This fall, we are transitioning to a new front-end interface for our Moodle service used by New York State public high schools. This interface, Genius SIS, is a third-party software that integrates with various learning management systems, including Moodle. It acts as a central hub where students can log in to access course links, track progress, review teacher notes, and more. Genius SIS offers a user-friendly design and synchronizes seamlessly with Moodle for account management and enrollment.
In addition to the features mentioned above, Genius SIS retrieves course grade data from Moodle and updates student dashboards accordingly.
Here’s a typical student dashboard:
Students can access their courses by clicking the links in the “Academic Snapshot” section. Genius SIS also introduces the role of an advisor who can view course offerings and enroll students.
Technically, advisors have student accounts linked to them. They can select a student and enroll them in specific course sections. Notably, courses themselves are not directly enrollable; only their sections are. A course serves as a template for creating sections, each having a designated teacher and a unique section ID.
Genius SIS refers to the section ID as the “LMS ID,” which must correspond to an actual course on the Moodle server. This synchronization functions by matching the Genius SIS course section LMS ID with the Moodle course shortname.
When a student is enrolled in a Genius SIS course section, the information is recorded in a dedicated integration enrollment table. Moodle then accesses this table every 15 minutes via a cron script to process new enrollments.
Here’s a representation of the integration enrollment table:
It’s crucial to note that the “courseid” in this table represents both the LMS ID for the Genius SIS course section and the shortname of the corresponding Moodle course.
To mitigate confusion about course section mapping, we’re incorporating the teacher’s last name into the courseid this fall. Within Moodle, we utilize teacher categories for organizing and deploying copies of Moodle courses as needed. We create master courses, format them, back them up, and then restore or deploy them to specific categories. Including the teacher’s last name in the section LMS ID within Genius SIS helps us quickly identify the corresponding Moodle course category.
Genius SIS mandates that every course section has an LMS ID for seamless Moodle synchronization. However, Genius SIS may write enrollment data to the table even without an LMS ID, resulting in blank records and synchronization failures.
Here’s an example of the Genius SIS course list with sections:
Ideally, Genius SIS should verify the presence of both the username and courseid before adding a record to the table.
To prevent duplicate enrollments, I’ve implemented a composite UNIQUE index in the integration table based on the username, courseid, and role, ensuring that each account is enrolled only once in a course with a specific role.
It’s important to highlight that student accounts must be created before enrollment. The process involves selecting a student account and then choosing the course section for enrollment. When selecting a section, you must first choose the term, which displays the available course sections for that term. However, there’s no mechanism to verify the existence of a corresponding Moodle course. Consequently, students may be enrolled in Genius SIS course sections that lack matching Moodle courses, leading to unsuccessful enrollments.
Ensuring course section accuracy has been challenging, requiring cross-referencing Genius SIS course sections and their LMS IDs with existing Moodle courses.
Often, the information provided by my customer is incomplete, leaving me to handle the formatting, division, backup, restoration, and deployment of Moodle courses while ensuring the Moodle shortname aligns with the Genius SIS course section LMS ID.
One helpful feature in Genius SIS is the integration report, which provides insights into the success or failure of enrollment attempts.
Here’s an example of the Genius SIS integration report:
The “Error Message” and “Result” columns provide valuable information. For instance, “duplicate entry” errors indicate existing enrollments, highlighting potential issues within Genius SIS and allowing for proactive resolution.
To ensure smooth operations, I will actively monitor the Genius SIS integration report to identify and address any failed student enrollment attempts.