PHP Programming Language - Cultural View

Moodle 136
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Many freely-available third-party Moodle plugins make use of this infrastructure. [6]
Moodle users can use PHP to author and contribute new modules. Moodle's development has been assisted by the
work of open source programmers. [7] This has contributed towards its rapid development and rapid bug fixes.
By default Moodle includes the TCPDF library that allows the generation of PDF documents from pages.
Deployment
Users can install Moodle from source, but this requires more technical proficiency than other automated approaches
such as installing from a Debian package, deploying a ready-to-use TurnKey Moodle appliance [8] or using the
Bitnami installer.
Some free Moodle hosting providers allow educators to create Moodle-based online classes without installation or
server knowledge. Some paid Moodle hosting providers provide value-added services like customization and
content-development.
Interoperability
Moodle runs without modification on Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X, NetWare and any other systems
that support PHP and a database, including most webhost providers.
Data goes in a single database. Moodle version 1.6 could use MySQL or PostgreSQL. Version 1.7, released
November 2006, makes full use of database abstraction so that installers can choose from one of many types of
database servers such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
E-learning systems can have many dimensions of interoperability. Moodle's interoperability features include:
• authentication, using LDAP, Shibboleth, or various other standard methods (e.g. IMAP)
• enrollment, using IMS Enterprise among other standard methods, or by direct interaction with an external
database
• quizzes and quiz questions, allowing import/export in a number of formats: GIFT (moodle's own format), IMS
QTI, XML and XHTML (NB although export works very well, import is currently not complete). Moodle
provides various types of questions - Calculated, Description, Essay, Matching, Embedded Answers, Multiple
Choice, Short Answer, Numerical, Random Short-Answer Matching, True/False.
• resources, using IMS Content Packaging, SCORM, AICC (CBT), LAMS
• integration with other Content Management Systems such as Postnuke (via third-party extensions)
• syndication, using RSS or Atom newsfeeds - external newsfeeds can be displayed in a course, and forums, blogs,
and other features can be made available to others as newsfeeds.
Moodle also has import features for use with other specific systems, such as importing quizzes or entire courses from
Blackboard or WebCT. These import tools are not, however perfect. At the time of writing (Feb 2010), Moodle will
not import Blackboard courses due apparently to some change in php code-releases.
Background
Origins
Martin Dougiamas, a WebCT administrator at Curtin University, Australia, who has graduate degrees in computer
science and education, wrote the first version of Moodle; the combined efforts of Todd Ballaban and Alex Trivas
popularised the system. Dougiamas started a Ph.D. to examine "The use of Open Source software to support a social
constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry".
Although how exactly social constructivism makes Moodle different from other eLearning platforms is difficult to