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.

Blackboard will be unavailable for the entire day of Thursday the 3rd of November for a planned upgrade. Work will begin at 7am and is likely to continue well past 5pm that day.

We have tried to time this for a period of low activity but we do apologise for the inconvenience we realise this will cause.

If you are aware of any critical activity happening on that day please let us know immediately at elu-support@qmul.ac.uk

Regards,

VLE Admin

Wednesday 19th May 2010, Fogg Lecture Theatre, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences

1-2pm: Core event: Open feedback session
2-3pm: Optional event: panel discussion with the E-Learning Unit (who run the VLE)

This session will mark the formal launch of a VLE Selection project, whose task is to recommend a new VLE system for QM, to launch in summer 2012.

The first phase of the project will be to gather staff and student requirements for a new VLE. We will be running sessions specifically on requirements next term, as well as detailed work with subject groups.

This event is to capture broad issues with the current system at the outset. What do you wish you could do in the VLE, but can’t? What can you sort of do if you push it, but feel should be easier?

After this event, the focus will be on future requirements for e-learning (rather than the functionality of particular tools in the current system), so this is a chance for you to come and tell us what you would like to see changed.

So, if you have constructive suggestions about the VLE, or just want to let off steam, there’s no need to register – just come along.

We will announce more details about the project – events and ways to get involved – during May.

If you are accessing Blackboard on a non-College PC (i.e. your own laptop, desktop or any computer that you have administrator rights to) you will need to read and note this issue.

Java version 1.6.0_19 has been released. Oracle/Sun has introduced a new practice with this release where users will sometimes be presented with a  warning dialog.

The warning states “Java has discovered application components that could indicate a security concern“. Users are asked if they wish to block potentially unsafe components from being run. If you click ‘Yes’ (which is recommended on the warning and is the default selection), the Java components will not work.

This will disable key components of Blackboard.

If you click ‘No’ – Blackboard will function as normal. However whenever Blackboard tries to run one of its Java applets for the first time during that browser session, the user will see the security warning dialog box. If the applet is to run the user must, contrary to the recommendation in the dialog box, click ‘No’.  This is a per-session decision for that applet alone. If you restart the browser (and therefore the Java Virtual Machine) they will need to make the decision again for each applet.

You will see this warning dialog pop-up up to four times when using Blackboard:

1. When you first log in, as the ‘Who is online’ tool starts up.
2. When you try to upload a file using the File Manager
3. When you try to use the chat/whiteboard
4. When you enable the ‘HTML editor’ for composing HTML messages or pages

You can see screenshots of the Java dialog box on the Java/Sun website: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/jweb/mixed_code.html

What can you do?

Note that this new feature of Java is a security feature. We do not recommend disabling it as it may leave your computer open to security attacks. However if the repeated alerts prove frustrating you may do one of two things:

1. Do not upgrade to Java version 1.6.0_19 or, if you have already done so, downgrade. Then wait for Java version 1.6.0_20
2. Disable this feature in Java version 1.6.0_19. You can disable the warnings associated with this new security feature introduced in 1.6.0_19 by doing the following:

1. 1. Open Java control panel (located on the bottom-right on your taskbar)
   2. Click Security
   3. Click Mixed Mode
   4. Click Disable verification

However this is a system-wide global setting that will apply permanently to all applets going forward. As in – it will disable this new security feature on your computer for all websites – not just Blackboard at QMUL.

This issue has been raised with Blackboard and we are waiting a response.

If you have any questions or require any aid please submit a query on our web form: http://www.esd.qmul.ac.uk/vle/forms/vlequery/index.htm

Regards,

VLE Admin

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

This is the first in a series of communications to inform you of the process to ‘rollover’ the VLE from the current academic year to 2010/2011. After ‘rollover’ you will no longer have access to your 2009/2010 course areas and will have 2010/2011 areas created for you.

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 23rd of August to the 27th. In practice the process usually takes at most three days.

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

What is Rollover?

Rollover is essentially our ‘cleaning house’ on the VLE. Basically we backup existing course areas, take them off the system and replace them with fresh areas for the new 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.

Last year we also used the Rollover process to update staff access to online course areas. We will not be carrying out this specific task on a yearly basis and will not require that information from you this year.

Do however be aware that we are investigating methods to make use of the new SIS system as it comes online and this may involve some automation of staff access to the VLE.

Please see our Support site for a full description of the Rollover process – http://www.esd.qmul.ac.uk/vle/staff/#rollover

What do you need to plan for?

The VLE as 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, here: http://www.esddelu.org.uk/news-and-events/vle-description-of-service/

What do you need to do right now?

Nothing. This is simply a communication to alert you to an upcoming event. We will send out more detailed communications and requests for more information and will be hosting Q&A sessions about the process. If you are working on a course that you know typically falls outside of the Rollover process – we will contact you directly. If you are concerned that we may not be aware of your specific needs – please get in touch.

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

Regards,

VLEAdmin

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

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.

The restart will take approximately 15 minutes.

Apologies again

Download a printable version of this article

Course Instructor, Designer, Teaching Assistant, Student, Auditor…you may be aware of the terminology but how much do you know about roles in Blackboard and what they mean? This article explains what the various roles are and provides you with enough information to allow you to ensure that the right people have the right level of access to your Blackboard course area.

