Half day session with a small group of stakeholders to assess their Moodle site from various perspectives.

1. sofos
consultancy
management consulting on organization,
information and ict
b b. stokvisstraat 38,
1097 hz amsterdam
the netherlands
t +32 20 – 694 12 22
e pvdh@sofos.nl
w www.sofos.nl
Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site
Hand-outs for a half day session with a small group of stakeholders to assess their
Moodle site from various perspectives.
Pieter van der Hijden
Sofos Consultancy
Amsterdam, 15 October 2011
Sofos Consultancy / Pieter van der Hijden - 2011 - This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

2. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
1 Synopsis
Synopsis: Advice "Critical walkthrough of a Moodle site"
Half day session with a small group of stakeholders to assess their Moodle
site from various perspectives.
Target group: A small work group representing four stakeholders: management, teaching
staff, students, and ict support staff.
Objectives: The participants:
• Assess from their own perspective the strengths and weaknesses
of the current Moodle implementation.
• Receive information on organizational, didactic, and technical
experiences from other Moodle sites.
• Build a common agenda for improvements.
Content: The advise process takes half a day. It consists of:
• Collecting some vital Moodle statistics and comparing it with data
from other sites.
• Preparing mini reports from the four stakeholders perspectives.
• Exploring the Moodle site and 1-2 typical Moodle courses,
collecting examples of good and improvable practices.
• Identify pending issues in the organizational, didactic and technical
domains.
• Classify these issues as strategic, tactical or operational.
• Prepare a mini advice to the management containing a common
agenda for the coming year.
Methods: Various individual and group exercises, some of them supported by the
Moodle system itself.
Workload: The advising process takes half a day (4 h).
Authors: Pieter van der Hijden MSc
Rights: The name Moodle™ is a registered trademark of the Moodle Trust.
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3. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
2 30' Introducing
Introducing consultant, participants and agenda
Introducing the consultant: Pieter van der Hijden MSc
Management consulting on International Simulation and Simulation and Gaming
organization, information and Gaming Association Association - The Netherlands
ict
Expertisecentrum Onderwijs & ICT Suriname
?
International Fab Lab
Dutch Moodle Association
Association
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4. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
Introducing the participants
Introducing the Agenda
See frontpage.
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5. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
3 30' Collecting statistics
Collecting some vital Moodle statistics and comparing it with data from
other sites.
Moodle statistics
Moodle A B C
System:
Date:
Version: 1.9.7+ 1.9.1+
Courses: 123 45
Users: 2279 158
Role 4214 561
assignments:
Teachers: 54 28
Posts: 1474 5815
Questions: 509 1697
Resources: 1708 550
Environment
OK?:
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6. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
4 30' Preparing mini reports
Preparing mini reports from the four stakeholders perspectives.
1. Materials: Tactec gameboard, rectangle stickers red and green, markers, stakeholder status
form (see Appendix).
2. You are going to reflect on your stakeholders. You identify as many stakeholders as there are
participants in this workshop. The maximum is seven, however. Stakeholders could be e.g. the
students, the teachers, the ict staff, the management. For each stakeholder a stakeholder
status form has been prepared.
3. The participants are sitting in a circle.
4. Receive all a form from the consultant. If there are more participants than forms, create small
groups working on a single form.
5. Fill the form (top row) with: the current situation from the perspective of the stakeholder, and
the required situation one year from now.
6. Fold the top row of the form backward to hide your text.
7. Wait for a sign by the consultant.
8. Give your form to your left hand neighbor and take a form from your right hand neighbor.
9. Fill the newly received form. Note, that it regards another stakeholder than the eralier one.
10. Wait again for a sign by the consultant, fold the current top row and hand on the form. This
process continues until you all have filled all forms minus one.
11. When you received the last form, fold it forward to reveal all the texts written by the other
participants. Read and review these texts. Underline the comments that you consider as most
relevant. Skip eventual trivialities.
12. Summarize your findings in a few keywords and write these with a marker on a red sticker
(current situation) and a green sticker (required situation).
13. Position the stickers on the game board. Explain your stickers to the other participants.
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7. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
5 30' Exploring the site
Exploring the Moodle site and 1-2 typical Moodle courses, collecting
examples of good and improvable practices.
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8. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
6 30' Indentifying pending issues
Identifying pending issues in the organizational, didactic and technical
domains.
