In January we asked QMUL staff and students to submit names for our new online teaching and learning space which will replace Blackboard, the University’s current Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

This new online environment will be a lot more than Blackboard – it will be a place to:

• Learn – course information, lecture recordings, readings, learning materials…
• Share – new tools for group work, communicating, online CVs….
• Network – create your own profile, start your own groups, make new contacts

We received almost 400 entries and wish to thank everyone who suggested a name. We have shortlisted six names and now invite QMUL staff and students to help us to choose a name from our shortlist. Remember that we are looking for a name that reflects what we stand for at Queen Mary. The winning name will be awarded a £100 Amazon voucher.

Each QM staff or student is allowed only one vote, let your vote be counted.

Vote at: https://surveys.qmul.ac.uk/olename

—
Image credit: alancleaver_2000 on flickr

The new online learning environment will be an integration of Moodle (for VLE) and Mahara (for student-led learning and group tools for informal learning).

The new platform will be available for previews and training from March, and people will be able to move and enhance (or start afresh) their course areas from April until September 2012).  It will then be available for teaching over the 2012-13 academic year.

Moodle (and Mahara) is a very different beast to Blackboard.  Though it also functions as a traditional VLE, it also offers the scope to think in new ways and encourage student learning within and beyond teaching and learning on modules.

The E-Learning Unit will be running a comprehensive training programme, both to support you in the practicalities of getting used to the new software, and to help you think about how you might use it to enhance student learning over the coming years.

We will also work closely with Faculties and Schools to ensure that we move at a pace that is right for you, and fit in with your strategies and educational priorities.

Some Schools (in Science and Engineering) do not currently use the centrally supported VLE, and they may want to use the new platform in the first year to explore and trial the possibilities to see what educational advantages it offers to support the ways they teach and support their students’ learning.  There may also be courses where the timescales run over the traditional academic year.  In these instances, we want to be flexible, so do get in touch (s.brenton@qmul.ac.uk) to arrange to meet.

Some of the more advanced functions of Moodle/Mahara will be phased in over time, and the platform will grow as it is integrated with other new technologies that QMUL is adopting.   But it will be available for the core business of effective learning and teaching ready for the next academic year, and offers significant improvements on the old platform.

Timescales

The project will run to a detailed project plan with the various technical and support elements, but academic colleagues the most pertinent timescales are:

January 2012: Implementation project starts.  Discussions with Faculty groups.

February:   Discussions with schools and heavy users of the current VLE about how they want to use it to support their teaching next year.

March:  Previews of the platform, access for staff to start playing/building.  Training and development sessions.

April: Small scale pioneer uses (if you’re interested in being a pioneer, please get in touch with Stella Ekebuisi (s.ekebuisi@qmul.ac.uk).  No new courses built in Blackboard.

April – September: Support for all module convenors to move from Blackboard to the new platform (see transition support, below).

August/September:  Live for all students and staff

Over 2012-13: Courses which start later in the year go live; pioneer uses of Mahara for e-portfolio tools, informal learning networks.  Forums for colleagues to share ideas and examples of effective use.  Projects to look at more advanced tools for complex e-admin uses.  Courses with non-standard timescales can ‘teach out’ in Blackboard.

2013-14: Mature use developing as a tool for teaching and learning and e-admin, student-led learning, learning profiles and informal learning networks.

Transition Support

The approach we take to the transition is key to realising the benefits of the new platform over the old.

Simply moving old content to the new system wholesale will in most cases not make best use of the new functionality or interface, though of course colleagues will want to use it for a basic provision of materials, information and course communications.  Rather like moving house, you would not move your furniture and arrange it exactly the same way in your new, better house.  You might choose to arrange your existing furniture in new ways, or get new furniture entirely.  We’ll support you in both these choices, to either get you up and running quickly with a sensibly arranged and useful course area (which you might then enhance over time as you learn more about the tools it offers), or to realise the potential from the outset for using it as part of the fabric of how you teach.

Colleagues moving from Blackboard to the new platform will therefore be offered two approaches:

1. ‘Move and Enhance’. Module convenors/lecturers can attend one three-hour session from April 2012.  Here, you will learn about the new platform, go into your course area, and rearrange your core learning materials in a sensible fashion, so that you can start using it in your teaching and perhaps develop your use over the year. 
2. ‘Start Afresh and Innovate’. This is a chance to re-examine your use of e-learning and use the new tools to create a rich ‘blended’ learning environment for your students.  You’ll work closely with e-learning professionals, and be given an e-learning assistant to help you develop and build your course area.

