Moodle 2.0

Forcing users to log in
As stated in the directions, setting this to Yes causes the Front Page to become
hidden until a visitor logs in to Moodle. When visitors first hit your Moodle site,
they see the Moodle Login Page.
Chapter 3
Setting this to Yes means that you cannot use Moodle's Front Page as an information
and sales tool. You can customize the text on the Login Page, but you won't be able
to add all of the features available on the Front Page.
Setting this to No enables you to use a non-Moodle page as your introduction to the
site. If you want your Front Page to be something that cannot be created in Moodle,
this is a good option. For example, we could make moodle.williamrice.com/
index.htm into a flash presentation about our site. Visitors then click on an Enter
link and are taken to the Moodle Login Page at moodle.williamrice.com/moodle/
index.php. Notice that this requires us to put Moodle into its own subdirectory. If
you want a non-Moodle introduction page that leads to a Moodle Login Page, put
Moodle into its own subdirectory or subdomain.
Force users to log in for profiles
What the directions don't state is that setting this to No enables anonymous visitors
to read not only teachers' profiles, but also the profiles of any students enrolled in
courses that have guest access. This may be a privacy issue.
The effect of enabling Force users to login for profiles is that anonymous visitors
cannot read the profiles for the teachers in a course that accepts guest access. They
must register as a student before being able to read student and user profiles. This
may be a drawback if your teachers' profiles are a selling point for the course.
Consider enabling this to force people to register before reading student or teacher
profiles. Then, if your teachers' profiles are a selling point, you can add a section to
the Front Page for "About Our Teachers".
Open to Google
This setting lets the Google indexing robot into courses that allow guest access. If you
want to know more about the Googlebot, see http://www.google.com/bot.html.
It seems that everyone with a website wants their site to be ranked high in Google's
search results. However, you should consider whether you really want Google
to add each of your guest-enabled courses to its search engine. There are several
disadvantages:
• If your course content changes frequently, Google might index out-of-date
information for your courses.
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