learning environment, configuration and day-to-day admin tasks, as well as advanced options for customizing and extending Moodle.

What you will learn from this book?

• Install and update Moodle on multiple platforms
• Understand the Moodle architecture and find your way around its user and administrator interfaces
• Work with large numbers of users: bulk enrolments and operations; advanced user management
• Configure courses, course categories, enrolment, and authentication mechanisms
• Assign, modify, and create roles and permissions to users
  
• Brand your site by changing the look & feel and creating custom themes
• Configure Moodle for accessibility, localization, and customize your module and grade/gradebook settings
• Interpret and analyze user activity, tracking statistics using Moodle's in-built monitoring facility and third-party tools like Google Analytics
• Secure user information, data, content, and the Moodle system
• Optimize Moodle for performance by fine-tuning your system parameters
• Back up and restore Moodle at course, site, and system level
• Extend Moodle through third-party add-ons--making the right choice for your needs, installing, configuring, and uninstalling add-ons
• Build a network of Moodle systems and set up Moodle with the Mahara ePortfolio and social networking system
• Improve your Moodle experience by following the tips laid down in the Moodle Health Check--a checklist of over 100 common problems with solutions

Approach

Written in a clear, straightforward way with lots of screenshots and direct instructions this book will equip you with all the tools you need to set up, optimize, extend, and maintain a Moodle system. A problem-solution approach has been taken when possible to bring the content more in line with your day-to-day operations.

Who this book is written for?

This book is written for technicians, systems administrators, as well as academic staff--basically anyone who has to administer a Moodle system. Whether you are dealing with a small-scale local Moodle system or a large-scale multi-site Virtual Learning Environment, this book will assist you with any administrative tasks. Some basic Moodle knowledge is helpful, but not essential.

Alex Büchner is the co-founder and technical lead of Synergy Learning, the UK's largest Moodle partner. He has been involved in system and database administration for two decades and has been administering virtual learning environments of all shapes and sizes since their advent on the educational landscape. Alex holds a PhD in Computer Science and an MSc in Software Engineering. He has authored over 50 international publications, including two books, and is a frequent speaker on Moodle and related open-source technologies.