Overall design

• Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities, critical reflection, etc)
• Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning
• Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface
• Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one database (and can share it).
• Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for initial table definition)
• Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility to guests.
• Courses can be categorised and searched - one Moodle site can support thousands of courses
• Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data validated, cookies encrypted etc
• Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings, journal entries etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor

Site management

• Site is managed by an admin user, defined during setup
• Plug-in "themes" allow the admin to customise the site colours, fonts, layout etc to suit local needs
• Plug-in activity modules can be added to existing Moodle installations
• Plug-in language packs allow full localisation to any language. These can be edited using a built-in web-based editor. Currently there are language packs for over 34 languages.
• The code is clearly-written PHP under a GPL license - easy to modify to suit your needs

User management

• Goals are to reduce admin involvement to a minimum, while retaining high security
• Supports a range of authentication mechanisms through plug-in authentication modules, allowing easy integration with existing systems.
• Standard email method: students can create their own login accounts. Email addresses are verified by confirmation.
• LDAP method: account logins can be checked against an LDAP server. Admin can specify which fields to use.
• IMAP, POP3, NNTP: account logins are checked against a mail or news server. SSL, certificates and TLS are supported.
• External database: any database containing at least two fields can be used as an external authentication source.
• Each person requires only one account for the whole server - each account can have different access
• An admin account controls the creation of courses and creates teachers by assigning users to courses
• A course creator account is only allowed to create courses and teach in them
• Teachers may have editing privileges removed so that they can't modify the course (eg for part-time tutors)
• Security - teachers can add an "enrolment key" to their courses to keep out non-students. They can give out this key face-to-face or via personal email etc
• Teachers can enrol students manually if desired
• Teachers can unenrol students manually if desired, otherwise they are automatically unenrolled after a certain period of inactivity (set by the admin)
• Students are encouraged to build an online profile including photos, description. Email addresses can be protected from display if required.
• Every user can specify their own timezone, and every date in Moodle is translated to that timezone (eg posting dates, assignment due dates etc)
• Every user can choose the language used for the Moodle interface (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese etc)

Course management

• A full teacher has full control over all settings for a course, including restricting other teachers
• Choice of course formats such as by week, by topic or a discussion-focussed social format
• Flexible array of course activities - Forums, Journals, Quizzes, Resources, Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, Workshops
• Recent changes to the course since the last login can be displayed on the course home page - helps give sense of community
• Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings, journal entries etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor
• All grades for Forums, Journals, Quizzes and Assignments can be viewed on one page (and downloaded as a spreadsheet file)
• Full user logging and tracking - activity reports for each student are available with graphs and details about each module (last access, number of times read) as well as a detailed "story" of each students involvement including postings, journal entries etc on one page.
• Mail integration - copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be mailed in HTML or plain text.
• Custom scales - teachers can define their own scales to be used for grading forums, assignments and journals
• Courses can be packaged as a single zip file using the Backup function. These can be restored on any Moodle server.

Assignment Module

• Assignments can be specified with a due date and a maximum grade.
• Students can upload their assignments (any file format) to the server - they are date-stamped.
• Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of lateness is shown clearly to the teacher
• For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade and comment) on one page in one form.
• Teacher feedback is appended to the assignment page for each student, and notification is mailed out.
• The teacher can choose to allow resubmission of assignments after grading (for regrading)

Chat Module

• Allows smooth, synchronous text interaction
• Includes profile pictures in the chat window
• Supports URLs, smilies, embedded HTML, images etc
• All sessions are logged for later viewing, and these can also be made available to students

Choice Module

• Like a poll. Can either be used to vote on something, or to get feedback from every student (eg research consent)
• Teacher sees intuitive table view of who chose what
• Students can optionally be allowed to see an up-to-date graph of results

Forum Module

• Different types of forums are available, such as teacher-only, course news, open-to-all, and one-thread-per-user.
• All postings have the authors photo attached.
• Discussions can be viewed nested, flat or threaded, oldest or newest first.
• Individual forums can be subscribed to by each person so that copies are forwarded via email, or the teacher can force subscription for all
• The teacher can choose not to allow replies (eg for an announcements-only forum)
• Discussion threads can be easily moved between forums by the teacher
• Attached images are shown inline
• If forum ratings are being used, these can be restricted to a range of dates

Journal Module

• Journals are private between student and teacher.
• Each journal entry can be directed by an open question.
• For each particular journal entry, the whole class can be assessed on one page in one form
• Teacher feedback is appended to the journal entry page, and notification is mailed out.

Quiz Module

• Teachers can define a database of questions for re-use in different quizzes
• Questions can be stored in categories for easy access, and these categories can be "published" to make them accessible from any course on the site.
• Quizzes are automatically graded, and can be re-graded if questions are modified
• Quizzes can have a limited time window outside of which they are not available
• At the teacher's option, quizzes can be attempted multiple times, and can show feedback and/or correct answers
• Quiz questions and quiz answers can be shuffled (randomised) to reduce cheating
• Questions allow HTML and images
• Questions can be imported from external text files
• Quizzes can be attempted multiple times, if desired
• Attempts can be cumulative, if desired, and finished over several sessions
• Multiple-choice questions supporting single or multiple answers
• Short Answer questions (words or phrases)
• True-False questions
• Matching questions
• Random questions
• Numerical questions (with allowable ranges)
• Embedded-answer questions (cloze style) with answers within passages of text
• Embedded descriptive text and graphics

Resource Module

• Supports display of any electronic content, Word, Powerpoint, Flash, Video, Sounds etc
• Files can be uploaded and managed on the server, or created on the fly using web forms (text or HTML)
• External content on the web can be linked to or seamlessly included within the course interface.
• External web applications can be linked in with data passed to them

Survey Module

• Built-in surveys (COLLES, ATTLS) have been proven as instruments for analysing online classes
• Online survey reports always available, including many graphs. Data is downloadable as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV text file.
• Survey interface prevents partly-finished surveys.
• Feedback is provided to the student of their results compared to the class averages

Workshop Module

• Allows peer assessement of documents, and the teacher can manage and grade the assessment.
• Supports a wide range of possible grading scales
• Teacher can provide sample documents for students to practice grading
• Very flexible with many options.