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.