Go quickly through the list of Moodle management issues below and rate every entry:
• G(reen) = relevant for our site and OK,
• R(ed) = relevant for our site and NOT OK,
• B(lack) = not relevant for our site,
• ? = do not know and/or do not understand
Once you completed your list, discuss the question marks with the other participants and try t
replace them all by either Green, Red or Black.
# Description Ratin
g
9.02 apply security measures, monitor security, backup / restore system
8.04 backup/restore course data, student data, import / export / convert course data and student
data
3.06 decide on accounting model
2.11 decide on allocation of responsibilities and authorizations, auditing, evaluation regarding
content / data
1.11 decide on allocation of responsibilities and authorizations, auditing, evaluation regarding the
functions of the system
3.11 decide on allocation of responsibilities and authorizations, auditing, evaluation regarding the
technical aspects of the system
2.06 decide on copy right policy for incoming and outgoing course materials (a.o. intellectual
property of course developers)
2.01 decide on curricula
2.03 decide on development of online courses (which courses? completely online or partially?,
make or buy?)
1.01 decide on educational innovation (many aspects a.o. instructional design, policy for
synchronous / asynchronous activities, norms for course development and course delivery,
class size, student / teacher ratio)
3.04 decide on enterprise application integration
1.09 decide on fair use policy
1.04 decide on ICT needs (functions, user interface)
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9. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
1.06 decide on implementation strategy (big bang, shadow processing, function y function,
faculty by faculty, pilots, volunteers first)
1.07 decide on name and address of the Moodle site
3.01 decide on norms for technical operations (acceptable risks, required performance,
acceptable course size, maximum upload size, etc.)
3.09 decide on outsourcing or not
2.05 decide on remuneration for course development and course delivery
2.02 decide on standards and recommendations for development of online courses
2.04 decide on standards and recommendations for online course delivery (a.o. adaptation of
exams regulations)
3.02 decide on supporting software (which web server, which database, which operating
system?)
3.03 decide on technical infrastructure (server, network, and clients, a.o. availability of computer
+ Internet connection for students)
3.07 decide on updates, technical changes, technical tuning
1.02 decide on use of Moodle
1.08 decide on user registration policy (a.o. guest access allowed? Google access allowed?)
1.03 decide on Moodle functions (course components needed plus generic supportive functions
like chat, e-mail, e-groups)
8.02 deliver courses (tutor, administrative staff)
8.01 develop course materials and courses
2.10 evaluate the effects of content / data related decisions, make projections, decide on
changes or updates
1.10 evaluate the effects of functions of the system related decisions, make projections, decide
on changes or updates
3.10 evaluate the effects of technical aspects related decisions, make projections, decide on
changes or updates
8.03 follow course, learn
9.03 install software/ updates, tune system, keep up and running, monitor performance, apply
quota, collect use statistics
9.04 monitor error signals and messages, analyze errors, execute preventive and curative
maintenance, integrity checks
6.02 organize user registration (link to student administration system, e-mail authentication, etc.)
4.02 organizing user role allocation (course creator, teacher, tutor, administrative staff, enrolled
student)
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10. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
5.01 planning, organizing and evaluating course development, storage, maintenance and delivery
(see below), advise on future strategic decisions
4.01 planning, organizing and evaluating support (see below), advise on future strategic decisions
6.01 planning, organizing and evaluating technical operations (security, faults, accounting,
configuration, performance), advise on future strategic decisions
1.05 select and acquire/build Moodle, decide on updates, functional changes, functional tuning
7.02 support course deliverers (tutors, administrative staff) (training, manuals, help desk, advise)
7.01 support course developers (training, manuals, helpdesk, advise)
7.03 support students (training, manuals, help desk, advise)
9.01 support users (training, manuals, help desk, advise)
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11. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
7 30' Classifying issues
Classifying these issues as strategic, tactical or operational.
1. Combine the ratings from the previous exercise in a quick way (simple arithmetic). Give each
of them a Green, Red, Black or Question Mark as score.
2. Copy the Red entries (including their code) on Yellow stickers.
3. Stick the yellow stickers on the right part of the poster (look at the code and take the first
figure, 1-9).
Functional Content /data Technical
Strategical
1 2 3
Tactical
4 5 6
Operational
7 8 9
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12. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
8 30' Preparing mini advice
Preparing a mini advice to the management containing a common agenda
for the coming year.
