Moodle

Sounds interesting for me (+1). Assigning it to Martin for his consideration and addressing to Moodle 2.0 because it contains DB changes.

Ciao

This would be extremely useful to my organization. We have several course that we have to limit enrollment due to classroom size and vendor requirement. Being able to have a max enrollment option would make things much easier.

I'm new to Moodle but recently used it to build a site for a client and am impressed. We where both surprised to see that this functionality is not yet built into Moodle. What organisations are able to handle an unlimited number of students?

Luckily my client found this patch, although for now I will have to re-install it every time Moodle is upgraded. Please include this wonderful patch in the next version of Moodle!

Mark - I think the idea of limiting the number of enrollments is usually something handled on the Student Information System where students' schedules are designed and managed. On the learning management side it is really less of an issue. To limit enrollment, teachers usually make use of an enrollment key and only give it to students who they want to enroll. The idea of max enrollment is interesting but simply has not generated huge amounts of interest as far as I can tell. Thanks for expressing your interest as it is helpful to know when folks would find it useful. Just because you can have unlimited enrollments does not mean that you will. On the other hand, I sort of chuckled to myself when you ask what organizations are able to handle unlimited number of students because the first answer that came to mind was Moodle.org. On a pedagogical side, since Moodle is designed using the philosophy that all have the possibility to contribute something to a course, there is a general tendency to favor inclusiveness over exclusiveness. So usually Moodle will work at figuring out how to leave the door open rather than how to close it to users. That said, it does not mean that there may not be the real need to close certain doors for certain user and hence that is really when patches are most appropriate. Such features can be quite useful but may not fit within the larger design of Moodle. Having said that, I do support adding this particular functionality to Moodle core which is why I have voted for it and watch the issue to see what happens but figured playing a little "devil's advocate" might be helpful in terms of explaining why this particular patch may not have been jumped on and included right away. Of course the fact that the current priority is on the development of Moodle 2.0 also explains why nothing has happened on this issue quickly. Thanks for your patience and do report back if you have any problems with the patch or suggestions on how to improve it. Are you familiar with working with CVS and applying patches. That might make things a little easier for you during upgrades. Peace - Anthony

Thanks for you comments and explanations Anthony, interesting and valid points.

I'm new to Moodle but a client wanted a Moodle site for running a series of courses for prospective novel writers. We are both really impressed with Moodle and I'm hoping more clients will ask for Moodle sites. Moodle 2.0 sounds awesome as well.

This was my first Moodle patch and all went well. I'm not sure what a CVS is but I'll look into it.

Thanks again, cheers Mark

Mark - Thanks for your openness. Examples of settings where the patch would be helpful and other usage scenarios can help explain the utility. You can get an intro to CVS for Administrators at http://docs.moodle.org/en/CVS_for_Administrators. Happy Moodling! Peace - Anthony

Anthony, following up on your comments. I get a steady trickle of people asking questions about the patch and in particular asking for versions of the patch to match older weekly versions of Moodle. I do not know how many people use the patch without contacting me. I belive you (or someone els) said that there was a count kept of downloads (from http://download.moodle.org/download.php/patches/max_enrolment.zip).

The limit on students is most often required where tutors lead discussions and can only handle a limited number of students. Not everyone has a student information system.

Alan.

Alan - Yep, you can checkout the stats at http://download.moodle.org/stats.php - looks like you are getting about 3 downloads per day making it #4 on the patches list! I only mentioned the idea of the student information system because like the file repository work some jobs are best handled by other applications because otherwise there will be a temptation to make Moodle do and be everything which tends to diminish a product long term so it is really a question of what should be on the Moodle side and what ought to be on the SIS side. As long as we pause to ask the question of "Should Moodle do this or might it be better handled by some other type of software" then I think we are OK. Peace - Anthony

Hello,
I have implemented a similar solution in enrol/self plugin. Other enrol plugins may use similar solution in the future. Thank you for the idea and patch.

Petr Skoda