GOLDEN – Geospatial Model for Distance Education
A Moodle local plugin that turns your Moodle instance into a WebGIS. It geolocates every active user from the lastip column of mdl_user with a local MaxMind GeoLite2 database, then renders a Leaflet map with three views:
- Cluster — every student as a clustered marker.
- Choropleth — students coloured by their overall grade (or a single course grade).
- Hotspot — kernel-density heatmap weighted by inverse grade, to surface regions where learners need academic support.
All processing is performed locally; no data ever leaves your Moodle server.
Repository naming convention
When publishing the source to GitHub (or any VCS), name the repository:
moodle-local_golden
This follows the official Moodle pattern moodle-{plugintype}_{pluginname}. The directory inside Moodle remains local/golden/ and the plugin component remains local_golden — only the repository name uses the dashed prefix.
Requirements
- Moodle 3.8 or newer
- PHP 7.1 or newer (PHP 7.4 / 8.x also supported)
- A MaxMind GeoLite2-City.mmdb file (free, registration required at https://www.maxmind.com/)
The official MaxMind DB reader library (Apache 2.0) is bundled with the plugin under lib/MaxMind/ — no Composer step is required.
Installation
- Unzip
local_golden.zip into the Moodle codebase under <MOODLE_ROOT>/local/golden/.
- Visit Site administration ' Notifications so Moodle runs the upgrade.
- Download
GeoLite2-City.mmdb from MaxMind and place it at <MOODLE_ROOT>/local/golden/data/GeoLite2-City.mmdb (or override the path in plugin settings).
- Visit Site administration ' Reports ' GOLDEN Map.
Capability
local/golden:view — granted to the Manager archetype by default.
Architecture
| Layer | Files |
|---|---|
| Page entry | index.php (data-fetch + access + render only) |
| Output API | classes/output/dashboard.php (renderable + templatable) |
| Template | templates/dashboard.mustache (all HTML markup) |
| AMD module | amd/src/dashboard.js + amd/build/dashboard.min.js |
| External Service | classes/external/get_map_data.php + db/services.php |
| Domain | classes/data_service.php, classes/geoip_resolver.php |
| Privacy | classes/privacy/provider.php (null_provider) |
The browser calls the External Service via core/ajax — no custom AJAX endpoint, no bespoke JSON wire format.
Privacy
Only mdl_user.lastip, mdl_course records and grades obtained through the standard grading API are read. Geolocation runs locally via MaxMind GeoLite2. No outbound network requests to third parties.
License
GPL v3 or later — see LICENSE.
Author / Maintainer
Kamran Mir
Institute of Geographical Information Systems (IGIS)
National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST)
Islamabad, Pakistan
" kmir.phd21igis@student.nust.edu.pk
