skills4studycampus- Moodle extension guide

Last updated: February 2015

skills4studycampus - Moodle extension guide

Overview

Deployment instructions

1.Log in to skills4studycampus

2.Generate the private key

3.Download the Moodle extension

4.Install the extension on Moodle

5.Configure settings within Moodle

Integrate skills4studycampus into an existing course

Launching skills4studycampus

Grade synchronisation

User Management

Steps to uninstall skills4studycampus from a course

deep linking to skills4studycampus content page

Steps to uninstall the skills4studycampus extension from Moodle

Overview

This document describes the process for downloading and deploying the Moodle extension on your VLE. You will require administrator access to both the VLE and to skills4studycampus.

The Moodleextension is available for Moodle versions 1.8.x, 1.9.x, 2.0 and 2.1. (Tested with V2.1.1 and V2.1.2), 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 and 2.8

Before beginning the deployment please ensure that the skills4studycampus pages will not be blocked by your institutions firewall.

Please note that the instructions are based on the basic Moodle installation. If your instance of Moodle has been customised some of the terminology and steps may differ.

Deployment instructions

In order to deploy the extension on to your Moodle instance you need to follow these steps from the administration site of the skills4studycampus resource.

1.Login to skills4studycampus

Login to the institutional administrator site on skills4studycampus using the username and password provided to you.

2.Generate the private key

Click ‘Subscription details’on the main menu (grey bar along the top of the page). At the bottom of this page is the section ‘Generate VLE private key’:

  1. Enter your VLE domain, for example
  2. Click the ‘Generate’ button to create theprivate key code, the key will be displayed in the‘VLE private key’field
  3. Copythe key from here and save as it will be required after the extension is installed in Moodle
3.Downloadthe Moodleextension

Staying on the ‘Subscription details’ page, click the ‘Download VLE extension’ blue button in the top right hand corner. Select from one of the following ‘Moodle 1.8.x’, ‘Moodle 1.9.x’, Moodle 2.0’ or ‘Moodle 2.1’depending on the version of Moodle from the drop down and save the zip file, then extract the files.

The files will be in a folder titled ‘MoodleSSP’ once extracted.

4.Install the extension on Moodle

1.To install a deployable component on a Moodle server, go to the Moodle application root folder, and within ‘blocks/’ copy the folder ‘MoodleSSP’

2.Login as an administrator to Moodle(…/admin/index.php) or login as Administrator and click the ‘Notifications’ link on the left side

5.Configure settings within Moodle

1.Click on the ‘Modules’ link under ‘Site Administration’

2.Click on the ‘Blocks’ link

3.Then select ‘skills4studycampus’

If the ‘skills4studycampus’ link is not under ‘Blocks’ select ‘Manage Blocks’ and search for ‘skills4studycampus’ in the listing, then select settings

4.From the settings you can change the link name that will launch the resource if required

5.You can also change the link name for the grade synchronization on this settings page.

6.You can also change the link name for the user synchronization on this settings page.

7.Include the launch URL and copy the private key

8.Select ‘save changes’

Integrate skills4studycampus into an existing course

1.Login to Moodleas anadministrator

2.Select the course in question

3.Select ‘Turn editing on’

4.Once selected the ‘Blocks’ dropdown list will be included on the right hand side

5.Select skills4studycampus from the dropdown list

6.This will add the skills4studycampus box with three links Launch, Sync Grades, and Sync. Students into the right hand side of the course page

7.Select ‘Turn editing off’

Launchingskills4studycampus

  1. Login to Moodleas a student who has access a course that includes skills4studycampus
  2. Under ‘Available courses’ select the relevant course
  3. The skills4studycampus box will be included in the right hand menu
  1. Select the launch link and the resource will open in a new window to prevent the user from navigating with the browser forward and back buttons
  2. On first login the student will be asked to agree to the terms and conditions and whether they wish to receive monthly emails. They may also be asked for their email address if we do not have this information from the VLE

Grade synchronisation

Running the grade synchronisation in Moodle by clicking the link in the skills4studycampus box allows you to pull the student module assessment scores from the resource into the grade centre in Moodle. Once installed as described ensure the block has been included in a course and assigned to some users before running the synchronisation.

User synchronisation

Running the user synchronisation in Moodle by clicking the link in the skills4studycampus box allows youto sync current students with skills4studycampus. Note, students will be disassociated from the course within skills4studycampus or will be marked as inactive in the skills4studycampus, if student is no longer related with any course. This process does not create new students in skills4studycampus.

User Management

When the extension is used with a VLE the students are able to launch directly from Moodle without having to authenticate again. This means for the administrators that all the student management is dealt with on Moodle itself, rather than on skills4studycampus.

Deep linking to the skills4studycampus content page

  1. Login to Moodle as administrator or instructor
  2. Navigate to the course where skills4studycampus is included as a block
  3. Within the block click on the ‘Add link’ button
  1. In the ‘Add Content Link’ page enter the link title and deep link URL for example
  1. Click on the ‘Add link’ button to save the deep link or click on the ‘Cancel’ button to cancel the changes.
  2. The deep link URL will now appear under the skills4studycampus block.
  1. Administrator and instructor have the option to delete the deep link, by clicking on the ‘Cross’ icon before the link.

Please note

The deep link URL of the content page can be obtained from the Generate URL function under the Instructor site in skills4studycampus.

Steps to uninstall skills4studycampus from a course

1.When logged in as an administrator on Moodle select the course in question

2.Select ‘Turn editing on’

3.Select the delete icon (X) from the skills4studycampus box

4.Select ‘Turn editing off’

Steps to uninstall the skills4studycampus extension from Moodle

1.When logged on to Moodle as an administrator select on the ‘Modules’ link under ‘Site Administration’

2.Click on the ‘Blocks’ link

3.Then select ‘skills4studycampus’ and delete

If the ‘skills4studycampus’ link is not under ‘Blocks’ select ‘Manage Blocks’ and search for ‘skills4studycampus’ in the listing, then select delete

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