The Open Science
Laboratory – Cosmetic
Surgery for Moodle
sam marshall / Moodle Moot UK 2014
Contents
• What is The Open Science Laboratory?
• Demo
• How did we make Moodle look like that?
• Why use Moodle rather than custom development?
The Open Science Laboratory
• Platform / portal that contains and links to science
experiments (simulations, activities, real experiments).
• Open to the general public: https://learn5.open.ac.uk/
– Also used for some OU modules
• Implemented in Moodle
– Same code as main OU VLE
– Code not publicly released
• Looks a bit different!
Demo
• This is a Moodle course page
– Spot the standard Moodle behaviour!
• Main page
• Categorisation, filtering
• Experiment page
• Hosted experiment
• Analytics
• External experiments (link, iframe)
Moodle course structure
Course
Section Block
Activity or resource
(course-module)
Moodle customisation plugins
• Theme
– CSS styling, header and footer, and hacks
• Course format
– Control display of course page
• Block
– Box appears on another page
• All three can have their own PHP pages too!
Course format
Moodle course
page
Experiment
summary
Lorem ipsum whatever thingy
Sic dolor something whatever
Lorem blah why this again
Another thingy lorem blah
Additional section data
• Pictures
• Metadata
API functions
• List sections, etc.
Settings
Blocks
• Custom blocks for the metadata filtering
• Most of the hard work done in format code
• No blocks on experiment summary page
– Pseudoblocks (from course format)
Theme
• Header and footer
• Styling
• Custom hacks
– E.g. navigation changed/removed
Modules
• Two new custom modules (not public, sorry!)
• HTML Activity module
– Similar to SCORM module
– Displays client-side activities, with some server-side
features available through API
• Booking system
– Telescope control system – one at a time
– Need to book slots
Why use Moodle?
• We wrote quite a lot of new code
• Why use Moodle at all if it’s so different?
Benefits for TOSL
• Reused components from our main Moodle-based VLE
– News block (public)
– Textbook-style content display (OU Content)
– HTML activity system
– Forum, wikis, workshop, etc. if required
• Benefit from updates to these features
– Even if no TOSL development currently funded
Process benefits
• Developer familiarity
• Administrator familiarity (e.g. troubleshooting)
• Same VLE codebase
– Updates, security patches, etc. all done for us
Benefits for main OU VLE
• HTML Activity standalone display module
– Previously could only put them in textbook content
• Analytics from HTML activities
– Not yet turned on for main system (performance
concerns) but might be if needed
• Booking system
– May be useful for voice conferencing
Disadvantages
• Constant platform changes
– OU moves to new Moodle version every 6 months
– Need to check and update all custom plugins
Credits
• I’m only the lead developer of the platform part
• TDs: Ray Guo, Bryan Waddington
• Graphic design: Matt Rigby-Burr
• Science faculty, project managers, etc.
• Other developers did the actual content!
Conclusion
• Dramatically change Moodle interface and appearance
by developing a custom course format and theme
– I often hear: ‘we don’t like using Moodle for our site
because it’s not pretty’
• Get a grip
• OK then, we can make it pretty
• If your main system is Moodle, there are benefits in
using Moodle for related systems where possible
Questions?
IT Development
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
www.open.ac.uk