Registration and Enrolment are two separate tasks with Sloodle, but both are important.
Registration
“Registration” is otherwise known “authentication” or “linking”, as it links a OpenSimulator avatar to a Moodle account. Your Moodle site does this by storing a list of avatars it has seen, and keeping a note of the Moodle account owned by the same person. This is done so that, when a user in OpenSimulator does something, it can be stored on the Moodle site as the Moodle user.
Remember: you only need to register your avatar once for any Moodle site, and then it will always recognise you.
Manual Registration
The following objects can perform ‘manual registration’, where you are given a URL in OpenSimulator, and must use it to login to the Moodle site. The is best used where users are likely to have a Moodle account before they have an avatar, and where Moodle is likely to be used substantially alongside OpenSimulator:
- Sloodle Registration Booth
- Sloodle Login Zone
- Sloodle Toolbar
- Sloodle LoginZone (note: performs Enrolment as well)
- Sloodle Access Checker (note: performs Enrolment as well)
- Sloodle Access Checker Door (note: performs Enrolment as well)
Auto Registration
What is it?
If you are using Sloodle 0.3 or later, then you can configure your site and courses to allow auto-registration. If enabled, then when an avatar in OpenSimulator starts using one of your Sloodle tools, it will check to see if the avatar is already registered. If not, it will attempt to automatically create a new Moodle account for them, under the avatar’s name. This process is completed almost instantly, allowing the avatar to immediately begin using the tool, as if they were already registered.
A short time after auto registration, the system will attempt to send the avatar an instant message in OpenSimulator, containing their new username and password for Moodle, but please note that this notification may not arrive for various reasons. To counteract this problem, you can rez a Password Reset tool — when an auto-registered avatar touches it, their Moodle password will be reset to something random, and immediately reported back to them (privately) in OpenSimulator. (For security reasons, this device can only be used if the user has never logged-in to Moodle before).
If you enable auto registration, then you will normally have to enable auto enrolment (see below) as well, so that the new Moodle account can be automatically enrolled in your Moodle course. If the system detects that auto enrolment is not enabled, then it will not perform auto registration.
Note: Auto registration existed in old versions of Sloodle (before 0.3), but was not stable.
Why use it?
Auto registration makes the initial process of linking an avatar to a Moodle account much easier, and it reduces the number of objects you need to have configured. It is particularly useful if you do not expect or require your students to use Moodle directly in their web-browser.
However, it is only useful in situations where your students will have avatars before having Moodle accounts, because auto registration will always create new Moodle accounts on the local system (so it is not be compatible with external authentication databases). If you want to change the Moodle account an avatar is linked to, then you may use the Sloodle User Management tools.
How to enable it
The Sloodle configuration page, which can only be accessed by Moodle administrators, must be used to enable/disable auto registration for the whole site. If it is disabled here, then it cannot be used anywhere on the site. This is the default initial setting, because not all Moodle sites will be compatible with it (e.g. if using an external authentication database).
After auto registration is enabled on the site, it must also be enabled on each individual course where you want to use it. This can be done through the Sloodle Course Settings page, which you can either access via the Sloodle Menu Block (if you have it enabled on your site), or through a link on a Sloodle Controller Module page.
Enrolment
Many people get confused about “Enrolment”, as they don’t realise it is exactly the same as “Enrolment” for any Moodle site. A Moodle user must be enrolled in a course before they can use it, and the Sloodle tools simply provide another way of doing it. You can be enrolled in as many courses as you like.
- Enrolment is not a Sloodle feature, and does not affect the avatar at all. It is a core part of Moodle — users normally need to be enrolled in a course before being able to access it.
Manual Enrolment
An avatar can initiate manual enrolment by using one of many tools. With a dedicated tool, such as the Enrolment Booth, the user will be given a URL which they must use to login to the Moodle site. It will then ask if they want to enrol in the course. Alternatively, if using a combined registration and enrolment tool, such as the Access Checker, then they only need to login once to perform registration and enrolment. In the current version of SLOODLE, the registration booth both registers the avatar and enrolls the user if required. In SLOODLE 0.3 and earlier, use of both the registration and enrollment booths was required.
- Sloodle Registration Booth (Performs enrollment from version 0.4 onwards)
- Sloodle Enrolment Booth (0.3 and earlier only)
- Sloodle Course Selector
- Sloodle LoginZone (note: performs Registration as well)
- Sloodle Access Checker (note: performs Registration as well)
- Sloodle Access Checker Door (note: performs Registration as well)
Auto Enrolment
What is it?
If you are using Sloodle 0.3 or later, then you can configure your site and courses to allow auto-enrolment. If enabled, then when an avatar in OpenSimulator starts using one of your Sloodle tools, it will first check to see if the avatar is already registered to a Moodle account. If possible, it will auto-register them at this stage (see above). If the avatar was already registered, or if auto registration was successful, then it will automatically enrol the Moodle user in the course. If the avatar was not previously registered, and auto registration either failed or was disabled, then auto enrolment will do nothing.
Note: auto enrolment can be used without auto registration. This is useful if you want to make it easier to involve students in your class, but you do not want to allow new accounts to be automatically registered.
Why use it?
When using Moodle normally, if a student tries to access a course they are not enrolled in, it will ask them if they want to enrol. This is usually quick and easy when using a web-browser, but from OpenSimulator, it would involve opening up a web-browser, logging-in to Moodle, and confirming the desire to enrol. This can be awkward and confusing. Auto enrolment allows the interruption to be removed, so that the user simply has to start using a tool, and they can be enrolled automatically.
How to enable it
As with auto registration, the Sloodle configuration page must be used by a Moodle administrator to enable/disable auto enrolment for the whole site. If it is disabled here, then it cannot be used anywhere on the site. “Disabled” is the default initial setting.
After auto enrolment is enabled on the site, it must also be enabled on each individual course where you want to use it. This can be done through the Sloodle Course Settings page, which you can either access via the Sloodle Menu Block (if you have an instance in your course), or through a link on a Sloodle Controller Module page.
- Note: auto enrolment does not support enrolment keys, payments, or any other kind of enrolment authorization. As a general rule, do not enable auto enrolment on any course which is not normally freely available to all students on your Moodle site.