Source: Own illustration
On May 7, nearly 100 participants from North Rhine-Westphalia and other regions gathered virtually for the Moodle Community Meeting to discuss topics related to Moodle. Twice a year, the Moodle.NRW Competence Center hosts a community meeting. Not only are interested parties from North Rhine-Westphalia welcome, but also anyone else from German-speaking countries who works with Moodle. Moodle.NRW is part of the Network Moodle at Universities e. V. RWTH is a member of the association and participates in various projects related to Moodle.
A Wide Range of Topics
On behalf of RWTH, Sebastian Schilling and Katharina Uhlig (both from the Center for Teaching and Learning Services, CLS), together with Christine Redeker from the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, presented the Moodle plugin “TestMaker.” The plugin is being developed as part of the Digitalkompetenz.nrw project. With “TestMaker,” self-assessments and surveys can be created and evaluated. The plugin is not yet available, but is scheduled to be released as open-source software for everyone by the end of 2026.
Of course, AI was also a key topic at the community meeting. In the session “RAG-based Chatbots in Moodle: Transparent AI Support for University Teaching,” Luis Klocke (OSKI.nrw, Ruhr University Bochum) and Bastian Schmidt-Kuhl (MIau.nrw, Ruhr University Bochum) presented a plugin that allows instructors to integrate chatbots into their learning spaces. The chatbot is based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and retrieves information from the learning materials provided by instructors. The plugin itself runs on the respective university’s hardware, and inference can be obtained, for example, via KI:connect. Students can use the chatbot to obtain information from the learning materials by asking the chatbot relevant questions. Provided the plugin is installed, the chatbot is made available via an activity in the learning space.
Sabine Römer from Ruhr University Bochum explained in her session how digital escape rooms are used in higher education. The escape rooms can be created using various H5P elements. Various AI tools were used for the concept and the generation of illustrations. Gamification is also a recurring topic in most of RWTHmoodle training sessions, so it was interesting to see what other scenarios are possible, such as digital escape rooms.
Moodle thrives on an active community that can exchange ideas, help with various problems, and develop solutions together. Events like the community meetup are a great opportunity to present plugins or scenarios for learning spaces.
The next Moodle community meetup will take place on November 12, 2026, at Ruhr University Bochum.
Responsible for the content of this article is Verena Grouls
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