7-Point Guide to Better Reporting in Moodle
What gets measured, gets managed – Yes, absolutely!
Peter Drucker was right when he said this!
Because if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it and if you can’t manage it, you can’t change or improve it!
Making the Right Choices to Improve e-Learning
As a Moodle teacher or administrator, you’re consistently making crucial learning decisions.
Decisions for an enhanced LMS, better courses, and eventually a superior learning experience for your students.
To make good decisions, you need to know what’s happening on your Moodle site – like everything from top to bottom. So, that’s when effective reporting becomes essential in Moodle.
And sometimes just knowing all of it is not enough. What you do with that data makes all the difference.
Also, not to forget you need better control with your reporting system. This is particularly important to get the information you need and make informed decisions that directly help you achieve e-Learning success.
Do you know:– According to Market Research Future (MRFR), the global learning analytics market is set to grow by 26% CAGR by 2023.
A Note to Beginners
The golden rule of efficient reporting in Moodle is to keep it realistic, simple, and minimal.
Realistic – Because you need to be able to take appropriate actions based on the insights gathered
Simple – Because nobody is big on complex things, especially reports with no substance. Your reports must be easy to read and understand.
Minimal – Because information overload does more bad than good. Too many details can distract you and possibly contribute to bad decisions. So, cut out the fluff!
To make sure you get actionable data that helps you get to the planned milestones for your e-Learning program, we’ve prepared a short guide for you.
Keep reading.
Guide to Better Reporting in Moodle
Follow this super-quick guide to help you take the pain out of reporting in Moodle
#1 Know your objectives
This is a basic ground rule for all novice teachers/admins dealing with reporting in Moodle. If you’re aware of your learning goals, it’s easier to identify the data you need to report on.
Whether you want to simply check course progress or you want to improve your courses or you’re looking for a full-fledged reporting system that helps you create multiple types of reports – there are so many different aspects to consider. Make sure your objectives are well-thought-out.
#2 Identify the Metrics
Once you are clear with your objectives, the next step is to figure out the metrics you want to be looking at. The metrics you want to track will depend on the goals you’ve set.
Don’t just report flashy vanity metrics. Because they would neither point out potential red flags on your site nor help you gain any meaningful insights into your learners.
Since you’re just starting out, we’d recommend these 7 e-Learning metrics you should track when analyzing learner behaviour on your Moodle site.
#3 Zero in on the Right Tool
The next logical step now – You need to find the perfect tool that effectively captures all your metrics upfront. Don’t forget the look and feel aspect too!
What equally matters is how easy to use your reporting tool or system is. It should present actionable information in the most convenient way.
For example, having a single reporting system equipped with a holistic dashboard is way better than having individual reports created with different plugins and scattered all over the place. Dashboards are great for beginners for organizing and filtering a large amount of data.
Also, your choice of a reporting tool depends on how you want to view and extract your data. With so little to offer, working with the built-in reporting options in Moodle can be a lot of work. It’s just not worth the effort!
These reports are complex to access, they lack visual reporting and involve a steeper learning curve.
While there are additional plugins to fill the gap, they aren’t enough. Also, they are neither beginner-friendly nor capable of giving deep insights into learning patterns. So, think what your ideal reporting tool would be!
#4 Make the Most of Graphs
Graphs are boring, right? WRONG!
Not once you’ve chosen the right reporting tool for your Moodle site. Visual reporting makes all the difference. Now by visual, I don’t mean your graphical representations in Moodle have to look super-stunning! But they should be simple to read and analyze.
Nice graphics and colors do look great. But focusing more on aesthetics and less on giving insightful information about your learners is all that’s wrong with most reporting graphs today.
As a beginner, being able to make sense of your graphs is crucial. So, to get started in the right direction in this case, stay away from “chartjunk” (a word for terribly misleading charts/graphs by Edward Tufte)
#5 Capitalize on your Popular Courses
There’s a lot going on your Moodle site. It’s difficult to keep track of every single activity. Also, it can be a bit tricky for a beginner like you to track so much and use that data for making improvements to your e-Learning program. That’s when your popular courses come in really handy.
A reporting plugin that keeps track of popular courses deserves to be in your plugin or tool collection. It’s actually the best way to keep your learners engaged – just give them more of what they’ve been loving on your Moodle site so far.
This could also be a great reference point to improve your courses.
#6 Focus on Measuring and Improving Engagement
Keep an eye out for active users as well as daily activities on your Moodle site to get insights into key learning trends or learner behaviour.
Opt for a reporting plugin or system that easily gives you a detailed account of how your site is accessed by your learners.
Once you get an idea of their psyche, their preferences, their login/ logout timings, and the way they go about using your courses, the learning patterns are clearer. So, you can organize important tasks on your site accordingly using this insight.
#7 Save Time and Effort with a Customizable Dashboard
I can’t stress enough how important this is! The whole point of having a dashboard is to see and review valuable learner data at a glance. You want to be able to easily set up your own view of insights by adding or deleting blocks. A few clicks and BOOM, you have all the information that matters, right in front of you.
Data analysis becomes 10 times easier when condensed on the dashboard. When your reporting plugin provides you with multiple reports to analyze, dashboards give you major control of all the learning elements and a consolidated view of relevant information from one single place.
Conclusion
Hope this guide helps you get better at reporting in Moodle and hit your final reporting milestone successfully. Let us know what you think about this article in the comments section below
You could also try Edwiser Reports for free to get started with simple and effective reporting.
