MooChat

MooChat Activity brings AI-powered conversations to the center of your course with complete conversation tracking, AI-based grading, and course content restriction. Unlike sidebar blocks, this activity module provides a prominent, full-featured chat experience that can be displayed inline on the course page or as a dedicated activity — with full teacher oversight of all student interactions.

Key Features

Activity Completion (NEW in v1.8.0)

Activity completion added for grade and chat count.  Also, the grade defaults to "None" as adding this as a graded assignment is the Beta feature.

Course Content Upload & Restriction (NEW in v1.7.0)

Teachers can upload PDF or plain text files directly to the activity for the AI to use as reference material. Enable "Only Use Uploaded Content" to restrict the AI strictly to those files — perfect for ensuring students engage with assigned readings rather than relying on general AI knowledge. If a student asks something not covered in the uploaded content, the AI responds: "I don't have information about that in the course materials."

AI-Based Grading with Learning Objectives (NEW in v1.5.0)

Teachers enter learning objectives (one per line) that students never see. The teacher provides a hint in the activity description to guide the conversation (e.g., "Tell me what you know about the Merry Men"). As students chat naturally, the AI evaluates each exchange and awards points when a specific objective is covered — maximum one objective per reply, keeping students engaged throughout the conversation. Awarded objectives appear progressively in the student's sidebar as they are discovered, with a notification toast in the chat window.

Session-Based Scoring (NEW in v1.6.0)

Each "Clear Chat" starts a brand new grading session. Students can retry as many times as they want — only their best session score is recorded in the gradebook. If a student earned 70 points in a previous attempt, a new session must exceed 70 to update their grade.

PDF and PPTX File Support (NEW in v1.4.0)

MooChat can read PDF and PowerPoint (.pptx) files uploaded as File resources in the course section. PDF text extraction uses pdftotext (poppler-utils) if available, with automatic fallback to the bundled smalot/pdfparser library. Plain text files (txt, csv, html) are also supported. No Composer required on the server.

Conversation History Tracking (NEW in v1.3.0)

Teachers can view complete student-AI conversation histories organized by session, with per-session scores and a clear indicator of which session is recorded in the gradebook. The student list shows each student's best score. Full privacy compliance with GDPR data export and deletion. Included in course backup/restore.

Display & Interface

• Inline Mode: Chat appears directly on the course page — perfect for always-available assistance
• Separate Page Mode: Traditional activity link — ideal for focused chat sessions
• Horizontal Layout: Professional side-by-side design with avatar/info panel on left, chat on right
• Custom AI Personalities: Define unique system prompts — create tutors, historical figures, fictional characters, or subject-matter experts
• Avatar Support: Upload custom images with adjustable sizing (48px to 128px)
• Rate Limiting: Configurable question limits per hour or per day with server-side tracking — students cannot bypass limits by clearing chat
• Auto-Cleanup: Usage records automatically purge after 7 days

Teacher Tools

• Upload course content files (PDF, txt) for AI reference
• Restrict AI to uploaded content only
• Set learning objectives for automatic AI grading
• Full gradebook integration with teacher grade override
• View per-session conversation history with scores
• Monitor student engagement and identify learning gaps
• Export conversation data for assessment or analysis

Technical Details

• Built for Moodle 4.4+ using core AI subsystem
• No external dependencies, API keys, or third-party services required
• Works with any Moodle-compatible AI provider (OpenAI, Azure, Anthropic, local Ollama, etc.)
• Responsive design adapts to mobile and desktop
• Full backup/restore support including conversation data, objective results, and uploaded content files
• GDPR compliant with full data export and deletion support

Use Cases

• Restrict AI to a specific textbook chapter — students must engage with the reading
• Grade students on literature comprehension through natural conversation with a fictional character
• Subject tutoring with automatic progress tracking and gradebook integration
• Language learning conversation partners
• Exam preparation and study guide assistance
• Historical figure simulations with learning objective assessment

Requirements

• Moodle 4.4 or higher
• Moodle core AI subsystem configured with at least one AI provider
• poppler-utils recommended for PDF text extraction (apt install poppler-utils)
• If nginx sits in front of Apache, set client_max_body_size to at least 10M for PDF uploads

Note: This is the activity module version of MooChat. A block version is also available separately for sidebar placement. Both can coexist on the same Moodle installation without conflicts.