Managing Your Database

Making sure users enter quality information into the database is an important aspect of developing a collaborative tool that can be used as a valuable teaching resource. Be sure to educate your learners about entering quality data instead of just populating it willy-nilly. Structure is only one aspect of a database. Learners often enter information based on their knowledge and understanding of the purpose of the database and its goals. Don't be shy about going over organization, accuracy, and interpretation — grasping those elements can become a learning exercise. However much you introduce the concept, as the database grows, you need to track the information to ensure the information's consistency and accuracy.

Moodle has added a number of tools that help you manage the information and ensure the quality of the entries. (You can either set these options when you first create your database or go back later and enable them.)

• Comments: By adding comments, you can guide students, give them feedback, and let them know you're watching and reading what they've entered. I can hear what you're thinking: “How can I possibly find time to add comments to entries, especially if I have more than 90 students in my three Moodle courses!” You don't have to do this alone. Remember that you can set permission to specific student accounts, guest accounts, or create a new database monitor role. Why not get an assistant? You can ask a previous student, trainee, or a group leader to take the burden off your shoulders.
• Require Approval: Moodle hides entries from the learners in the course until you, or someone with the capability approves the new entry. Requiring approval helps you ensure that the entries are valuable and accurate before they become available to learners. Note that this is not a default setting: You need to select the option for it when you set up your database.
• Ratings: If the preceding two tools seem like too much work, one way to ensure quality and quantity is to assign grades for entries to the database. You can set up a simple point system or use a scale. Rewarding students for their contribution is most likely the best method to ensure quality. Students like to be rewarded, and they can view creating entries as a simple way to bring up a grade. Rating in the database doesn't provide you with a feedback field as in the Assignment or Quiz modules. However, you can combine rating with comments, and this becomes a powerful learning and assessment tool, even more so if you involve groups.

Enabling students, guests, student teachers, or any other user account to rate, comment on, or even approve entries can save you time. You select the setting options for enabling comments when you set up the database. You need to enable the other capabilities by giving the roles specific permissions.

If you didn't set the rating, comment, and approval functions when you set up the database, follow these steps:

1. Click the Update This Database button on the database viewing page, located in the top-right corner.

   Moodle takes you to Editing Database page. You see three tabs as with all activities. Moodle defaults to the Settings tab, where you can update and change any of the options and settings.

2. Scroll down the page. From the drop-down lists next to Comments and Require Approval?, select Yes.
3. Next to the question Allow Posts to Be Rated?, select the Use Ratings check box. Select the grade or scale from the drop-down list.
4. Click the Save and Display button.

To allow for specific capabilities on different roles, follow these steps:

1. Repeat Step 1 in the preceding step list.
2. Select the Override Permissions tab by clicking it.
3. From the Role to Override drop-down list, select the role you want to override.

   For example, in Figure 12-14, I selected Student.

4. From the Capability list, select the Allow radio button for the Write Comments feature and the Rate Entries feature. (See Figure 12-14.)
5. Click Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen.

Your students in the course now have the abilities to rate and comment on entries. If you want only specific learners to have permission, you need to override the permission capabilities from their profiles. Note: You can create a new role (such as Student Teacher) and assign the role the capabilities discussed in this section, and then give specific students this role. Refer to Chapter 4 for more information and examples on roles and setting permissions.

Figure 12-14: The Override Permissions page.