The document discusses how community hubs in Moodle 2.0 allow educational organizations to publish and share courses. It provides an example of an administrator at Orange University who creates the Orange City Hub to connect her university to other local sites. Courses can then be published on the hub for members of connected sites to enroll in or download. The hub network expands as more sites connect, allowing greater learning opportunities across organizations. MOOCH is introduced as a global hub that allows courses to be searched, enrolled in, and shared worldwide.

1. Community Hubs in Moodle 2.0 -
First ... a story
One rainy day, a clever and kind Moodle Admin at
Orange University wants to publish and share
Orange Moodle courses created by other educational
University organisations in Orange City.

2. Orange
Hub
She creates the Orange City Hub and
registers Orange University to it.
Orange
University

3. The word gets around and
soon, many other local
Moodle sites register to the
Orange City Hub.
People on these sites can
Orange publish courses on the
Adult Learning Orange Orange City Hub for others
Institute High to enrol in or download.
Orange They can also enrol or
City download other courses
Hub published on Orange City
Orange Hub.
Primary
Orange
University

4. One day she meets a handsome moodler from Blue City. He
invites her to register Orange University to the Blue City Hub.
Hooray! Orange Uni members can now publish and share
courses with ALL members of Blue City Hub.
Orange Blue City
Adult Learning Orange
High High
Institute
Orange Blue City
City Hub
Hub
Orange
Primary
BlueCity
Education
Department
Blue
University
Orange
University

5. Several weeks go by …
Other member sites of Orange City Hub connect to Blue City Hub.
Learning opportunities and possibilities explode !
(in a good way...)
They wonder if there is more beyond their local hub(s) ...

6. They find MOOCH !
Now, they can search for, enrol and download
courses from around the world !
To publish and share their own, they register
their sites (NOT hubs) to MOOCH.
Orange Blue City
Adult Learning Orange
High High
Institute
Orange Blue City
City Hub
Hub
Orange
Primary
BlueCity
Education
Department
Blue
University
Orange
University

7. They encourage other member sites of their hubs to connect to MOOCH
and share with the world !
Insert picture of spaghetti ...
Communities grow !

8. Why would you use Community Hubs?
Share, even collaboratively build* similar courses between two sites (eg. schools),
and reduce the amount of work in creating everything anew.
(*a great and purposeful way to learn how to moodle (better) collegially ...)
Advertise and allow enrolment in courses which members of two or more sites
could jointly teach/attend.
Allow members in two organisations to share a space where they can build best
practice, resources, reflect, complain, problem-solve - a professional community of
practice.
Offer selected courses, free or fee-paying*, to general public.
(*course publisher can set copyright licence (list of Creative Commons licences with one click) and other details)

9. Why would you use Community Hubs?
Find, learn with and educate people with interest in the topic or field important to
you.
Allow sharing of common standards, compliance, certification programmes thus
reducing cost.
Share useful parts of courses (eg. a great activity).
Optimise resource sharing via CMS (eg Mahara).
and more ...

10. Let’s clear up some terminology...
Community Hub (‘Hub’)
A special Moodle site, separate to your own. Its primary purpose is to search for, advertise and share
courses among the members of the sites registered to the hub.
Any Moodle Admin can:
- create a new hub, and
- register their site to an existing hub.
Registration
Only a Moodle (version 2.+) site can register to a hub.
This means that users of a site registered with the specific hub (one or more) can advertise and share
courses with members of other sites registered with the same hub.
A hub DOES NOT connect two Moodle sites (ie users don’t become members of another site by
joining a hub). It only allows for exchange and collaborative work on items published on the hub
(advertised or shared).
The hub DOES NOT connect two or more hubs. It is only Moodle sites that connect to the hub(s) of
their choice.

11. Let’s clear up some terminology...
Advertising a course
Putting a course on the hub for people to enrol in. Access can be open to public or restricted.
Sharing a course
Putting a backed-up course on the hub for people to download. If you update the course, you need to
upload a new backup.
MOOCH - Moodle.org Open Community Hub
A worldwide, global hub to advertise, share and search for courses. Administered at Moodle HQ.
Recommend to register your Moodle site (Moodle 2 only) to MOOCH.
You do not have to connect to MOOCH. You can create a hub just for one or two sites that you want
people to work together and share courses.
Local hub
Moodle Admin can create a hub (new Moodle with Hub plugin activated) just for two or more sites
who wish to work together and share courses.

12. How about a visit to MOOCH ?

13. ?
Over to
you ....