Moodle® For Dummies®

Is the Moodle Site Ready for Use?

If your organization is running a Moodle site, seek out the person who wears the Moodle system administrative hat, tell him what a wonderful job he's doing (getting on your system administrator's good side is worth gold), and ask him to set up your Moodle course for you. Bringing a Coke and Skittles may help.

Also, ask him the following questions:

• “Are multimedia filters turned on, including YouTube?”
• “Are pop-up windows blocked? Can you turn them on?” If your IT asks why they need to be turned on, tell him that you want files and Internet sites to be opened in a new window, which makes navigating the site easier for your learners and decreases the chances that they will log out of the Moodle course by clicking the red X in the corner.
• “How do my learners access my course?” Ask for the URL.
• “Do I have a maximum size for my course? What is it?”
• “Do you run regular backups, and is there a scheduled downtime when you run maintenance on the server? Do you notify everyone, or is this a regularly scheduled occurrence?”
• “If you need statistics about learners' activities, are statistics turned on?” If not, ask for them to be turned on and negotiate when you want to collect data. Statistics quickly clog up server space. You may want to collect data on your course activities for a short period to see what and how learners are interacting with your course.