XS Moodle plan

This is the general workplan for the Moodle implementation. See entries in the tracker for actual schedules and such.

Stage 1

In this stage, we get a basic Moodle installation that has the basics to be usable as a homepage for the XS and basic (but clunky) publishing and course mgmt system. A few key points to note

• We must support tiered control of content - local school, regional, OLPC
• We must provide an upgrade path that preserves local school content and data - for every bit we host for users.
• It must not cause trouble (DoS the XS with load, disk usage, etc)

To do:

• RPM package of a custom git-tracked 1.9
• Unattended RPM installation/upgrade using the cli installer
• Limit data footprint
  • datastore quota
  • database log pruning
  • database storage quota
• Localisation groundwork
  • PO to Moodle-langfile translator
  • Understand (reconciliate) models for string interpolation and plurals
• Test Moodle with current Browse
  • Note popup window behaviour
  • Will probably have to disable HTMLArea editor
• Trivial authentication scheme (auth plugin) - this will be proof-of-concept
• Sitewide role management scheme to answer Who's a teacher/admin?
• Presets for admin settings
• Admin page lockdown / scary warning
• Define a content management strategy covering
  • School content
  • Regional content
  • OLPC content
• Simplify
  • Remove/disable blocks, modules
  • Simplify default blocks -- (also brings performance benefits ;-) )
• Moodle/XS homepage - very basic
• Initial theme
• No SMTP email
  • But do enable moodle messaging
  • Nepal team will want to enable emails for teachers

System stuff

• Many DNS names - using punycode
• Apache-PHP
  • Define a sane maxclients related to the memory we have. Measure current 1.9 memory usage with modern smap tools. PeterB may have material here...
  • keepalive

• PostgreSQL - define a small memory configuration that can handle expected DB sizes and moderate-to-high loads.
• PHP-APC
  • Package
  • Set to precompile
  • Hook up apache init script to nuke the precompiled files to workaround potential issues with corrupt precompiled files
  • Prevent precompiled files from using the shmem segment - Linux fs caching is better
  • Use shmem for Moodle's $MCACHE

Stage 2

Show a bit more sophistication. Stage 2 will hopefully be paired with xo-9.1 so we can take a stab at the automagic authentication scheme.

• Automagic user authentication (auth plugin) - interops with Browse.xo
• DS-restore UI attached to user page. We can probably add hooks to moodle for this.
• Moodle/XS homepage enhancements
  • Main XS navigation (installable activities, new OS images available...)
  • "What's new" relnotes for admins/teachers
  • Local content of this school
  • Regional content (as per content mgmt strategy)
• Simplify
  • Course creation screen and workflow...
• Provide some sample courses

Stage Later

Stage Later is faraway horizon. We'll know more when we get closer...

• Offline Moodle
• Course enrolment communicates groups info with presence svc and laptops
• Simplified admin options
• Teaching materials repository
  • Publish push upstream
  • Consume
• Replace mod/chat with an xochat callback/trigger
• Study delivering email to users
  • With a 'walled garden' email setup?
  • Via XMPP?
• Now go for a really good theme! :-)
• DS-Backup enhancements
  • WebJournal / XO Journal "time extension" implementation?
  • Moodle file picker - can also read from DS-backup?
• Blogging tools (see Tarun's project)
  • Ability to publish upstream?
• Portfolio - to Mahara?

See also

XS Moodle design