Hi everyone,
I am professor for financial accounting at the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences (FUAS) in Schleswig-Holstein. I use Moodle for financial accounting course since 2021. I am a big fan of Moodle, but also face challenges in teaching financial accounting with Moodle.
Problem: Unfortunately, all existing Moodle question types (qtypes) are not suitable for "journals entries", which is the most important learning objective in all introduction to accounting courses. The problem was already briefly mentioned in the past, e. g. in the German Moodle blog and documented in videos on youtube. However, the problem remains unsolved and all workarounds proposed and currently used by lecturers (e. g. qtype embedded answer (cloze)) have material drawbacks from a didactical point of view.
Solution: My goal is to develop a new type of question called “journal entry” for Moodle, which can be used to conduct automated and realistic digital exams in accounting. This would enable students to acquire important professional skills - both in business administration and interdisciplinary courses. In addition, teachers would benefit from the simplified creation of professional test questions and in turn provide much more digital learning content.
Impact: Financial accounting courses are compulsory in all studies of business management, business informatics and similar fields of study worldwide. In addition, the journal entry is not only taught in university courses, but also compulsory in all business subjects at vocational schools. Hence, an huge number of Moodle users (learners, teachers) could benefit from that plugin development. In Flensburg, in Germany and worldwide.
Timeline: This project cannot be finished within the 1-2 day of DevCamp. However, I would be happy to discuss my ideas with everyone interested during the MoodleMoot (or afterwards).
Is it worth to pitch that topic, although it needs more time than just two days? I leave the answer up to you (I have never visited a MoodleMoot before...). Feel free to comment below...
Kind regards from Flensburg,
Lasse
Contact details: https://hs-flensburg.de/hochschule/personen/tausch-nebel
Supplemental literature: Me and a colleague from FUAS published a paper on that project. It was published in a journal called "Die Neue Hochschule" (DNH) just yesterday. Unfortunately, it is only available in German and will be publicly retrievable only from October 2025 on. But feel free to contact me if you are interested.