Datalynx – one module, many applications

The plugin “Datalynx” is a data management tool developed by David Bogner, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Wunderbyte. The Moodle plugin is a complex module for collecting and analyzing data. In Moodle it can be used e.g. for the creation of seminar catalogs or for the mapping of certification processes. However, due to its adaptability, Datalynx is also suitable for other tasks.

The module can be downloaded free of charge on github. Of course, it will be continuously adapted to the current Moodle version. A comprehensive documentation can be found in MoodleDocs 3.10.

As recently reported, we implemented a brand new eCampus for our client, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). There we applied the full range of Moodle’s capabilities depending on the subject area and the demands of the respective courses. A virtual space for conferences was also created within the eCampus. Among other things, the Datalynx module was used for this purpose, which we in this specific case adapted as a video gallery. The activity “Datalynx course page” again allows viewing directly on the course page.

Showcases Datalynx possible applications

Advantages of using Datalynx compared to the conventional Moodle activity “database” are, among others, the possibility to change the thumbnails. In addition, the videos are rendered directly and not inserted via a link. Thus, the individual videos can be played directly in the gallery.

For another customer, we used Datalynx to request required data for the certificate plugin from participants. These fields can then be integrated into the “Custom Certificate” plugin and enable an individualized and automatically generated course certificate. This also very useful Moodle plugin will be presented in one of our next news articles. So come back and have a look at our news section regularly.