Brickfield Education Labs

Introduction

This Quicklinks block provides a central hub with essential links, with different views for students and teachers. It also includes some customised views based on both cohorts and some designations for Year 3 students specifically (using custom user profile fields).

 

This block is designed to display a series of links, in the modern appearance of a mobile dashboard of icon links. These links are dynamically generated from customisable language strings, making them editable as required. 

 

Moreover, trackable URLs, such as bitly.com, can be used to responsibly collect data on which supports and resources are being accessed and when.

 

The Quicklinks block is intended to be used on the main Dashboard, but it can also be added to courses by teachers, if they so wish.

The Quicklinks block, in the style of a mobile icon dashboard, with three icons per row. The first row’s icons are: DCU Apps, My Details, and Library (Glas). The second row’s icons are Library (StPat), Library (MD), and Timetables. The third row’s icons are: SU, Past Papers, and Filesender. The fourth row’s icons are: Papercut, Password, and Digitary. The fifth row’s icons are: PAS, Cover Sheet, and Calendar. The sixth row’s icons are: Timetables, Help and Targets.

Administration

This section is for the administration of the Quicklinks block.

Version Support

This plugin is supported for Moodle versions 3.9, 3.11, 4.00, 4.01, 4.02, and 4.03.

Deployment

To install the Quicklinks block (block_quicklinks):

  1. Unzip and copy the quicklinks folder into Moodle’s blocks/ folder.
  2. Go to Site administration > Notifications to install the block.

 

Further installation instructions can be found on the Installing plugins Moodle documentation page.

Configurations

The configurations for the Quicklinks block are:

  • Row count – Number of links to display per row.
    • Please note: If changed from the default number of 3, a corresponding change is needed to the styling CSS for layout cohesion.
  • Mater Dei Cohort ID – The cohort ID assigned for Mater Dei students. (Specific to client)
  • Year 3 Registration year – Value (in MSN field) to distinguish Year 3 students. (Specific to client)
  • Enable example icons – Display icons built from FontAwesome.

Capabilities

Capability name Manager Teacher Auth user
block/quicklinks:addinstance: Add a new Quicklinks block Allow Allow
block/quicklinks:myaddinstance: Add a new Quicklinks block to My home Allow

Addinstance capability

The capability “block/quicklinks:addinstance” allows users with the relevant permissions for that context to add the Quicklinks block.

 

This capability is granted by default to these following archetype roles, using course context:

  • Manager
  • Teacher

Myaddinstance capability

The capability “block/quicklinks:myaddinstance” allows users with the relevant permissions for that context to add the Quicklinks block.

 

This capability is granted by default to these following archetype roles, using course context:

  • Auth user

Copyright and funding

This plugin has been developed, maintained, and is copyrighted by Brickfield Education Labs, while initial funding for this plugin was provided by Dublin City University, Dundalk Institute.