Importance of Reporting in Moodle
If you are a teacher who teaches on a trusted learning management system like Moodle, then you may have felt a need to get some more insight from your e-Learning program.
There’s some void that tells you to level up when it comes to knowing what’s actually happening in your online courses.
That is why reporting in Moodle makes sense. It can be useful in improving your course engagement, gauging your learner’s progress, analyzing trends in courses, managing tasks, and other activities.
Overall, the purpose of reporting in Moodle is to help you improve your courses with the help of valuable insights. They can truly help to bring out the best in your students.
Now, you may be wondering about the benefits of reporting in Moodle? Well, there are many but we have shortlisted some key pointers for you.
It’s time to know the real perks!
Benefits of Reporting in Moodle
#1 Document learner progress
The first and foremost duty of a good reporting plugin is actively documenting your learner’s progress.
For instance, you made a course that takes 4 weeks to complete. Effective reporting can show you at what pace a learner is moving from one course to another or how many tests he/she has taken or passed.
This data can be used to gauge learner activity as well. It can also help you point out some loopholes.
For example, if your students are able to complete a course earlier than you anticipated, then you may decrease the duration of the course for instance, from 5 weeks to 4 weeks to make it seem simple and less time-consuming.
And what if something goes wrong? That brings us to the next key advantage…
#2 Identify learning problems early
Sometimes, you may notice that some students quit a course midway and you wonder what’s wrong?? It’s sad to see something like that when you worked so hard to create your course material.
It’s not always your fault. Sometimes a learner may forget or some unexpected consequence may occur which you may not have any control over or the learner is simply not interested – there could be many reasons!
However, you can try to solve such problems and retain those learners by detecting them early. It may be the length of a video or a boring, non-interactive lecture.
Once you get to the root of the problem, it’s easier to fix them. This way you could fix the cause of problems instead of just treating the effects.
Efficient reporting helps you know the learning hurdles on your LMS and save your time and energy!
Imagine, you came to know through reporting that it is the length of your courses. What now? Check out the next key benefit you must know.
#3 Spot opportunities for improvements for better learning
With a good reporting system on your Moodle, opportunities can knock on your door not once but many times. If you see that you can boost learner progress by simply breaking down your course content into bite-sized pieces, maybe it could totally change the way a learner goes about your course.
It’s psychology because our brain is wired in a way that it loves to seek instant gratification!
You may also come to know that learners look for another set of courses related to the one they’re already taking.
For instance, someone who is taking a course in Maths may also need a separate course that teaches them statistics separately.
#4 Monitor and improve engagement
Getting to know what kind of courses are receiving great attention and creating content based on those inferences – This is probably the biggest advantage of reporting in Moodle.
This is a surefire way to make sure you’re coming up with relevant course content and teaching the right topics to your targeted audience – great for eventually boosting engagement levels on your Moodle.
That’s how you keep an eye and crack the code!
#5 Analysis of overall learning trends
The behavior of your learners can change more often than you think. At one point they may prefer a certain course and after a few months, the interest may fade away.
To keep yourself updated, you need smart reporting to analyze learning trends and patterns for you.
It would be a great help as it may provide a bigger picture that clearly indicates what’s working and what’s not anymore.
#6 Manage or schedule your tasks
You might think teaching online is an easy job when you compare it with the traditional teaching method.
In fact, to efficiently organize the day around your most important tasks, you may require something extra.
In fact, you may require something extra to manage your online teaching. And it’s a must if you’re responsible for a large bunch of data like enrolled students, their assignments, certifications, and generating a report for keeping each month’s record for a year.
So what can you do about it?
For example, think of short-term tasks that need to be assigned and completed in time, or organizing an online event, assigning homework, setting a reminder for working on something important that you may otherwise forget!
Don’t you need something that is smart enough to help you organize and notify important events effortlessly?
Yes, you probably do. So that’s when reporting helps you take off that stress resulting from so much management work.
How do you ensure your Moodle has a good reporting system?
Moodle has limited built-in reporting tools. And the other plugins to help you with analytics are also pretty basic.
So, we have handpicked some well-known plugins that can take care from top to toe of your reporting needs in Moodle.
Best Plugins for Reporting in Moodle
These are some really effective plugins when it comes to holistic reporting in Moodle:
#1 Edwiser Reports
Edwiser Reports is specially designed to give your online classroom an all-in-one integrated reporting system. It has some highly effective features, an easy-to-use dashboard, and a clean interface for your LMS reporting.
You can opt for Edwiser Reports if you’re on the lookout for a simple yet powerful plugin that can easily help you extract multiple types of reports ad give you clear graphical representations. It’s a free plugin!
#2 Learnerscript
Learnerscript is another good choice that provides dashboard-based reporting and analytics services to those who want to focus on some more insights for their learning website.
#3 Zoola
Zoola has features that can increase learning efficiency and works well for course engagement. But, it may take at least 2 hours to give you the entire reporting.
#4 Intelliboard
It’s a paid plugin that is created for collecting statistical data and it also reflects the data on your dashboard for easy reporting. It can create printable charts and graphs for you. It’s a good choice if you want to show your reports through a graphical presentation.
So, that was really a quick shortlist to let you know about some good options out there.
We suggest you choose a plugin that comes with integrated reporting so that you don’t have to spend much money and manage multiple plugins for your learning site.
If you want to know more then we urge you to read this article.
Towards Better Reporting in Moodle
Today, you need reporting on your Moodle not only to give you deep insights but also to motivate you to provide your students with the best course content.
Efficient reporting is all about streamlining your e-learning efforts by helping you set important targets, learning goals, and aim higher always.
There are many online teachers that use Moodle like you. They are consistently experimenting with different ways of improving the online learning experience for their learners.
So, don’t lag behind thinking that just an e-Learning site would help you grow.
Working hard is good but working smart is even better. So factor that into your teaching method and climb the ladder of success!
Conclusion
If you are a beginner in reporting or want to save some research time, we suggest you try Edwiser Reports. It’s a power-packed plugin created to offer you the best reporting in Moodle.
It’s absolutely free! So you just need to download it to get started with systematic reporting!
If you have any questions, please feel free to comment and let us know what you think.
