A Plugin for Analysis the Usage of Virtual Courses in the Moodle Platform

Abstract

Learning Management Systems (LMS) consist of a set of virtual tools, focused on the teaching-learning process. In large educational institutions, the number of virtual courses created in this type of environment is significantly high, which raises challenges regarding the administration and maintenance of such courses. One of these challenges is gathering information about the usage of these courses, i.e., whether they are merely used as file repositories, as communication channels with students, or as a framework of learning resources available in the LMS (such as quiz, chat, questionnaires, among others). This paper presents a computational resource (plugin) for the Moodle LMS. This plugin is able to classify, in real time, the type of usage of the virtual courses created in the LMS. In addition, we present the preliminary results obtained with the usage of this plugin at the UFLA (in English, Federal University of Lavras).