<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div>Stas-</div><div><br></div><div>Like Joseph mentions in a later response, I too am <i>ecstatic</i> that this idea has been brought up for a GSOC proposal. Also like Joseph, my developer skills are near to none but we both have institutional experience working with LMS supporting professors/teachers and looking at the LMS from a student's perspective. I've been using BuddyPress/WordPress as a LMS for two semesters and have had much success (side note: I develop and maintain the site, I'm not the professor). You can find out all about my views on WP as LMS and how I've used it here: <a href="http://wpmu.org/wordpress-as-a-learning-management-system-move-over-blackboard/">http://wpmu.org/wordpress-as-a-learning-management-system-move-over-blackboard/</a><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br></div><div>Let me put this out there for you: I can't develop but I'd be more than willing to work side-by-side with you to conceptualize, mockup, and thoroughly test what you're looking to achieve. In fact, I've been mocking up a LMS type theme that incorporates some of the things you talk about (I'll e-mail it to you if you're interested). Basically, I'm here to help. I'd venture to guess Joseph would volunteer some time as well ;)</div><div><br></div><div>For now though I'll respond to some of your comments below and will respond to Joseph in a later response.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks,</div><div><br></div><div>~kyle~</div></span>
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<br><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre></pre></span><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre>During the last #wordpress-gsoc chat, Jane pointed me to the
ScholarPress, a community of WordPress plugins developers that are
writing code to make WordPress useful in education. Their plugin,
Courseware is built for WordPress and currently offers the following
features:
* manage schedules
* manage bibliography
* manage assignments
* manage general course information
><i>From what I heard the plugin also works with BuddyPress, but making it
</i>depends on WordPress (shortcodes, wp-admin) isn’t exactly a perfect
integration. </pre></span></blockquote>I think you're right on here. Shortcodes aren't seamless. And when we're talking about using WP-as-LMS with a wide user audience with differing skills, shortcodes wouldn't be the best way to go. We need something that has a comprehensive, UX-focused admin panel.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre>The idea what came is to port ScholarPress to BuddyPress.
In details, to make SP aware of BP groups, and treat them as classes of
students. Assign schedules per group, add bibliography to scheduled
courses, so on for assignments. </pre></span></blockquote>I look at groups with the same lens you do and it makes a lot of sense to me. I know Joseph writes in a later post that we shouldn't focus any kind of LMS functionality on BuddyPress, but I think we can agree that the organization is logical.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre>From the upstream TODO list, I also saw
the need of a grade-book and I would also add a notification system
(send a private message if a course is upcoming or a new grade was
posted).
</pre></span></blockquote>Good lord does WP need a gradebook. A <i>comprehensive, secure, stable </i>gradebook. KB-gradebook is our only option and it fails every time for me, as Joseph documented here: <a href="http://prestidigitation.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2010/03/15/kb-gradebook/">http://prestidigitation.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2010/03/15/kb-gradebook/</a></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre>
More on the internal part…
It will require changes like, split the courses apart from schedules.
Because SP will be groups aware, it will be more logical to create
courses and link bibliographies and assignments to them, after what
publish them in a schedule. Also I would consider adding an upload
option for the courses that require annexes or attachments (later, you
can bundle those with Google Docs viewer or psview).
</pre></span></blockquote>As for the docs, I'm starting to use BP Group Documents for this: <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-documents/">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-documents/</a></div><div>But this is on the front end and I'd like something to be on the backend (or both?).<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre>About the gradebook, I liked the idea used for kb-gradebook, and I think
it’s the bare minimal implementation of grades assignment I can consider
as a starting point (read the csv file, and assign group members to
marks).
About users…
In most of the education centers students are managed using a LDAP or
ActiveDirectory. So bringing some core functionality into such a plugin
also should be considered. I know you’ll jump that there are plenty of
plugins that offer LDAP integration, but hey, none of them (afaik) will
offer you options to integrate two baseDN’s into the same instance (this
can be really useful for role mappings also, divide students from
teachers).
</pre></span></blockquote>I think you'll find as you dig into this that user roles might become complex - at least I see them as such. Especially when it comes to the backend options for managing the LMS plugin/suite of modules. I.e., you might need these roles with descending amounts of functionality:</div><div>-Super admin = full site functionality</div><div>-Instructional technologist = full LMS functionality (control over LDAP, course creation, user creation, assign students to courses, everything else/etc.)</div><div>-Professor/instructor = limited LMS functionality (gradebook, assignment creation, general course moderation, archive course/assign course visibility)</div><div>-TA = same as professor sans gradebook?, or maybe the professor can choose the functionality available to the TA</div><div>-Student = basic user role, content creator (but has access to their grades on the backend, ability to comment on grades directly to professor)</div><div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre>
I’m a student and at our university I had the opportunity to play a
little with Moodle, so the above idea is based on my experience. It
would be nice to hear some opinions from persons who are really involved
into teaching process and what would they like to see in such a new
ScholarPress.
</pre></span></blockquote>Stas, I think it's great that you're thinking this way and see the inherent opportunities in a WP/BuddyPress combination as an LMS. Let me know how I can help.<br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; "><pre>
There's also a post I wrote (this is a copycat) about this idea at:
Thanks.
--
() Campania Panglicii în ASCII
/\ <a href="http://stas.nerd.ro/ascii/">http://stas.nerd.ro/ascii/</a></pre></span></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div></body></html>