1. Each of the participants becomes responsible for one of the stakeholders in the mini reports.
2. Review in silence the outcomes of classification.
3. Identify four subsequent actions that have to be executed to bring your stakeholder from the
current situation to the required situation.
4. Write these four actions with a marker on four square stickers.
5. Position the stickers on the game board. Explain your stickers to the other participants.
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13. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
9 30' Evaluating
Evaluating the workshop and summarizing follow-up actions
• What was good?
• What could be improved?
• Other comments?
• Follow-up?
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14. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
10 Appendices
Stakeholder Status Form
CURRENT REQUIRED
Stakeholder: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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15. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
Moodle components
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16. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
Didactics
From didactic requirement to Moodle technical solution
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17. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
Moodle Management Matrix
Functional Content / Data Technical
Strategical 1.01 decide on educational 2.01 decide on curricula 3.01 decide on norms for
innovation (many aspects technical operations
a.o. instructional design, (acceptable risks,
policy for synchronous / required performance,
asynchronous activities, acceptable course size,
norms for course maximum upload size,
development and course etc.)
delivery, class size,
student / teacher ratio)
1.02 decide on use of Moodle 2.02 decide on standards and 3.02 decide on supporting
recommendations for software (which web
development of online server, which database,
courses which operating system?)
1.03 decide on Moodle 2.03 decide on development of 3.03 decide on technical
functions (course online courses (which infrastructure (server,
components needed plus courses? completely online network, and clients, a.o.
generic supportive or partially?, make or buy?) availability of computer +
functions like chat, e-mail, Internet connection for
e-groups) students)
1.04 decide on ICT needs 2.04 decide on standards and 3.04 decide on enterprise
(functions, user interface) recommendations for application integration
online course delivery (a.o.
adaptation of exams
regulations)
1.05 select and acquire/build 2.05 decide on remuneration for 3.05
Moodle, decide on course development and
updates, functional course delivery
changes, functional
tuning
1.06 decide on 2.06 decide on copy right policy 3.06 decide on accounting
implementation strategy for incoming and outgoing model
(big bang, shadow course materials (a.o.
processing, function y intellectual property of
function, faculty by course developers)
faculty, pilots, volunteers
first)
1.07 decide on name and 2.07 3.07 decide on updates,
address of the Moodle technical changes,
site technical tuning
1.08 decide on user 2.08 3.08
registration policy (a.o.
guest access allowed?
Google access allowed?)
1.09 decide on fair use policy 2.09 3.09 decide on outsourcing or
not
1.10 evaluate the effects of 2.10 evaluate the effects of 3.10 evaluate the effects of
functions of the system content / data related technical aspects related
related decisions, make decisions, make decisions, make
projections, decide on projections, decide on projections, decide on
changes or updates changes or updates changes or updates
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18. Critical Walkthrough of a Moodle Site sofos consultancy
1.11 decide on allocation of 2.11 decide on allocation of 3.11 decide on allocation of
responsibilities and responsibilities and responsibilities and
authorizations, auditing, authorizations, auditing, authorizations, auditing,
evaluation regarding the evaluation regarding evaluation regarding the
functions of the system content / data technical aspects of the
system
Tactical 4.01 planning, organizing and 5.01 planning, organizing and 6.01 planning, organizing and
evaluating support (see evaluating course evaluating technical
below), advise on future development, storage, operations (security,
strategic decisions maintenance and delivery faults, accounting,
(see below), advise on configuration,
future strategic decisions performance), advise on
future strategic decisions
4.02 organizing user role 5.02 6.02 organize user registration
allocation (course creator, (link to student
teacher, tutor, administration system, e-
administrative staff, mail authentication, etc.)
enrolled student)
Operational 7.01 support course 8.01 develop course materials 9.01 support users (training,
developers (training, and courses manuals, help desk,
manuals, helpdesk, advise)
advise)
7.02 support course deliverers 8.02 deliver courses (tutor, 9.02 apply security measures,
(tutors, administrative administrative staff) monitor security, backup
staff) (training, manuals, / restore system
help desk, advise)
7.03 support students 8.03 follow course, learn 9.03 install software/ updates,
(training, manuals, help tune system, keep up and
desk, advise) running, monitor
performance, apply
quota, collect use
statistics
7.04 8.04 backup/restore course 9.04 monitor error signals and
data, student data, import messages, analyze errors,
/ export / convert course execute preventive and
data and student data curative maintenance,
integrity checks
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