Designing an interactive user
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1. but also benefit from Moodle s active community And finally after adequate testing and following positive response we might consider studying the possibility to port the framework to other complex online platforms that could benefit from this functionality VII CONCLUSIONS New users faced with a complex e Learning platform such as Moodle sometimes need a nudge in the right direction Tutorials can provide that nudge but the users must know where to find these tutorials and most importantly that they need the help of one By integrating an interactive user guide in Moodle with step by step solutions to common questions they are provided with a very powerful tool of discovery Learning to use Moodle by simply using it and concentrating only on the subject of study should be a given And with the help of this tool that might just happen References 1 http moodle org stats 11 03 2011 2 http moodle org mod data view php id 6009 15 03 2011 3 Onita M Ternauciuc A 2007 Guidelines for a Multimedia Tutorial in the e Learning Process The 3rd International Scientific Conference ELSE E Learning and Software for Education BUCHAREST April 12 13 2007 4 Oud J 2009 Guidelines for effective online instruction using multimedia screencasts Reference Services Review Volume 37 issue 2 Pag 164 177 5 http jquery com 15 03 20112. existing platform and in case the theme changes there will be discrepancies Furthermore multilingual sites require a separate document for each language and any modification in the tutorial means a revision for each of the additional documents Also the linearity of the instructions reduces searching for a specific topic to a keyword search which can sometimes lack coherence in meaning A more effective way to deliver the tutorial is to create a screencast with audio commentary over live usage of the platform The steps necessary for an operation are demonstrated through the actions of the tutorial s creator on the desktop which are recorded as an audio video presentation and later played back for the users edification 4 Some of the problems of the tutorials in document form also appear here like the graphical interface which is permanently recorded or the text and the audio which must have multiple versions in case of a multilingual Moodle instance Also this type of tutorial is harder to modify since it means recapturing the actions and the audio A slightly different method of creating a tutorial is to provide interactions along with the screen recording Modern tools such as Adobe Captivate or Camtasia can create cues that the user must interact with in order for the tutorial to advance insuring a more personalized and fulfilling training experience 3 However the shortcomings of a simple screencast remain All of the method
3. advantages include portability in theory a tutorial created in a Moodle instance can be exported and used in another platform with the same Moodle version and user guide framework adaptability since Moodle can be highly customizable different user settings should not affect the tutorial s effectiveness and flexibility new tutorials can be created on the fly by any user with appropriate privileges 3 1 Interactive user guide administration In order to create a new tutorial an administrator or tutorial creator must follow the following steps Figure 1 Animation Identifying the element s to be highlighted This is a crucial part of the tutorial creation process because this is what makes the user guide work dynamically inside moodle The element must be uniquely identifiable not only for the current user but also for all other users with the same privileges regardless of the customizations they have like the type and the order of the blocks on their My Moodle page for instance This can be challenging from the technological point of view Adding the highlight The selected element is already interactive it is a functional element in moodle a link or a button By adding some sort of graphical change like a border with a contrasting colour or even a big dancing arrow pointing to the element the user s attention is drawn to this part of the page Text instructions can also be added either in the vicinity of
4. is repeated for another element on another page if it s the case until the tutorial is finished Obviously for continuity between pages the information must be stored somewhere especially since later users will need to follow these predefined steps Using Ajax technologies recording each step in the tutorial on the server becomes unobtrusive Some database access will be required but since the framework will use its own information it will not interfere with Moodle s operations There is no one recipe for all situations and even though some selection algorithms can be designed there will still remain a non zero probability that in some cases the tutorial might fail through incorrect element selection However for the most common usage scenarios we are confident that the resulted tutorials will work as intended vV CURRENT STATUS The development of the framework is far from finished The aim of this article is to present the motivation intended features and possible technical solutions behind the interactive user guide as well as a model for obtaining such functionality We are currently still working on the element selection interface and mechanisms but since it is one of the most vital stages we are trying to cover all the possible scenarios we can imagine Figure 2 The server side management of the finished tutorials should not pose significant difficulties Also with the release of the next major version of Moodle Moodle
