moodle-local_oer

The Open Educational Resources (OER) plugin provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to release files from courses for public use. The first version of the plugin was developed during a project about open education. It was developed very close to the Graz University of Technology customizations of Moodle. The use for other educational institutions was therefore very limited.

In this repository a refactored version of the plugin can be found. This version has been developed for Moodles Boost theme. Adaptations, which are necessary for the Moodle instance at Graz University of Technology, were moved to subplugins. The base plugin is fully functional without these subplugins. Since the version v2.3.0 subplugins for loading the OER resources are necessary, but the basic versions for Moodle files are bundled with the local_oer plugin.

Requirements

• Moodle 4.1+

Setup

After installation of the plugin, there are several settings that can be made:

• local_oer | metadataaggregator if a subplugin is for linked external course metadata is installed, select the subplugin that should be used. (Default: Default courseinfo aggregator)
• local_oer | requiredfields Select the fields that will show as required in the file metadata form. Title, License and Persons are always required. (New setting since 2.1.12)
• local_oer | uselicensereplacement When enabled, an additional textarea will appear below. (Default: No)
• local_oer | licensereplacement Enter replacements for the moodle license shortnames in the format: cc-nd=>CC BY-ND 3.0. The exchange takes place when the metadata is queried.
• local_oer | zipperfilesize Size of the ZIP files. The Zipper is a helper that can be used by upload subplugins to create ZIP Packages from released files in courses. For administrators there is a Download ZIP button in the OER view in courses, but this always generates only one ZIP of full size and ignores this setting.
• local_oer | allowedlist The capabilities to use the oer plugin are set for the editingteacher role by default. An allowance list is used to allow instructors to share files for OER. If all editingteachers should get access to it. This setting can be turned off, and the list then is used as disallowance list.
• local_oer | notallowedtext The text that is shown to editingteachers when they are not allowed to use the plugin.
• local_oer | pullservice When enabled, the Metadata and URLs to the released files can be directly accessed in Moodle (Default: No). The released metadata can be accessed through https://*yourmoodledomain*/local/oer/public_metadata.php.
• local_oer | next_upload_window This Button opens a configuration formular to configure the release cycle.
• local_oer | releaseplugin Select the upload plugin that will be used to upload released files to a repository.
• List of installed subplugins. Enable or disable them. If a subplugin has settings, a settings link will be shown.

New settings in version v2.1.14

• local_oer | coursecustomfields Add course customfields to the resulting coursemetadata
• local_oer | coursecustomfieldvisibility The customfields have some visibility settings. The fields will be added to the course metadata respecting the visibility setting of the fields. Choose the level of visibility that will be added to the metadata.
• local_oer | coursecustomfieldsignored Select customfields to ignore them. The selected fields will not be added to the course metadata.
• local_oer | coursetofile When enabled, the course metadata can be selected for each file separately. The setting on course level will be applied per default, but can be overwritten per file. Also it is possible to add course metadata of other courses to a file, if the file is used in multiple courses.

New settings in version v2.3.0

• local_oer | applicationprofile Select the default applicationprofile for the JSON metadata from pull service.

Release snapshots

The metadata of released files is stored in an extra snapshot table. A snapshot contains all metadata the file had on the release. When the metadata changes a new release will be created. Old releases remain in the table and can be seen as release history on https://*yourmoodledomain*/local/oer/views/releasehistory.php (WIP - current release only shows courses with amount of files)

A task is running regularly and create snapshots of files marked for release. The release cycle can be configured in settings (see local_oer | next_upload_window). Predefined values can be selected (like Daily, Monthly etc..) or a custom setting is made (like 15.02;10.07 - this will then run every year on the given dates).

When the pull service is active the newest releases can be requested on https://*yourmoodledomain*/local/oer/public_metadata.php. It also includes links to the files.