The aim here is that people who want to start with basic use can do so with a minimum of disruption, while those who want to use it in more advanced ways are fully supported

Outside of these sessions, we will offer other opportunities (online and offline) about how you can use it in advanced ways, e.g. for student feedback, supporting group work, assessment, student-led learning, using open educational resources or adding more interactivity.  There will also be ways for you to share your ideas and experiences with other colleagues, and to see how others are using it.

There will be exceptions to the above: you may be running a programme which requires a more complex approach to ensure that complex processes are realized in the new environment, or a course which depends entirely on the platform (e.g. distance learning).  In these cases, please get in touch so we can plan your transition and the support you’ll need.

Those who already have mature, successful e-learning presences in Blackboard will be given close assistance to ensure their course functions successfully in Moodle without the need to rebuild it from scratch themselves.

Further details will appear on the E-Learning Unit’s website at www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/elearning.

Overview of the environment

This document gives a brief overview of the main advantages and functionality of the new environment.

Further Information

This website will be used to post more information about the platform as the project progresses.  Over the next few weeks, we will be announcing the training and support provision, and providing details of how to get involved, see previews, give feedback about design and configuration.

Get in Touch

If you have any questions, please email elearning@qmul.ac.uk in the first instance.  We’ll respond directly, and also build a bank of frequently asked questions which we’ll post on this website.  And if you would like to be a pioneer to get in early, or be involved in feedback for the name, we’d love to hear from you.

What will it be called?

‘Moodle and Mahara’ is a bit of a mouthful, and this is more than just a ‘VLE’ replacement, offering as it does more flexible tools for learning outside taught courses, so it needs a catchy, descriptive name.  We’re running a naming competition for students and staff – do suggest something!

Thanks…

… to everyone involved in the project to select and procure the new platform.  It has been chosen because it is much the best fit with the requirements that colleagues and students across QM contributed, and I’m really grateful for all your work and help.  We’re confident that, while this is only software and software by itself does nothing, colleagues and students will be able to use it to help themselves – and QM – realise our educational ambitions.

Sam Brenton, Head of E-Learning

January 2012

Photo Credit

Matt Brown on Flickr.

Overview: This is an online session which will introduce QMULs Virtual Learning Environment, Blackboard.

In this 60-minute webinar, participants will be given an online tour of Blackboard and will be able to observe a brief demonstration of the commonly used tools across QM. Participants will receive other tips to get started, as well as instructions of where to get further help.

The session is aimed at academic staff who are just starting out with the VLE or who are perhaps thinking about using it.

Requirements: You will need a computer with internet connection and Flash, along with speakers (or a headset).

To register, please go to our online course booking site at:
www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/booking or email us.

Instructions of how to participate will be sent closer to the date once you have registered for this event.

IMPORTANT
What you need to do:

1. Please log into Blackboard and check that you have access to your course areas. If there are any missing courses or content, please get in touch ASAP via our online helpdesk so that we can rectify this before term starts. (Login at https://helpdesk.its.qmul.ac.uk and select ‘Blackboard – VLE’).
2. Rebuild any Turnitin assignments (details below)
3. Update any dates carried across from Blackboard assignments or assessments
4. Also update any calendar entries or selectively released content
5. Update content as approprate

The following is information about what has happened with your courses.

New Course Areas (2011-12)
Unless otherwise requested, content has been copied across from 2010-11 into the 2011-12 course AND all student data and activity has been removed (assignment submissions, quizzes, grades, feedback, discussion postings etc.)

Student Enrolment: In general, student access is being controlled by SIS integration. This means, where a record exists on the central student records database (SIS), the relevant Blackboard course will be automatically populated. Students will be enrolled onto Blackboard courses when they are correctly registered in SIS – based on the module or programme codes that have been set for your Blackboard course.

Visit the Course Listing Page to see which module or programme code is being enrolled onto your course, and whether your course is being automatically enrolled or not.

Old Course Areas (2010-11 and before)
If you requested for your course area to remain as it was in 2010-11, then you should still have access to your old course area as before. Otherwise, 2010-11 courses have been archived and your access to them has been removed.

If you requested for an old course from 2009 or before to be restored, where we were able to locate it, we have done so, otherwise we have assigned either a template or content from the last copy of the course that we have.

