NLN Materials

Update: The final release of Noodle version 1.0 is now available. See below to download it.

What is Noodle? - for teachers and trainers

Noodle is a module, downloadable by your Moodle administrator, which makes it very easy to add NLN Learning Objects to Moodle course pages. By making a streamlined version of our website available from within Moodle itself, it makes adding Learning Objects to a course page even easier than adding Word documents. You don't even need an NLN account to use it - just your regular Moodle login.

What is Noodle? - for administrators

Noodle is a module for Moodle 1.8 and 1.9 that adds a new Resource type to Moodle. On selecting "NLN Learning Object" from the Add a resource drop-down menu, the Moodle user is presented with a streamlined version of this site and allows adding any NLN Material to a course. It's rather like a repository, except the actual materials are still held on our servers, so unlike a local copy, you don't have storage, bandwidth or upgrade responsibilities to worry about. Setup is straightforward and only involves the addition of a few files to your Moodle installation, typically completed in a few minutes. To configure access, you'll need your organisation's numeric ID and your organisation password. These are listed at the bottom of these page, if you are logged in.

Using Noodle to add resources to a Moodle page

1. Log into your Moodle in the usual way, and find the course you want to edit.
2. Turn editing on.
3. From the relevant Add a resource menu, pick NLN Learning Object.
4. Don’t worry about filling in all the required fields – just click the Browse the NLN Materials button. A popup window will take you to a simplified version of this web site.
5. You can either:
   1. browse the collection by subject and level, by expanding the various sections presented and clicking the buttons to the right. This works best for browsing whole subjects (e.g. geography).
   2. or type some terms into the search box (better for specifics, e.g. landforms).
6. Whichever method you chose, you'll then be presented with a list of matching Learning Objects. You can filter the list further by using the boxes on the left - finding a specific word, and/or excluding options you aren't interested in. You can also click column headers to sort by that column. Click a Learning Object's title to view its details.
7. When you reach an LO’s detail page, you can preview the LO's content. If this is an LO you wish to add to a course, click the Add to Moodle course button.
8. You’ll then be returned to your Moodle course, the required fields (title and description) will be filled in, though you can edit these further if you like.
9. Click one of the Save buttons to complete the process.

Once the NLN resource is added, you can use Moodle's own tools to further edit the course at any time.

Here's a screencam covering this process:

Development background

As part of our role in supporting the NLN Materials service, we receive many requests from users wishing to use the materials within Moodle - indeed it is by a considerable margin the most common target platform for the materials. In response, we carried out a review of the various methods the materials can be used within Moodle, detailing the four available methods, giving instructions, pros, cons, and common issues users may encounter with each one.

Following this review, we found that none are perfect. Of the four, three require Moodle administrators to download large sections of the library, and store them locally, where practitioners will have to choose suitable LOs based only the filename or title - which misses out on the powerful search and browse facilities provided by the NLN site, as well as all the supporting documentation and tools, such as pertinent FAQ questions, tutor documentation, news feeds, case studies etc. In addition, any solution that requires local storage of the materials may end up not utilising any updates of the content.

When the materials were delivered via the Content Access Tool, many users were frustrated with the lengthy and complex procedure involved, and the Moodle community created an extension for Moodle to build a simple local repository - the IMS Repository module. This proved very popular, and eventually became part of the default Moodle installation for use as a general purpose repository, in a “grab-and-run” approach - getting all the materials from the CAT as simply as possibly, and then dealing with them locally. Another reason the module proved popular was that the CAT’s format for the materials was incompatible with Moodle’s inbuilt Scorm functionality, and the IMS repository module bypassed this limitation.

Noodle design considerations

Given the above, an optimum solution for allowing practitioners to use the NLN materials in Moodle consists of:

1. an easy and powerful way for practitioners who use Moodle to be able to locate NLN materials exactly suitable for their learners, utilising the metadata contained within them: level, FE Topic, ACL topic, batch, round, ratings etc.
2. practitioners using Moodle should not need to leave the Moodle environment to be able to most effectively locate and utilise the NLN materials.
3. Moodle administrators should not have to download the entire library (and keep it up to date) just to allow easy access for their practitioners.

