Moodling in 2018

Continuing in the series of my annual Moodling recaps (though this one has been delayed)...

• What does "openness" mean in the context of an online course? At the most basic level, I would think it means open access to the course materials, that is, anyone can enrol in the course. What about reuse and adaptation? Can an online course be made available in its entirety - including source files of the resources and activities - and be ported to a different learning platform, where it can be freely adapted? And how about training people to make the most of the course as they embark on this embedding or localization? In 2018, I worked with my colleagues at INASP to address these aspects in relation to the popular AuthorAID online course in research writing. We developed and offered the AuthorAID Online Course Toolkit Programme to help experienced researchers in developing countries run the AuthorAID research writing course on their own, on their own Moodle-based learning platform. Hopefully we will be writing about our experience soon on the AuthorAID or INASP blog.
• I implemented a new interface on the INASP Moodle site to help potential participants learn about our courses and enrol in them directly. Check it out: https://moodle.inasp.info/
• With the emergence of GDPR, it was imperative for us to upgrade our Moodle site so it would be GDPR-compatible. I was involved in getting the site upgraded to version 3.5 and implementing the GDPR stuff. I'm yet to explore all the new features in 3.5 though!
• And as usual I continued to be the technical administrator for online courses at INASP.

Compared to previous years I spent less time Moodling as a result of different work priorities. Let's see what 2019 holds!