AI Search for Moodle

Overview

A Moodle site holds years of course material, and students rarely know what any of it is called. They know their question. The AI Search Bar answers what they mean: type "where do I go when the fire alarm goes off" and it finds the Assembly points page, even though those words are not its title.

The plugin puts the bar on your site without any code, and reads only the courses you tick. Nothing is read until you tick a course, and student data is never read.

Requirements

• Moodle 4.2 or later, up to 5.1.
• PHP 8.1 or later.
• Your server must be able to make outgoing HTTPS requests to asyntai.com. Most hosts allow this.

Installing the Plugin

1. In Site administration, open Plugins, then Install plugins.
2. Upload the plugin ZIP file and install it. Moodle asks you to confirm the upgrade.
3. Open Site administration, then Plugins, then Local plugins, then Asyntai AI Search.
4. Press Connect Asyntai. A window opens where you sign in or create a free account.
5. Under Course content, tick Let Asyntai read the ticked courses, tick the courses, and press Save course content.
6. Wait a few minutes while we read the courses. The plugin screen tells you when the bar is live.

Choosing Where the Bar Appears

The setting Where the bar goes has three answers.

In the top navigation bar

The default. The bar sits in the navigation bar on every page, next to the user menu. It works with Boost, Classic and the themes built on them, which is nearly every Moodle theme.

In place of the theme's own search box

The bar finds a search box your theme already shows, hides it, and takes exactly the same place. This needs a search box on the page: global search in the navigation bar, or the course search box. If a student presses Enter without picking a result, the usual Moodle search page still opens, so nothing they already know stops working.

Inside an element I choose

Give a CSS selector, for example #page-header .header-actions, and the bar is rendered inside every element that matches. Use this for a theme that has no usual navigation bar.

Who Sees the Bar

By default only signed-in users see the bar, because it searches the course material you ticked. Tick Show the bar to visitors who are not signed in if your front page and public courses should be searchable too.

Course Content

Nothing is read until you tick a course. Untick a course at any time and it stops being read. Switch the read off and the read key is deleted, and the content is removed from Asyntai.

What is read: course names and descriptions, pages, book chapters, labels, activity descriptions, and the names of attached files. Each book chapter becomes its own search result, so a question lands on the right chapter and not on the book's front page.

What is never read: anything belonging to a student. Grades, submissions, forum posts, quiz answers and personal details all stay inside Moodle.

Saving switches on Moodle web services and the REST protocol, and creates one token. That token belongs to a service holding a single read-only function, so it cannot reach anything else in Moodle. You can see it under Site administration, Server, Web services, Manage tokens. Disconnecting the plugin deletes it.

The Other Settings

• CSS selector. For the theme's own search box: leave it empty and we find the box ourselves. For an element you choose: the element to render into.
• Placeholder text. Leave it empty and each visitor sees it in their own language.
• Accent colour. A hex colour such as #1f4e79. Leave it empty to use the colour set in your Asyntai dashboard.

Trying It Before Your Students Do

The plugin screen has a Try your search bar button. It opens your real search bar, on your real content, in a new tab. Searches you run there do not count against your monthly allowance.

Plans and Limits

A site connected through this plugin runs the bar on any plan, including the free one. Your monthly reply allowance still applies, and searches and chat replies share it. The plugin screen shows how much of the month is left.

When the allowance runs out, the bar removes itself until the month resets. The plugin checks this every ten minutes in the background, so the bar comes back by itself. You do not have to update or reinstall anything.

If Something Does Not Work

• No bar appears. Open the plugin screen and read the line under the coloured dot. It says exactly why the bar is off. Then check you are signed in: by default the bar is not shown to visitors who are not.
• Nothing to search yet. Tick the courses the bar may read and press Save course content.
• Could not reach Asyntai. Your server cannot make outgoing HTTPS requests. Ask your host to allow them.
• Asyntai could not take the read key. The Moodle web service refused our call. Check that Site administration, Server, Web services, Overview shows web services and the REST protocol enabled, then press Save once more.
• The navigation bar was not found. Your theme does not use the usual Moodle navigation bar. Choose Inside an element I choose and give a CSS selector.
• The connect step timed out. The sign-in window waits fifteen minutes. Press Connect again.

Disconnecting

Press Disconnect this site on the plugin screen. The bar stops at once, the read key is deleted, and the course material is removed from Asyntai. Uninstalling the plugin removes everything it added.

Using the Chatbot as Well

This plugin adds the search bar only. To add the chat assistant too, install our separate Moodle chatbot plugin. The two work side by side on the same pages and share the same knowledge base.