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1 LMOD Introduction
Learning Modules is ... TODOa replacement for Stellar. (History Next Generation LMS Evaluation)
LMOD offers:
• A customizable environment in which faculty tailor the system to include only the modules they require
• User-focused, intuitive workflow via an easy-to-use, seamless interface
• Role-based personalization
• Accessible APIs that allow faculty to leverage module functionality from other platforms
Learning Modules is modular in two directions: "Horizontally", in that different modules have different functions. Membership, Gradebook, Materials, Forum, Calendar are all separate systems. They are integrated, with Membership forming a "hub" and other modules talking to Membership. The other direction is "Vertically", with the back end consisting of a series of APIs, and the front end consisting of HTML/Javascript which uses the APIs to render the UI. That means the APIs used by the UI are the same ones exposed to third parties, and there is no "hidden" functionality not exposed by an API.
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TODO Qing: need some explanation of groups and roles as well as the (intended) effects of the access and archived settings |
The Membership Service serves as the hub of the LMOD wheel and provides user authentication and authorization to LMOD modules (or any compatible 3rd party system)
• Within the LMOD LMS:
1. Provides a simple and user-friendly method to centralize and manage course membership information sourced from MITSIS
a. Integrates with registration data and pre-registration enrollment data (i.e., recitations, lectures, labs and design section assignments).
2. Provide grouping/section support
a. Admins have the ability to “section” membership into ad hoc groups.
b. Option to assign multiple section (types) to any given student.
c. Ability to customize max size for individual sections.
d. Students get a straightforward interface from which to choose and/or switch sections.
3. Displays student photos in roster and list views.
4.1.1 Example
4.1.2 Intended Use Cases
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4.2 Course Guide API
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TODO Qing, also maybe mention course metadata in regular groups here... activeModules, etc |
4.2.1 Example
4.2.2 Intended Use Cases
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4.2.4 Full Documentation link
4.3 Gradebook/Attendance API
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TODO Robin, also mention calendar events (or leave me a place to do so) |
Offers advanced grade management options, integrated student photos, recitation and section support. The latest release of this module integrates the newly designed Assignments component, which integrates on-demand assignment creation and submission capabilities within the Gradebook Module interface.
Attendance Module: provides a centralized means for tracking and grading student attendance via a customizable calendar.
4.3.1 Example
4.3.2 Intended Use Cases
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4.4 Calendar API
The Calendar module provides a user-friendly interface for managing and displaying custom-created and time-specific events, as well as events listed on the Institute's academic calendar.
The Calendar module exposes the Google Calendar API via our own API underneath the /service/google-apps-proxy/calendar endpoint. We have our own Google Apps for Education domain corresponding to learning-modules.mit.edu, and we map LMOD accounts onto google user accounts via a name translation scheme. For example, jcalz@mit.edu in LMOD becomes jcalz-at-mit-dot-edu@learning-modules.mit.edu in Google. The detail of this are not really that important since the only service we are currently exposing is Calendar. We also map LMOD group/role pairings onto groups in Google (this may change soon). When we provision calendars for a group, we assign google groups so that staff roles have "writer" permissions on the calendar, and student/guest roles have "reader" permissions. Additionally, the gradebook and materials modules add events to a group's calendar corresponding to relevant dates (assignment due / posting dates). These events have extended properties on them (event.extendedProperties.shared.lmodSystemManaged=true) so that they can be handled programmatically by consumers
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- Allow users to view and/or edit google calendars to which they have access
- See assignment due/posting/release dates on their calendars
- Allow access to the MIT Academic Calendar (publicly viewable in Google as mitacademiccalendar@learning-modules.mit.edu)
- See the calendar UI code we provide for example usages: https://mv-ezproxy-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/calendar
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TODO Ajay, also mention calendar events and gradebook integration |
Materials Module: offers course administrators a more flexible method of populating, organizing and displaying course materials, as well as controlling access to copyrighted and/or time-sensitive content.
4.5.1 Example
4.5.2 Intended Use Cases
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4.6 Forum/Announcement API
The Forum Module offers collaboration and discussion capability within the framework of the course.
We have an instance of phpBB in LMOD, which we use for both forum and announcement functionality. Once a forum is provisioned for a membership group, it grants permissions to the forum based on the role. Basically staff get read/post/moderate access, students get read/post access, and guests get read access. Forums are given a name corresponding to the membership uuid. Each slash represents a child forum. So "/course/5/sp15/5.678" would be in the forum named "5.678" under a forum named "sp15" under a forum named "5" under a top-level forum named "course".
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