Moodle is the learning management system (LMS) used at the University of the South Pacific (USP). It was selected in 2006 after a testing period of various LMS's. USP transitioned from WebCT to Moodle in 2007. Currently, over 10,000 students and 223 staff use Moodle across 213 courses. Moodle is managed by the Centre for Flexible Learning and supported by a team of education technologists. Training and support is provided to students and staff to help with adopting and using Moodle.

1. MOODLE @ USP
Centre for Flexible Learning
(CFL)

2. Overview
• Introduction & Background
• Statistics & Architecture
• Managing
• Student & Staff Training
• Course Development
• Challenges
• Future Plans
• Questions

3. Introduction
• USP Organization
• USP’s Network infrastructure
• AARNet
• USPNet

5. Background of USP on LMS
• WebCT (2001 – mid 2007)
• 2005 CDFL given the task of exploring free open
source software
• Software selected Moodle, Sakai, Atutor and
Edison (plone based used by School of Law)

6. Background of USP on LMS
• Over a period of 6 months all LMS’s went
through different tests. Few e.g.
– Usability
– Performance
– User-friendliness
– Maturity
– Support
• Moodle selected as the best out of all after end
of test period

7. MOODLE @ USP
• Start of Moodle pilot with SCIMS in 2006
• Report presented to management end of 2006
• Migration of WebCT
– Issues/Difficulties
• Moodle officially adopted as USP’s LMS in late
2007

8. MOODLE @ USP
• Total Moodle Courses 213
• Total F2F 90
• Total F2F/DFL 98
• Total DFL 15
• Total staffs using Moodle Over 223
• Total students using Moodle Over 10000

9. MOODLE ARCHITECTURE
• Production environment
– 2 x Dual CPU Quad-Core High end server
– 8 GB RAM
– RHEL 5.4
• Development environment
– 1 x Dual CPU Dual-Core High end server
– 8 GB RAM
– Centos 5.0
• Production environment (Vanuatu)
– 1 x Dual CPU Dual-Core High end server
– 8 GB RAM
– Centos 5.0
• Database (MySQL)

11. MANAGING MOODLE@USP
• Backup
– Data Backups
– Redundancy (disk, mirror site)
• Upgrades
• User Management
– LDAP authentication
– Enrollment (Banner integration)
• Human Resource
– Staff
– Course Creation
– Customization

12. THEMES

13. MY MOODLE
Students
course view

14. Moodle Staff @ CFDL
• Learning Systems Coordinator (1)
• Education Technologist (7)

15. Student Training & Support
• Training Manual
• Show & Tell (Lectures)
• Practical (lab sessions)
• Further CFDL contact center
• Moodle Helpdesk

16. Staff Training & Support
• Workshops
– Introduction
– Assessment
– Managing & Monitoring
– Increasing student engagement
• Training manual
• One on one sessions
• Moodle helpdesk
• ET Contact

17. Community of Practice
• Moodle User Group@USP (MUGU)
• Round table discussion

18. Course Development School
of Law Case study
• Law lecturers based in Vanuatu
• Course development in Vanuatu on CDS
• Different streams

19. CHALLENGES
• Bandwidth – USP Centres
• Upgrades
• Performance
• User guides for version upgrades

20. FUTURE PLANS
• Evaluate 2.0
• Custom/external Gradebook and Reports
• eportfolio
• Turnitin
• Mobile learning
• Assignment Tracking

21. Questions
Demo