5. 2 0 we must take into account the changes made to the template engine to insure compatibility F Site news Add a new topic Noutati Test News forum G Noutati Test2 Profile Bo My Blog 27 August 2 September M Calendar Older topics Resources 13 Sep 13 12 Admin User Ha more 3 September 9 September 3 There are no upcoming amp Participants events 10 September 16 September Go to calendar ee New Event Forums 17 September 23 September Activity since Saturday 19 Go March 2011 07 50 AM Advanced search E Full report of recent activity 24 September 30 September Nothing new since your last unistration jogin Tum editing on o PBettings 1 October 7 October 8 8 October 14 October a 15 October 21 October a Profile 22 October 28 October HTML gt BODY gt DIV gt DIV gt DIV gt DIV gt TABLE gt TBODY gt TR gt TD gt DIV gt DIV gt DIV gt UL gt LI gt DIV gt A gt A HREF http web cm upt ro mditst course edit php id 5 http web cm upt ro mditst course edit php id 5 JS Figure 2 Current state of development VI FUTURE DEVELOPMENT After we will have a functioning version of the interactive tutorial creation framework we intend to compile an installable version complete with database preparation and Moodle extensions integration Careful consideration will be given to the import export feature of the framework in order to help
6. Wer The 7 International Scientific Conference 7 eLearning and Software for Education NOR Bucharest April 28 29 2011 aa Tomana Partnership Lab DESIGNING AN INTERACTIVE USER GUIDE FOR MOODLE Andrei TERNAUCIUC Mihai ONITA Daniel IVANC Muguras MOCOFAN Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications Politehnica University of Timi oara Blvd V Parvan nr 2 Timi oara Romania andrei ternauciuc cm upt ro mihai onita cm upt ro dan ivanc cm upt ro mugur mocofan cm upt ro Abstract There are many advantages to open source software no licence fees freedom to adapt the code to suit one s needs and usually a community of enthusiasts behind it ready to help out As far as open source Learning Content Management Systems go Moodle is probably the best known and most used e Learning platform But in terms of support for users it lacks a comprehensive and effective user guide Because each Moodle instance is different creating a tutorial for one platform using screen capture works only for that instance since another will use a different theme and different blocks and settings This paper aims to study the possibility to set up advanced interactions similar to those from screen captures made in Adobe Captivate and load a coherent workflow in a so called tutorial mode using the live platform in order to teach a new user how to navigate the system and take full advantage of its possibilities Keywords Moodle user guide
7. dle is Yahoo s YUI to avoid any conflicts with existing scripts and because of jQuery s popularity we have decided to use this framework to achieve our goals 5 As previously stated the most important step is to select an element in such a way that later using the same selection rules in a similar context will yield the same element The tutorial creator will activate an element selection mode similar to Firefox s Firebug extension where all usable elements will have the possibility to be designated as the selected item Ideally all elements have unique ids that once called upon will return the desired element but in reality this is not the case Moodle is extremely dynamic and many elements are generated without ids or with random ones Using xpath is usually not an option since the page layout changes dynamically for each user with the exception of common settings such as profile editing jQuery s traversing features can help in some cases but not always And selecting a URL by the link s text must take into account other installed languages Once the element is selected and the selection path decided the tutorial creator will choose from a predefined list of highlighting settings The interaction action is then adjusted if a redirect is not desired or a condition must be passed Finally the information is recorded the path to the selected element the highlight settings and the customized actions and the operation
8. h setting to change in order to achieve a desired result Through repetitive actions users can learn very easily to navigate the platform and also what are some of the capabilities that Moodle offers Course creators can create content with ease also finding on their own some of the tools that Moodle puts at their disposal IV TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS The easiest way to alter the document structure in order to accommodate the necessary changes is to control the information Moodle provides by injecting code into the template before it leaves the server However much of Moodle s content is not generated by the template including some structure and style information and would require a significant alteration of the platform s core functionality This means introducing unforeseen vulnerabilities and greatly increasing the difficulty of a later official upgrade or even not being able to use third party modules and extensions By adding the necessary elements after the code has reached the client computer but before it is rendered the changes are transparent to the user Also the server isn t loaded by these modifications to the DOM structure With the increasing popularity of JavaScript frameworks and the continuous development of modern Internet browsers the insertion of the extra code should have little impact on the client s computer CPU load or web pages rendering times And even though the JavaScript library included with Moo