Views

• GUI to edit and release files per course: {yourmoodledomain}/local/oer/views/main.php?id={courseid} - Can be found in every course in the course settings.
• Maintain (dis)allowance of use: {yourmoodledomain}/local/oer/views/manage.php - Can be found in the administration settings
• Releases: {yourmoodledomain}/local/oer/views/releasehistory.php - Can be found in the administration settings
• Logs and errors: {yourmoodledomain}/local/oer/views/log.php - Can be found in the administration settings
• Settings: {yourmoodledomain}/admin/settings.php?section=local_oer - Can be found in the administration settings
• Time settings: {yourmoodledomain}/local/oer/views/time_config.php - Can be found in the administration settings

Metadata

JSON Format:

Since release v2.3.0 there are different application profiles. The version v1.0.0 is the legacy profile and only supports Moodle Files as the contenthash of a file is the main identifier. The new profile is v2.0.0 has been created to use a new identifier that also supports external element types like opencast. With the setting local_oer | applicationprofile the default profile can be selected. When calling the pull service local/oer/public_metadata.php a header value can be set to load a different profile as set in the setting. ACCEPT: application/json; applicationprofile={version}

Most of the metadata fields remain the same, but there are some significant differences:

  "applicationprofile": "v2.0.0",
  "moodlecourses": [
    { // course array starts counting at 0, so no extra key is made in JSON
      "elements": [
        "title": "remains the same",
        "identifier": "oer:moodle@localhost:file:contenthash:ABC123",
        "source": "fileurl has been renamed to source",
        // abstract, license, context, resourcetype, 
        // language, persons, tags, timereleased, classification, courses
        // are also present for every element (same structure as in v1.0.0)
        // Not every subplugin delivers all the other fields:
        // For example mimetype, filesize, filecreationtime may not be 
        // available
      ]

  "applicationprofile": "v1.0.0",
  "moodlecourses": [
    "1" => {
      "files": [
        {
          "title": "Title of file",
          "contenthash": "The contenthash of the file as calculated from moodle",
          "fileurl": "Link to fileresource in moodle instance",
          "abstract": "Description of file",
          "license": {
            "shortname": "CC BY 4.0",
            "fullname": "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)",
            "source": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
          },
          "context": "Higher Education",
          "resourcetype": "No selection",
          "language": "de",
          "persons": [
            {
              "role": "Author",
              "lastname": "Ortner",
              "firstname": "Christian"
            }
          ],
          "tags": [
            "Nice",
            "Example"
          ],
          "mimetype": "application/pdf",
          "filesize": "123456",
          "filecreationtime": "1648812703",
          "timereleased": "1648812704",
          "classification": [
            {
              "type": "oefos //requires oerclassification_oefos subplugin to be installed",
              "url": "https://www.data.gv.at/katalog/dataset/stat_ofos-2012",
              "values": [
                {
                  "identifier": "503008",
                  "name": "E-learning"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "courses": [
            {
              "identifier": "moodlecourse",
              "courseid": "2",
              "sourceid": "",
              "coursename": "OER JSON Example",
              "structure": "Lecture",
              "description": "Learn about the JSON structure of the metadata",
              "objective": "",
              "organisation": "Educational Technologies",
              "courselanguage": "en",
              "lecturer": "Christian Ortner"
            }
          ] // Coursemetadata per file
        }
      ] // Files
    }
  ] // Moodle course
}

Pull service parameters

Since v2.3.0 parameters can be used for the pull service in /local/oer/public_metadata.php.

• no parameter: Default behaviour, latest release of all elements is shown with selected application profile.
  Application profile is either chosen by setting, or with an additional header attribute (see metadata section)
• ?identifier={identifier}: Loads the release history of a single element.
• ?releasedates: Loads a list of all releases with releasedates. Includes the releasenumber needed for ?release
• ?release={releasenumber}: Loads all elements from a given release

Subplugin types

There are three four (since v2.3.0) subplugintypes that can be used with this plugin.

Modules

With version v2.3.0 the OER resources can be delievered from different sources, so it was necessary to create this subplugin type.

The plugin has the first two subplugins bundled. oermod_resources and oermod_folder are loading Moodle files from the Moodle activities mod_resource and mod_folder. oermod_opencast is a new source for releasing OER content. The plugin can be found on github: oermod_opencast

Metadata aggregator

Mainly used to load additional metadata from linked courses of the educational institution. If needed, additional metadata fields can also be attached to the file metadata.

Classification

Extend the formular for file metadata with additional classification information. Multiple classification plugins can be used.

Uploader (deprecated since v2.3.0, will be removed in a future release)

The base plugin has an endpoint that provides the metadata of all published files including links to the files as JSON. If the preferred way to load the data from Moodle is not via this pull service, but via upload, an additional plugin can be defined which enables the upload to a repository.

Subplugins used by Graz University of Technology

moodle-oermod_resource (bundled with local_oer)
moodle-oermod_folder (bundled with local_oer)
moodle-oermod_opencast moodle-oercourseinfo_tugraz
moodle-oerclassifcation_oefos
moodle-oeruploader_tugraz