This project therefore involves the development of a cut-down version on the NLN site within Moodle. A new Moodle resource type has also been developed, which presents the cut-down version of the NLN site within Moodle. It:

1. utilises much of the existing functionality of the NLN site, being hosted at the same location, and thus minimising bandwidth and installation requirements for Moodle admins
2. keeps all the significant functionality of search and browse of the NLN site, incorporating all relevant future developments of the main site
3. does not require any download of the NLN materials
4. allows a very simple and risk-free installation, staying entirely independent from the IMS Repository module (and its variants and upgrades). (Both can be used if required.)

Collectively these two elements - the Moodle extension and the cut-down NLN site - are known as the NLN Materials Browser for Moodle - or "Noodle" for short.

Installation for the Moodle administrator is simple - requiring only a couple of new files to be added. These will not overwrite any existing files, or effect existing functionality. Individual tutors and learners do not need accounts on the NLN site to use Noodle (though see the license implications explained below).

From the practitioner’s point of view, the process is simple, and described above. Neither practitioners or learners require an account or any experience of the main NLN site.

See the readme.txt file included in the download for full information on installation, configuration, and advice on publicising the facility to tutors.

Schedule and Updates

The final version of Noodle version 1.0 has now been released. See below to download it. All known issues previously listed here are resolved in this version. The known issues listed below will be fixed over the next couple of weeks, and their resolution will be via updates to the server, and not require a new download.

Known issues

• Using the search box on the home page before the page is fully loaded may leave the word "search" within the box
• Text searching only searches title, description and keywords of the Learning Objects. Therefore more general terms, such as "geography" will not return all those LOs within the geography subject - only those that specifically mention it. For this reason, general subject searches such as this should be performed by expanding the sections on the home page and chosing a level button, rather than using text search
• Some problems exist within the advanced filtering within the Learning Object list pages

License

Noodle is released free of charge, and can be freely modified if required, under the terms of the General Public License. The GPL covers only the files included in the download package, and confers no additional rights to the NLN website or NLN Materials. When used to connect to the NLN site, it is a condition of use of the NLN site that the code provided may not be modified so as to bypass or subvert the log-in procedure. An organisation wishing to use the module must have at least one user (usually the Moodle administrator) registered on the NLN site. They will thereby be taking on responsibility for ensuring any other users of the module and the materials abide by the license. The NLN Materials are licensed only for use by practitioners and learners in UK education, so this means:

1. The module must only be made available for use by staff at that organisation.
2. Courses which use NLN resources must be available only to students (or other staff) at that organisation.
3. In addition, no charge can be made for access to the materials.

In practice this will likely mean that all course editing and course access be limited to users who are logged into Moodle (or the Moodle is only available within an intranet), and that the Moodle not be shared among multiple organisations.

In summary, to download the package you must agree to the terms of the GPL license for the code included. By using it to connect to the NLN site, or enabling others to do so, you must agree to the terms of the NLN Materials Service terms of use.

Support

Noodle is being released free of charge as a (hopefully) useful additional service to the NLN Materials community. As such, and given the potential differences between any two Moodle installations, we cannot promise to provide comprehensive support for it. However, we are happy to receive all queries, suggestions and questions on it. A dedicated thread on the Moodle.org forums has been set up for this, and you can also contact the NLN Materials Service help-desk. (Any specific problems regarding accounts, registration, organisation passwords etc. should always be addressed to the help-desk.)

Download and Deployment

Noodle has been developed and tested on Moodle 1.8 and 1.9. It may also work with previous versions - we'd be very pleased to hear from any user who tries this. The current version is unlikely to work with the forthcoming Moodle 2.0.

Since the majority of the functionality still takes place within the NLN site, the actual installation is minimal, with no content to download, and no Moodle database changes required. The module simply adds a new resource type, with the installation consisting of a new folder named "nln". The zip file contains a readme.txt file that contains full installation instructions - please read it carefully to avoid any issues.

As described in the readme file, you will need two values to correctly configure Noodle for your organisation. These are listed below.