Turnitin Assignments:
If you had Turnitin assignments in your old course area, these would have been copied across automatically to the new course area – however, they will not work as that link to Turnitin will remain with the old course area. You will need to rebuild your Turnitin Coursework in your new course area. If you wish to refer to your old course area, please let us know and we can arrange temporary access. If you need training, please get in touch via our online helpdesk – (login at https://helpdesk.its.qmul.ac.uk and select ‘Turnitin – Plagiarism Detection’).

Q-Review content
Any recordings made using the automatic lecture recording service, and automatically linked to your Blackboard course area, have been removed for the new year. This follows QM policy to refresh recorded content. If you would like to reinstate any of this content, please let us know.

Finally,
The E-Learning Unit, in The Learning Institute, run a programme of workshops on using the VLE at QMUL. Details of this programme will shortly be available, under the  category “Learning and Teaching: E-Learning”, here: www.esdcourses.org.uk. We can also arrange bespoke sessions tailored to the needs of your team or department. Just get in touch.

Best Wishes,
E-Learning Support Team

1. What is Rollover?
2. When will Rollover take place?
3. What do you need to plan for?
4. What do you need to do?
5. Summary

Please note that, while this is targetted toward staff using Blackboard, students should also make themselves aware of this process.

This is to inform you of the process to ‘rollover’ the VLE from the current academic year (2010/2011) to next academic year (2011/2012). After ‘rollover’ you will no longer have access to 2010/2011 course areas, you will instead gain access to your 2011/2012 course areas.

This process will take place at the end of summer after the resit exams. We plan for the VLE to be offline for five days from 22nd of August to the 26th.

The date for Rollover is aligned with the College calender which is available here: http://www.qmul.ac.uk/about/calendar/

What is Rollover?

Rollover is essentially our ‘cleaning house’ on the VLE.

Normally we remove your old course by default but this year we will keep it on the system. This is to try and make certain that as much live content as possible is copied to the new VLE in 2012.

Therefore, this year we will backup existing course areas, keep them on the system BUT remove access to them  and give you access to fresh areas for the 2011-12 academic year. These fresh areas will have the files and structure of the previous ones but all student-generated data will be removed to make room for the new cohort.

When will Rollover take place?

This year Rollover will take place from the 22nd August to the 26th August.

During Rollover the login page to the VLE will be removed and our team will not be available. After Rollover you will no longer have access to 2010/2011 course areas, you will instead gain access to your 2011/2012 course areas.

What do you need to plan for?

The VLE is a live teaching environment – it reflects what is happening ‘right now’ at QMUL. Data that must be kept for a longer period of time than the academic year must be archived off the VLE. This means that exams, assignment submissions, etc. must be kept locally by departments under the same regulations that govern paper copies. We do this as we cannot guarantee a retrievable archive of this data over upgrades or migrations of VLE’s.

Please see the full text of the VLE Description of Service, to see how the VLE is run at QMUL.

What do you need to do?

You should archive any student-generated content that you need before Rollover. Please see this blogpost for some guidance: http://www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/elearning/howto/archiving-assignments/

Anyone who is attached to a course area as a designer/instructor should have received an email from us requesting information. You should have responded to this email by 1st June 2011.

If you have not already done so, then please let us know what you would like us to do with your course area ASAP. We will need to know:

1. Whether your course is required for 2011/2012 (please provide the course codes)
2. If you are no longer teaching this course, let us know the name and username (e.g lewXXX) of the primary contact for the course – this person must be a member of QM staff and will be our point of contact for requests about the course in the next academic year.
3. The usernames (e.g lewXXX) of the instructors and designers for the course – Note that if you would like this to remain the same simply state ‘same’.

Do also let us know whether there should be any changes to the way students are enrolled. For example, if your module codes are changing – we need to know that.  See here (https://helpdesk.its.qmul.ac.uk/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk.woa/wa/FaqActions/view?action=a405000f6d4b257a&id=1) for information on student enrolment.

Key points

1. What Rollover is and when it is happening?
This summer we will backup existing course areas, remove access and replace them with fresh areas for the new year. These fresh areas will have the files and structure of the previous ones but no student data. More information can be found here: https://helpdesk.its.qmul.ac.uk/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk.woa/wa/FaqActions/view?action=b00100049d4b3548&id=1.  Rollover will happen in the week following the exam resits according to the QM academic calendar. This year Rollover will take place from Monday, August 22 to Friday August 26.

