Linux based generalized automated enrollment in Moodle and a framework to overcome challenges face by universities in adopting online tools

Abstract

The mechanism of adding students to a Moodle courses is called Enrolment. There are various Moodle auto enrolment plugins are available and Moodle administrator yet has to install and configure the plugin accordingly to allow students to enroll for modules. Available auto enrolment plugins only work for student’s role and furthermore there is no restriction/authorization mechanism to allow students that they can only enroll for defined set of modules. Further, some plugins are only working with a particular Moodle version only. This Proposed solution is to fulfill a burning question of educational institutes and its Moodle administrators’, to enroll students only to their registered modules automatically without extra effort and time waste. The research component of this document includes a qualitative study to a research problem emerged as; “while Sri Lankan universities use some online tools; they do not seem to get the maximum gain out of these tools due to numerous challenges. Moreover, there is no model developed with respect to Sri Lankan university context to provide necessary guidelines to overcome these challenges.” Based on the above research problem, the research was conducted with the objective of exploring challenges faced by universities in adopting online tools. Research uses the case study methodology by Yin[54], with a single case. The university which is described as “XYZ university” is selected as the case and which offers Computing, Business and Law degrees affiliated with a university in United Kingdom. The research included an academic population of 32 academic staff members and a student sample of 260. Research recommends numerous strategies in terms of a framework for the XYZ university as to overcome these challenges. Use of interactive presentations/slides, implementing specific tools for challenging modules, implementing an interactive portal to unite academics and students, conducting well-structured training and IT infrastructure perfections are the main recommendations. The framework also promotes general recommendations for the XYZ university to further grasp of the advantages of online tools. Implementing measures to ensure social-interaction of students and academics, implementing a suitable strategy to select online tools for the university and ensuring mental wellbeing of students and academics are as the general recommendations.