9. interactivity tutorial jQuery I INTRODUCTION Moodle is one of the most popular open source e Learning platforms with over 50 000 registered instances and well over 40 million users 1 Ever since it first appeared in 2001 it has proven to be a serious competitor to already established e Learning platforms such as Blackboard and is usually the first choice when a low cost robust e Learning solution is needed Like most open source projects behind the development team there is a vast community always on the lookout for bugs vulnerabilities or even new features and improvements on existing ones With over 700 extensions to core functionality patches and third party integrations 2 the Moodle community has proven its worth and helped turn Moodle into the multi purpose e Learning tool it is today Il THE PROBLEM As with most non commercial software professional support is limited and usually comes from third parties Although installing Moodle and then customizing the settings the interface and other system parameters falls under the jurisdiction of a system administrator and is usually done once or rarely a regular user who uses Moodle for the first time can encounter some difficulties The interface is friendly enough and there are help snippets for most settings and operations in the form of pop ups but for more complex operations which require multiple steps the default support is limited There is official documentat
10. ion available but since Moodle has a decade long history and countless versions and sub versions not all the guides are up to date There are also instructional videos available as well as books and online tutorials but these are not always available in localized languages or scenarios 2 1 Possible solutions In the case of blended learning where face to face meetings are possible a quick introductory demonstration by an experienced trainer can provide the basis necessary for new students to begin using the platform For first time distance learners a possible solution can be to set up a demo course with clear instructions for using Moodle But this can be a circular issue since in order to follow the course they must have some basic knowledge in working with the platform Not to mention training the staff which in the beginning can be even more inexperienced than their students especially since they have greater privileges and more access and thus greater responsibilities The more appropriate solution is to provide a tutorial according to the user s level of access highlighting the necessary steps in order to accomplish a certain task The easiest way to compile such a tutorial is to create a simple document with step by step instructions to different requirements The text could be complemented with screenshots for illustrative purposes 3 The problem with this scenario is that the screenshots include the graphical elements of the
11. s listed above have another fault maybe the greatest of all These tutorials are separate entities from the platform users must switch windows between the document video and the Internet browser where Moodle can be accessed Even if external links or the files themselves are provided by the platform there is a disconnection from the normal use of the platform HI THE PROPOSED SOLUTION The solution we are proposing is to create the framework for designing interactive tutorials by embedding the instructions into Moodle itself Once the user asks the platform for instructions on how to perform a certain task the interactive user guide highlights the buttons links or inputs where the user must click and provides help messages directing the user along the way These instructions continue in different pages according to a script that the tutorial s creator has set up The advantage of this solution is that a graphical change in Moodle doesn t affect the tutorial since the elements to be highlighted are first generated by Moodle according to the configured theme Same with the text language which can be safely changed at any time of course any help text inserted by the tutorial should also have multiple versions according to the installed languages Also since the tutorial works within the platform it acts as training wheels on a first time biker when it is no longer needed it can come off with the click of a button Other
12. the highlighted element or in the user guide s dedicated block Preparing the next step If the selected element is a link or a button when the user clicks on it the page usually changes Otherwise something changes in the current page Regardless the previous steps are repeated until the end of the tutorial is reached Options interactive Target Figure 1 Steps in creating a new tutorial The finished tutorial therefore contains the succession of pages each with selected elements and their respective highlighting settings and associated actions This recording of steps can later be accessed by any user who has the necessary privileges and the need for help Each tutorial is a separate entity and can be handled as such It can be modified deleted exported and imported 3 2 Functional description of the interactive user guide From the regular user s point of view the user guide can be activated from a certain block that can be included in every page of the platform using Moodle s sticky blocks According to the page they are currently viewing a course personal profile settings My Moodle etc users can choose from a list of specific tasks which were predefined by the tutorial creator The activated task guides the user through the steps necessary to accomplish it By highlighting the appropriate link the system tells the user where to click in order to get to the next page of the operation or whic
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