Fostering Friendships - Enhancing Social Bonds in the Classroom
MOCLog – Monitoring Online Courses with log data
1. MOCLog
Monitoring Online Courses
with log data
Marco Bettoni & Luca Mazzola
1st Moodle Research Conference
15.9.2012, Heraklion, Crete
Convention Center Creta Maris
2. Outline
1. Introduction: What, Why, How, Who (Marco)
2. E-learning Model (Marco)
3. Concept Map & Solution Map (Marco)
4. Ten Use Cases (Marco)
5. Implementation of the tool (Luca)
6. Demonstration of the tool (Luca)
7. Conclusion (Luca)
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3. Introduction
WHAT
Visualise (interpret) log data based on a didactical interpretation model
Processes and outcomes of learning and teaching
WHY
Monitoring learning is essential but logfiles are seldom used for that
Monitoring user interaction traces in terms of learning
HOW
Moodle plugin whose design implements a didactical model
WHO
FOR: students, teachers, study program managers, administrators
BY: four Swiss UAS = FFHS (lead), USI, FHNW and BFH 3
4. E-Learning Model by Reinmann, G. (2003)
- SUPSI.5: MOClog Reinmann-Rothmeier, G. (2003). Didaktische Innovation durch Blended Learning. Bern:
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Hans Huber
7. Ten Use Cases
1. Students’ Collaboration: for monitoring 6. Course Activity: for monitoring the level
how much the student collaborates with of usage of courses (administrators
other students only)
2. Teacher-Student Interaction: for 7. Tool Use: for monitoring which tools
monitoring the interactions between a are used more and which less
teacher and individual students. (administrators only)
3. Knowledge Testing: for monitoring the 8. Teacher Facilitation: for monitoring the
students’ use of their available level of activity of teachers in facilitating
knowledge in tests learning (study program managers
4. Information Access: for monitoring the only)
students’ access to resources (file, 9. Students’ Total Learning: for monitoring
HTML page, IMS package), over all the indicators the total level of
assignments and quizzes. activity of students in learning (study
5. Organization of Learning: for program managers only)
monitoring how students organizes 10. Course Learning: for monitoring the
their own learning process by planning, level of facilitation by teachers and the
preparing exams, etc. level of learning by students (study
program managers only).
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8. Implementation of the Tool
Plugin for moodle 2.x (tested with 2.3.2): uses Moodle logs and
stores semi-aggregates information inside its tables.
Some prebuilt configurations to evidence:
Distribution (of resources)
Participation (in activities)
Interaction (between participant)
For supporting the activity of study-program managers and admins.
They can see and analyze:
the course activities
the tool activities
teacher facilitation activities
students’ total learning
the level of facilitation and learning across the whole course
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9. Implementation of the Tool
Exported logs lifetime management
// "Anoymize" MocLog Log File after $CFG->loglifetime days!
if (!empty($CFG->loglifetime)) {
$cutdate = date('Y-m-d', time() - ($CFG->loglifetime * 3600 * 24));
$DB->set_field_select('block_moclog_log', 'userid', 0, 'date < '' . $cutdate .
'' AND userid != 0');
mtrace("... anonymized old Moclog log records older than " .
$cutdate);
}
}
Anonymaze the user, when the userid of the record is equal to 0
// Add 'anonymous' user 0 $users[0] = (object) array("lastname" =>
"anonymous", "firstname" => "", "id" => 0);
No needs to delete record, even complying with strict privacy
regulations on the data collection and conservation.
// Include anonymized users in the result (having user id = 0) ...
$courseusers[0] = $users[0]; 9
10. Implementation of the Tool
Contents differentiated for profiles
// Check if admin, in this case print out the fact that the data for learner is
hidden...
if (has_capability('block/moclog:administrate', $context)) { $selection .=
"<li>" . get_string("restricted_to_courses_to_admin", "block_moclog") .
"</li>"; }
Allows to offer the analysis of the single learner activity when called
by the teacher of the course
// Check for user capabilities to display the expand button
if ($vis_users && (!has_capability('block/moclog:administrate',
$context))) {
$line["fullname"] = "<b>" . $course->fullname . " <span
id=expanderguy>+/-</span><b>";
} else {
$line["fullname"] = "<b>" . $course->fullname . "<b>";
}
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11. Implementation of the Tool
Runs using the cron , with an incremental approach (max number
for each execution) ; not all the logs are relevant for this function
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18. Conclusions
Moodle 2.X Plugin for undestanding online what is happening in:
Courses
Tools usage
Groups activity
With the possibility to export information for further offline analisys
Easy to use for teacher/category administator, almost real-time
With a didactical approach
Freely Available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/moclog/
Open Issues / Next Steps
Computational power required for high-traffic instances (or for the
first alignment runs, in platform already established)
Needs of developing the personalized didactical templates, if
required different didactical aggregations
Making easier the confrontation between different datasets
(courses, tools usage within groups, type of activities adopted, ecc)18
19. Thanks for the Attention
Questions?
MocLog WebSite : http://moclog.ch/
Marco Bettoni Luca Mazzola
Research Management Unit eLab – eLearning laboratory
http://www.elearninglab.org/
FFHS - FernfachHochSchule Schweiz USI – Università della Svizzera italiana
http://www.ffhs.ch http://www.usi.ch
marco.bettoni@ffhs.ch luca.mazzola@usi.ch
mazzola.luca@gmail.com
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Thanks to SWITCH for financially supporting MOCLog