**Note that the login page to the VLE will be removed during this time and our team will not be available**.

2.  Rollover will remove all user-generated content
This means that all student work – assignments, quizzes, grades, feedback, discussion posts, etc – will be wiped from the system. According to QM policy it is the responsibility of the academic department to archive assessment data. If you need help doing this please get in touch now by replying to this email with “Assessed Work for Rollover” in the subject header.

3.  In the next academic year all courses will be automatically linked to the SIS
Previously we have had a mixed model where enrolment to some courses has been controlled manually.  Student access will now be controlled by SIS integration. Where a record exists on the SIS – the relevant VLE course will be automatically controlled. If this is likely to cause difficulty for you please get in touch now and we will work with you and the SIS team towards a solution.  Please see the following link for detailed information on how student access is controlled by the SIS: https://helpdesk.its.qmul.ac.uk/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk.woa/wa/FaqActions/view?action=a405000f6d4b257a&id=1

4.  We will delete unused course areas
If a course has not been accessed or used over the academic year 2010/2011 we will delete it during Rollover. If you know that you or a colleague has not used an area this year but plans to make use of it in future – please let us know.

5.  Turnitin assignments will need to be rebuilt
Last year we consulted with staff in academic departments using Turnitin and we will continue to be informed by that consultation. Rollover will render all existing Turnitin assignments non-functional. These assignments will need to be rebuilt by staff in departments. If you need training on how to do this please get in touch.

If you have any immediate concerns about this process, please email vle-support@qmul.ac.uk

Regards,

VLE Admin

Photo Credit

David Michael Morris on Flickr

There are 3 main steps, and I have have created a short video (well, it’s 8 minutes long) describing these steps in more detail, as I thought it may be of interest to others.

Although the movie describes the steps to create only 2 assignments for only 2 sets of students, the same principle can be applied if you wanted to release several different assignments to several sets of students. You could also release other content in the same way, not only an assignment, but also a document or a quiz .

Here are the general steps to create 2 assignments to be released to 2 different sets of students:

1. First, you will need to identify in Blackboard your different sets of students.

   There are different ways to do this. For instance, you could set up different Groups via the Group Manager, and allocate your students to different groups. Or, you could create a column in the Grade Book, and identify your students that way. In my movie example, I’ve chosen to do the latter.

2. Then, create 2 different assignments (or other content) in Blackboard
3. Finally, set the Release Criteria so that one assignment will be released to one set of students, and the other assignment will be released to the other set.

Take a look at this short(ish) video of the steps to do this…if you have speakers or a headset, then you can listen to the audio, otherwise, I’ve also included some text so that you can follow along without the sound…

If the video above is too small, you can view an enlarged version here: http://www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/elearning/support/vle/selectivereleasemovie/

If you have any questions, please contact us via our online helpdesk and click on the Request button: https://helpdesk.its.qmul.ac.uk

Photo Credit

Michael Yat Kit Chung on Flickr

We are discontinuing the E-Portfolio tool as of the 18th of March.

There are two reasons for this decision:

1. Blackboard, the software vendor, is no longer developing this tool. It is unlikely that anything created inside your e-portfolio will be transferable to any future system.
2. Secondly, the software has not seen the scale of use across QM to justify its continuance.

What happens now?
The e-portfolio tab will cease to function on the 18th of this month. You should download and archive anything you value from that tool. If you require help in doing so please email vle-support@qmul.ac.uk

What will be happening?
We, the E-Learning Unit, are researching alternatives. If you have a need for an e-portfolio system for reflective practice or charting progress toward agreed goals (for example, professional standards) please get in touch with us at this address: elearning@qmul.ac.uk

If you have any comments at all or questions about this announcement please email this address: vle-support@qmul.ac.uk

Thank you,

VLE Admin

In the past, people have asked how to set things up on Blackboard so that students have to accept some terms and conditions before they can access a particular piece of content. This can be done with a combination of an Assessment (i.e. a quiz) and the Selective Release functionality. This article describes what this solution looks like and goes through the steps required to achieve it.

Following the steps outlined should take no more than 15 minutes. Once you understand the concepts covered here, there are many different ways in which this can be tailored for different situations.
Even if you are not interested in using this particular solution yourself, going through it should provide you with useful general information about the Selective Release function and the Grade Book in Blackboard which may well be of interest.

