Series 3 of College updates LSHTM

• Training @ LSHTM starts in June;

         - a basic intro to Moodle video has been produced and a series of further videos are being prepared. The videos will provide the initial taster to Moodle and will be followed by an introductory course with hands-on practice to enable courses to be created.

 

• All the technical integration work has been done; the courses will be created internally through the LDAP integration and 13 new roles will be added.
• Enrolments will be added in an automated fashion as and when they come in via the LDAP integration
• Migration for DL is scheduled for 17-19th September.
• Bb migration will be limited to some Bb Organisations.  This is because we do not copy over Bb Courses each year.
• Testing will be a separate function from migration.  IT Services, DL & TSO will all have test courses, each containing their own roles.  This will allow each Department to fully test Roles and courses over the summer, prior to going live.
• Only some minor tweaks are expected to be required.

College Updates

Today the College update comes from the Institute of Education and they have shared with us where they are with:

 Moodle Setup:

• LDAP now works for staff and students.
• Creation of courses still pending.
• Theme design work still pending.

Content Migration:

• Helper applications received, appointments currently being processed.

Training:

• Three different courses now running regularly (Moodle 101, Basic Course Design, Advanced Course Design).
• About 150 staff have been trained so far (plus 8 with SysAdmin roles)

College Updates

News from Birkbeck at the end of May.

• SITS integration

Following the initial feed-files upload into Moodle on 14th April, ULCC manually uploaded our second set of data on 8th May after switching off the course template functionality. The format of courses‟ feed-file in this second upload was changed to include only three fields of courseID, course-name and course-category as we decided to use the courseIDs for the course-short names.  This second set of data included 50 Organisational Psychology modules that did not require course templates. In addition 90 new modules were also created in this upload. The course templates were applied to these new modules manually.  Similarly course templates are applied to new modules manually after each course feed file upload and the creation of new modules. Since the second data upload, the courses and enrolments feed files have been regularly uploaded into our SFTP  server and processed automatically.  Before uploading these files to SFTP area, they are checked for possible errors and data inconsistencies and on several occasions the SQL script had to be modified to correct the detected problems before uploading them into the SFTP server.  

• Moodle Training:

The daily training sessions have been running for more than a month. While attendance was good in the beginning. We have seen a dip in attendance lately to the extent we have cancelled a few training sessions. Generally, although we reserve the right to cancel if we have fewer than 5 participants, we have run more of these than we have cancelled. Three different sessions have been offered:

·  Introduction to Moodle: This session is designed for staff, who either are new to Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) or do NOT need to migrate materials from Blackboard to Moodle.

·  Migration to Moodle: This session is designed for staff, who need to migrate a significant amount of content from Blackboard to Moodle. This will include a basic introduction to using Moodle.

We also started offering Moodle for Administrators which includes:

·  Batch backup of Blackboard Assignments  

·  Backup of Turnitin Assignments

·  Backup of student records (grade centre)

·  Backup of Blackboard course materials

·  Creating groups and groupings

·  Overview of assignments in Moodle  

We are intending to offer the same extensive training through July and scale back for August – only offering a limited number of sessions as we anticipate demand will be low. However we will provide training at the request of departments if they organise a session and feel enough staff will attend.  Interest in a bespoke introductory session has been expressed by the Library and External Relations. Staff from both are going to attend the standard Introduction to Moodle training and then we will work with them to tailor something suitable for their needs.

Moving to Moodle: Video case studies

Since the Bloomsbury Colleges are amongst the first HE institutions to be migrating from Blackboard to Moodle, we have developed some video case studies (in conjunction with ULCC) to share our experiences so far. Contributing to the videos are some academics and course administrators, who were early adopters in our migration year. Also, some managers and learning technologists from the Colleges describe the process that was undertaken.

Moving to Moodle: Why


Moving to Moodle: Getting Started
 

Moving to Moodle: The Advantages


Moving to Moodle: The Challenges


Moving to Moodle: Top Tips and Lessons Learned

Moodle is officially Launched in Bloomsbury

To mark the launch of Moodle in Bloomsbury, staff in the Bloomsbury Colleges were invited to attend an Academic Showcase, which took place on Thursday 7th June.

Click here for recording of the event.

The event was divided three parts.
Access each presentation by clicking on the speaker's name:


   
1. Moodle for Distance Learning

Ayona Silva-Fletcher, RVC	James Abdey, LSE	Richard Campanaro, LSE
Isobel Bowditch, IOE	Peter Leffek, OU	Julie Voce, OU

2. Moodle to support campus-based learning
 

Pat Costall, Birkbeck	Wendy Hein, Birkbeck
Karita Razzell, SOAS	Olivia Fox, City University

3. Launch Reception
Opened by Keith Harrison, Secretary of Birkbeck and chair of the BLE Migration Programme Board