VLE Report 2015/Moodle

This page is part of the VLE Report 2015.

Basics

Moodle is open source software and a LAMP application, meaning that the initial setup is relatively straightforward. Issues are graphical design (Moodle themes), hosting appropriate to traffic, and upgrades, which Moodle provides about once every six months. Backups must be configured as a matter of urgency. Documentation is online at http://docs.moodle.org.

Graphics

Moodle has "moving parts" in the form of a distinctive right-hand sidebar. One effect is that a theme (CSS skin) for Moodle is quite complex as a collection of files. The presentation of Moodle via a theme is going to be one of: a standard skin free as a baseline, which is plain and unexciting; adaptation of free skins available online; or a custom design. Professional work in this area is not cheap.

There is a temptation to rationalise Moodle features, e.g. the calendar. Moodle evolves, and a theme may be broken by an upgrade, requiring maintenance edits.

Traffic and performance

It seems to be a largely empirical matter how to get acceptable performance from Moodle. With cloud hosting one can expect to expand the hosting in line with results. A database server and use of opcache are standard ways to tune the system. Again, upgrades may change the situation.

Moodle's caching to provide performance to institutions with heavy use of their sites is perhaps responsible for unexpected behaviour on smaller-scale installations. In any case the learning curve on performance is tangible unless the hosting is quite generous.