To try out the solution described here, you will have to have Designer and Instructor access to a course area on Blackboard. If you would like to try it out somewhere other than a "live" course area, get in touch and we can set you up with a test area which you can use to try things out.

This article is made up of the following sections:

• What the solution looks like
• How to do it
  Step-by-step instructions on how to set up the solution in your own Blackboard course area. Including:
  • Uploading the file
  • Creating the quiz
  • Setting the selective release on the document
  • Setting the selective release on the quiz
• Testing the solution
• How it works

What the solution looks like

When the student enters the course area, they see a Terms and Conditions icon.

Clicking on this icon takes them to a Blackboard quiz.

They then click the Begin Assessment button and start the quiz.

They read the text given in the question and then choose a response. The question text is where the exact wording of the terms and conditions should be put. In this case, they have selected the "I do not accept the terms and conditions" option. They then click the Save Answer button and then the Finish button.

They see the quiz submission screen as seen above. If they then click on the Course Content button to return to the course Home Page, they will see the following:

Notice that all they can see on the course Home Page is the same Terms and Conditions quiz.

They can take the quiz again by clicking on the icon and then clicking the Begin Assessment button.

This time, they choose the "I accept the terms and conditions" option, click the Save Answer button and then the Finish button. Once their quiz has been successfully submitted, they can click on the Course Content item on the Course Tools menu to return to the course Home Page.

Now they have access to the appropriate document and they no longer have access to the Terms and Conditions quiz.

With this solution, students can take the Terms and Conditions quiz as often as they like but as long as they answer "I do not accept the terms and conditions" they will not be able to access the document. Once they have accepted the terms and conditions, they will have access to the document but they will not be able to take the quiz again.

How to do it

This section outlines the steps required to set up the solution described in the previous section. It is made up of the following steps:

1. Uploading the file – put the file you are restricting access to into the course area
2. Creating the quiz - set up a quiz to allow the students to read the terms and conditions and then choose to accept or reject them
3. Setting the selective release on the document - control visibility of the document so that only those that have accepted the terms and conditions can see it
4. Setting the selective release on the quiz – make sure that the quiz is only available to those students who have never taken it or who have rejected the terms and conditions

Uploading the file

First of all, you will have to upload the "copyright" document to the course area.

Ensure you are on the
Build tab, then click on the File Manager item in the Designer Tools menu.

Now click on the Get Files button to upload your document to the course area. Clicking the
Get Files button will allow you to upload the required file from your computer. If you are just trying this out, just upload any document to the course area, it can be a Microsoft Word document, a PDF file, anything you like.

The uploaded file will appear in the file manager screen but will not be visible to students.

Creating the quiz

The next stage is to create a quiz (called an Assessment in Blackboard) to provide the students with a mechanism for accepting or rejecting the terms and conditions.

Check you are on the Build tab and the click on the Assessments tool in the Course Tools menu. Click the Create Assessment button.

You will then be presented with the Create Assessment screen.

Type a title for the Assessment into the text field, here I’ve called it "Terms and Conditions". When you click out of the field, you will notice that the Grade Book Column name field is automatically populated with the same title.

Make sure the Type is set to Quiz then click the Save button.

You will be returned to the Assessments listing screen where you will see your new Assessment. By default, Assessments are created hidden, so students will not be able to see this Assessment yet.

Now click on the blue underlined text Terms and Conditions (if you gave your quiz a different title, the text will be different here).

You will notice that there are currently no questions in the assessment so you will have to create one. Click on the Create Questions button, you will see a drop down menu, select the Multiple Choice item. You will now see the Create Multiple Choice Question screen.

There’s a lot of information on this screen but there are only a few areas that we are concerned with here:

1. The question title and text – the question title is a required item but it doesn’t really matter what you put in here. The question text is where you should put the details of the terms and conditions. You can use HTML (hypertext markup language) to format the text if you so require.
2. Select mode – this should be set to One answer
3. The answers – we need to set up two answers for the students to choose from, one if the student accepts the terms and conditions and one if they don’t. Enter appropriate text for each case. For the “Accept” one, we also need to check the box next to Correct response.

Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click the Save button.

You will be returned to the Assessment screen where you will see your newly created question. You will notice that 10 points have automatically been assigned for this question. Although we don’t actually care about grading this question, you will see later why the points value is actually important.

Now click on the downward pointing arrow next to the Terms and Conditions text.

Select the Edit Properties item from the drop down list. You will now see the Edit Assessment Properties screen.

