Get your workspace

1 Get your workspace

You should take the appropriate time to establish your workspace. Your workspace is where you will practise and where you will learn. It is where you will spend a lot of time while studying this module and it is worth your while ensuring that it is properly configured.

All OU installations of Moodle support the question types described in this course and you may use any OU Moodle workspace available to you. Be sure that you are given permissions to create both questions and quizzes.

This course is also available on OpenLearn Works. For 'open learners' it is perhaps easiest if you do this with a local copy on your PC or Mac which you can obtain here http://download.moodle.org/ . The next section will guide you through installing Moodle on your PC or laptop.

The illustrations on this site are taken from Moodle 2.5 running at the OU.

1.1 How to install Moodle on a Windows PC

1. Point your browser at http://download.moodle.org/ .
2. Select the link at the top of the page to the special installer packages for Windows.
3. Choose the version to download. Hands-on Moodle Quiz has been written using the stable download of Moodle 2.5.
4. Follow the instructions available from http://docs.moodle.org/ 25/ en/ Complete_install_packages_for_Windows.
5. Please be aware that the actual installation takes of the order of 10 minutes. Please be patient while the installer goes about its business.
6. Once you have Moodle running 'Create a new course' for your Question and Quiz practice area. You need only provide a name and short name at this point.
7. Once your course has been created return to the 'Home' page and bookmark the URL in your browser.

That's it. You now have your own Moodle installed on your own PC.

But before exiting this section let's make sure that you are totally clear about how to restart Moodle on subsequent occasions.

1. As Moodle is currently running you must first stop it. Go to the folder where you installed Moodle and run 'Stop Moodle'. Stopping Moodle takes 10 seconds or so.

I have put the reminder about how to start Moodle in the next section so that you can find it more easily should you need to remind yourself.

1.2 Restarting your locally installed Moodle on a Windows PC

1. Open the folder where you installed Moodle.
2. Run 'Start Moodle'.
3. Point your browser at http://localhost .
4. Login using your administrator login and password.
5. And go to your practice course.

You now have your own workspace where you can develop your eAssessment skills using Moodle's tools.

Stopping Moodle

Don't forget that to stop Moodle you should:

1. Go to the folder where you installed Moodle and run 'Stop Moodle'. Stopping Moodle takes 10 seconds or so.