The information from the CSV file that was formatted with only the username and the shortname of the courses to enroll users in was used to update the enrollment information for each of our 500 student accounts. The result is that all the students have now been enrolled in two new courses. This is a relatively easy and low-tech method of enrolling existing users in new courses.

Now, practice what you learned earlier in this chapter and check the results of the new enrollment from either the course perspective or user perspective as outlined earlier. You'll see that all of the Reading and Writing courses now have 25 students enrolled in them and that each student has four courses listed in his or her profile.

Additionally, there are quite a few options available when using the Upload users feature built into Moodle. Experiment with them a little using either the file that we used to create user accounts earlier in this chapter, or the one that we just used to enroll existing users. Use Update existing users only again, but this time experiment with some of the options for changing user details using both information from the file and information that you enter in the Default values section. Modifying user details in such a manner can be useful, for example, when students change departments or majors, or when other user-related information that you store in user profiles, is changed.

As stated earlier in this chapter, both enrolling users when creating their accounts and enrolling them after their accounts exist, via the use of the Upload users tool, are only practical given one of the two following circumstances:

While these two conditions may appear to include any type of possible enrollment within a course, there are options within the Moodle framework that do not fall cleanly into either of these categories. For example, if the default enrollment plugin in Moodle, internal enrollment, is used without an enrollment key or an enrollment period, controlling course enrollment from the CIMS perspective is difficult, if not impossible.

Understanding the various enrollment plugins available in Moodle will better enable us to build our CIMS such that it is easily and efficiently maintained. These enrollment plugins can all be accessed from the Site Administration block found on the front page of your site by clicking on the Courses link and then on Enrolments. The list of enrollment options as you will see it in your site, is shown in the following screenshot. Click on the Edit link found under Settings to view the settings for each plugin.

The following is a reordered list of these enrollment options in order of simplicity of setup and practicality from the CIMS perspective, followed by an explanation of how some of them may be used when positioning your Moodle site as a CIMS:

The following is the explanation of enrollment options:

In order to position your Moodle site as a CIMS, that is, to create all of the courses offered in your educational program and enroll users in those courses such that every user registered for or assigned to a course in your program is also enrolled in the same course on your Moodle site, you need to decide upon a practical enrollment option. The easiest option, although arguably not the most advanced and efficient, is to use the Upload users tool included in the Moodle core installation. As you become more familiar and comfortable with your CIMS and start to expand upon its potential, you may choose to explore other more sophisticated enrollment options.