Again, there’s a lot of information on this page but we only have to concern ourselves with a few areas.

In the Question Delivery section, uncheck the item for Display Question Titles.

In the Attempts section, set the number of attempts allowed to Unlimited

In the Student Score section, ensure the Do not release the score option is selected and set the score display to Last.

Scroll down and click the Save button.

Setting the selective release on the document

Now, we want to set up a link to the document but ensure that link is only available to those students who have accepted the terms and conditions.

Go to the Home Page of your course area by clicking on the Course Content item in the Course Tools menu. Click on the Add File button. Click the Browse for Files option from the drop down menu.

Make sure the Class Files icon is selected and then check the box next to the file that you originally uploaded. Click OK.

You will be returned to the course Home Page where you will see an icon representing your file. This icon is currently visible to all students so you need to hide it.

Click the downward pointing arrow to the right of the file title. Select the Hide Item item from the drop down menu. The icon is now hidden from the students.
Now click on the Selective Release tool in the Designer Tools menu

You will see the Selective Release Map screen with a table of items in it. Linked to the Home Page item you should see the item that you added to the Home Page. Click the Set Release Criteria button to the right of this item.

On the Set Release Criteria screen click on the Add Grade Book Criteria button.

Select Terms and Conditions from the drop down list under Criteria. Select Equal to from the condition drop down and enter 10 into the value field. Remember that there were 10 points assigned to the correct answer in our quiz? This is where it’s important. If the student selected the "Accept" option then they will have been awarded 10 points and this condition will be true so the document will be released to them. If, they select the "Don’t Accept" option then they will be awarded 0 points and this condition will not be true so they won’t get access to the document.

Click on the Save button.

You will be back on the Set Release Criteria for screen and you should see your criteria in the list. Now click the Save button.

You are returned to the Selective Release Map screen where you should see some text in the Release Criteria column for the document.
Now click on the Course Content item in the Course Tools menu to go to the home page.

You will see that the document icon now has (Hidden + Conditional) against it. Now we have the selective release criteria set on the document we can unhide it, the selective release function will ensure that the icon is only visible to the appropriate students.

This is done by clicking the downward pointing arrow next to the title and selecting Show Item from the drop down menu.

Although the message states that the item has been made visible to students, it actually hasn’t. This is because there is a selective release criteria set on the item and therefore the item still isn’t visible. You can check that this is true by clicking on the Student View tab to see how students will see your course area.

Notice that the document icon is not visible. It will not become visible until the student takes the quiz and selects the "Accept" option.

Setting the selective release on the quiz

Now we want to make a link to the quiz to allow the students to accept or reject the terms and conditions.

You do this by clicking the Add Content Link button and selecting the Assessments item. You will then be presented with a list of the Assessments that are available in the course area and you should select the Terms and Conditions one that you set up earlier. Click the Add Selected button.

You will now see an icon for the quiz placed on the Home Page. Note that it is still hidden from students, as shown by the text Hidden.

There is one thing left to do. Once a student has done the quiz and selected the “Accept” answer we don’t want them to be able to do the quiz again (or else they could revoke their acceptance of the terms and conditions having already had access to the document which would leave us in a potentially awkward situation!). We do this by setting another selective release criteria on the Quiz itself. This is a very similar process to the one we went through earlier to set up the selective release criteria on the document.

Click on the Selective Release tool in the Designer Tools menu.

You will see the Terms and Conditions quiz item in the listing. Click on the Set Release Criteria button to the right of the line containing this item.

Now click on the Add Grade Book Criteria button.

We want the Quiz itself to be visible to anyone who hasn’t answered "Accept" so this means that they will have a score less than 10 for the Quiz. So select Terms and Conditions from the Criteria drop down, Less than from the Condition drop down and put 10 in the Value field.

Now click the Save button.

You will see your new criteria in the list.

However, we also have to allow for another situation. We have to allow for the situation where the student has not taken the quiz at all yet. In this case, the entry in the Grade Book for the Terms and Conditions quiz will be "Blank". So, we have to set another criteria on the Quiz.

Click on the Add Grade Book Criteria button again.

This time, select Terms and Conditions from the Criteria drop down list and select Blank from the Condition drop down.

Now click the Save button.

You should now see that you have two selective release criteria listed. You then need to select Or from the drop down menu on the second condition. This is because you want the Quiz to be visible to students who either have scored less than 10 in previous attempts (i.e. chosen the "I do not accept" option) OR have not taken the Quiz at all yet (in which case their score will be "Blank").

