Publishing to the plugins database - marcusgreen/moodle-qtype_aitext GitHub Wiki
The Question
Thanks to Marco Lehrefor (Educational IT Services, ETH Zurich) asking this question in the Moodle.org forums on 15 April 2025
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=455612#p1876743
"do you intend to publish this useful question type "qtype_aitext" on https://moodle.org/plugins ?"
The short answer is eventually, but let me expand (jump to the end to see how money might make a difference)
What are the benefits for users of having a plugin in the database. You can see the checklist for approval here
There is also an unspoken factor that a person who goes through the acceptance process is serious about what they do. One thing the approval process cannot address is are the publishers in this "for the longer run?" I have had plugins in the database since 2012 https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=203802 And intend to keep working in this area for the rest of my life.
Mebis fork
There is a close fork of AIText maintained by mebis-lp (who have a very interesting ai subsystem comparison to the one in core moodle)
https://github.com/mebis-lp/moodle-qtype_aitext
They have contributed excellent code to AIText in the past and are a source of knowledge should I get hit by "the proverbial bus". Mebis are the people who look after the Moodle for the Bavarian (German) Government schools so they are serious people.
My recent plugins contributions
On 28 February I had the Driprelease plugin accepted into the plugins database which you can see here
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/CONTRIB-9723
So I am familiar with the current standards expected.
Maturing of Moodle core AI
Because the world of Moodle AI plugins is moving quickly there is a risk that being available from the plugins database would generate significant requests for support and I would rather be developing functionality than offering support. If you take a look at the AI Forum at Moodle org you will see that simply getting a link between Moodle and an external AI System can be a challenge.
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=8826
I am expecting that to improve, especially with this ticket about more informative error messages
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-83147
Commercial consultancy
Up to here this is all about work I do outside my paid for day job. However if being in the plugins database is very important to you and you have a budget you can approach my employers https://www.catalyst-eu.net and discuss commissioning my time to work on getting it into the plugins database. The development time would probably be measured in days rather than weeks, though the total process time would certainly be at least weeks as there is a queue to process the approval of plugins.