Now click on the Save button.

You will be returned to the Selective Release Map screen where you will see there is now some text in the Release Criteria column for the Terms and Conditions item indicating a selective release has been set.

Click on the Course Content item in the Course Tools menu to go to the course Home Page.

Now you’ll notice that the icon for the quiz has (Hidden and Conditional) on it. The final step is to make this visible to the students.

Click on the downward pointing arrow at the end of the text on the quiz icon.

Select the Show Itemitem from the drop down menu.

Once again, the message indicates that the icon is now visible to all students. In this case it is as the students will not have taken the quiz yet.
If you want to see how this looks to students now, click on the Student View tab.

Now you can see that the student can only see the quiz icon.

Testing the solution

Now you have finished setting everything up, you can check that the solution works.

Click on the Student View tab then on the Terms and Conditions quiz icon and take the quiz. Select the "I don’t accept option", return to the Home Page of the course area and you’ll see that you can still see the quiz icon but you can’t see the document.

Take the quiz again and click the "Accept" option. Return to the Home Page. Now you’ll be able to see the document icon but the quiz icon will be gone.

If you want to test things again, you’ll have to reset the quiz submission for the Demo Student (this is the account that is used when you’re on the Student View tab). Click on the Teach tab and then on the Assessment Manager tool in the Instructor Tools menu.

Here you can see that the Terms and Conditions quiz has been taken 3 times by the Demo Student (the Student View tab). The first two times, the "I do not accept the terms and conditions" option was chosen (hence the 0 score) and the last time the "I accept" option was chosen, giving a score of 10. To reset the submissions, check the box next to the Demo Student name and then click the Reset Entire Submission button.

If you click on the Student View tab and go back to the course Home Page, you’ll notice the icon for the quiz has re-appeared and the document has disappeared. Now you can test again.

How it works

Although it requires a lot of steps to set up, what is happening here is actually quite simple.

The pivotal part is a number in the Grade Book in the course area.

If you click on the Teach tab and then the Grade Book tool in the Instructor Tools menu you will see what the Grade Book looks like. You will see a column called Terms and Conditions which holds the scores for each of the students enrolled on the course area. It is this value that we have been using to control access to our document.

As its name suggests, the Grade Book is intended to be used for managing student grades however even if you never intend to manage your student grades through Blackboard it still has useful functionality. It is like having a spreadsheet in your course area. As you can see in the screenshot above, the Grade Book contains a row for each person enrolled on the course area. This includes people enrolled in roles other than Student. Columns in the Grade Book are either created automatically, as was the case when we created our quiz…a Grade Book column was automatically created for it. Or they can be created manually, e.g. you might create a column called “Attendance” into which you input a value for a student’s attendance record. Values in the Grade book columns can also either be automatically populated…e.g. by the student submitting a quiz, by uploads from third-party applications such as the TurnitIn audience voting system, or they can be manually entered by anyone with access to the Grade Book. However they get into the Grade Book, these values can then be used in the Selective Release tool to control access to course content.

In this case, we have used a quiz to populate the Grade Book with a value which we have then used to control the visibility of a document. Selective Release can be used to control access to a variety of course content, documents, quizzes, discussion forums, web links, media libraries etc. The Selective Release function can also be used with non-grade book criteria such as dates and times, group membership, role and specific usernames providing a variety of ways in which course leaders can control access to course content.

The session is aimed at staff who are interested in how they might use the VLE to deliver teaching or training, either as a complement to face-to-face teaching or for distance learning. Topics covered will include:

• What the purpose of a VLE is
• How the particular central VLE at QM works
• The types of tool that are available in the VLE and how they can be used

The session does have an educational focus and is not intended to be an IT training session.

If you’d like to attend, please book yourself on to the session by visiting our online booking system on http://www.esdcourses.org.uk/ or contact the front office of Educational and Staff Development on extension 2800.

If you can’t attend this time, a further session is planned in April.

Photo Credit

Marco Bellucci on Flickr

The VLE has become a core college service at QMUL and it is important that we are able to describe that service, how it runs, and who is responsible for what (including the responsibility of students who access it every day).

This document provides that description. Later internal documents will describe processes in more detail. The document can be found here (http://www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/elearning/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/VLE-Description-of-Service-1.pdf).

Note that this document has not yet been approved by College and we welcome comments or questions.