After reading this article you should know:

• What different types of access to Blackboard course areas are and aren’t possible
• Which role(s) to use to enrol people onto your course area
• How to go about giving people access

A quick word about accounts and roles

Before starting, it may be worth pointing out that what is being discussed here are not Blackboard “accounts”. Having an account on Blackboard means that you have a username and password that allows you to log in to the system. You cannot access anything on Blackboard unless you log in. There is no notion of “guest” or “anonymous” access. Anyone who wants access Blackboard must have their own account. The vast majority of staff and students have Blackboard accounts set up automatically without any action required on their part. The process is linked to the creation of their central College Computing account . However, having an account does not mean that you will be able to see anything when you do log in to Blackboard. For this, you need to have been given access to course areas and this is where the notion of a role comes in.

Definition of a role

A role in Blackboard essentially defines the level of access that a person has to a course area and therefore defines what they can do in that course area. The following table provides a summary of the different role types.

For the Teaching and Building categories, the roles are linked to the tabs that you can see in a course area. It is important to note that there is no role in Blackboard which gives access to both the Build and the Teach tabs. If a person requires access to both then they will have to be enrolled as an Instructor or a Teaching Assistant and as a Designer. The Student View tab is available to both Instructors and Designers.

While you can mix the roles in the Teaching and Building categories, you cannot mix the roles in the Learning category, e.g. it is not possible to be enrolled as a Student and a Designer. This is considered to be a conflict in roles.

Also, a role in Blackboard does not necessarily link to a role in College. A first year student can be an Instructor on a course in Blackboard and a Professor can be enrolled as a Student. In reality, the former situation is rare, but Blackboard will not prevent a student being enrolled on a course with one of the teaching or design roles. Also, if you are a member of staff and find you have Student access to a course area, this does not mean that Blackboard has made a mistake about who you are. The Blackboard role is used to provide a particular level of access to a course area. You will most likely find that you are enrolled with a variety of different roles e.g. on some course areas as an Instructor, some as an Instructor and a Designer and still others as an Auditor.

The Teaching roles: Instructor and Teaching Assistant

The Instructor and Teaching Assistant roles both give access to the Teach tab in a Blackboard course area. This gives access to the Instructor Tools menu which by default appears under the Course Tools menu.

Instructor and Teaching Assistant level access also affect what you can do with the standard course tools in the Course Tools menu. For instance, an Instructor or Teaching Assistant can modify the settings on an existing Assignment but they cannot create a new Assignment. This isn’t necessarily very intuitive and indeed can be confusing. It might be best to remember the fact that if you are likely to need to create a new instance of something in your course area, you are most likely going to need Designer access.

So, what’s the difference between Instructor and Teaching Assistant access? By default they are pretty much identical apart from the fact that an Instructor has the ability to give other people access to the course area. This is done through the “Enrol Members” button which can be found in the Grade Book tool. Teaching Assistants do not have access to this functionality.

Instructors also have the ability to further restrict what Teaching Assistants can do in the course area by using the “Settings” item in the “Manage Course” tool in the Instructor Tools menu. Through this tool an Instructor can do things like deny the Teaching Assistant access to the Grade Book or prevent them from viewing student tracking data.

One final point to make about Instructor access, is that a person must be enrolled as an Instructor to be able to have their name appear on the course listing on the Blackboard homepage.

Not all Instructors are listed, only those who have been designated “Primary Instructors”. So, if someone’s name isn’t listed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have Instructor access to the course area. They just aren’t identified as being a “Primary Instructor”

The Building role: Designer

The Designer role gives access to the Build tab in a course area. The most important feature that this provides access to is the ability to upload files to the course area and to delete existing files. The Build tab also gives access to buttons on your course pages which allow you to add items such as files, folders and links to tools.

The tools in the Course Tools menu, also look different on the Build tab than they do on the Teach tab, with a wider variety of features available to the Designer.

Designers do not have access to student data such as the Grade Book, assignment or assessment submissions. They do, however have access to discussion forum postings.

The Learning roles: Student and Auditor

People enrolled as Students or Auditors effectively have the same level of access to a Blackboard course area. They can view course materials, take quizzes, submit assignments, participate in discussion forums etc. So, if both roles effectively give the same level of access why would you use one of them rather than the other?

There are essentially two reasons for giving Auditor access instead of Student:

1. Resit students on automatically enrolled courses
2. To aid with course administration

Resit students

For course areas on Blackboard which are on automatic enrolment (that is, access to the course area is dependent upon the student’s registration details on the central student record system), students who are re-sitting the course will not be given access to the course on Blackboard by default. Access to course areas for these students is granted at the discretion of the course instructor and these students should be enrolled manually through the Grade Book as Auditors. If they are enrolled as a Student they will be automatically unenrolled the next evening when Blackboard refreshes its enrolment data. Anyone enrolled as an Auditor will be ignored by the automatic enrolment process.

Course administration

If someone wants to be able to see your course area e.g. a colleague wants to see how you do things or a postgraduate student wants to follow your course, you could enrol them manually onto your course area as Students. This would allow them to see the course materials without being able to make changes to the course area or to see student data. However, having people enrolled like this can make it difficult to distinguish between those people who are on your course because they are “real” students and those who are there for other reasons. So, instead of enrolling people as Students in this situation, you can enrol them as Auditors. Now you can easily identify who the Auditors on the course are. You can also use features like the Selective Release functionality to make course content visible only to those enrolled as Auditors or indeed to hide content from them.

The image above shows the Grade Book for a course area (click to see a larger image). The view has been sorted on the Role column and it is easy to distinguish between the different types of people enrolled.

Summary

So, when considering what level of access to give someone to your course area, the questions you need to ask are:

1. Do they need to be able to see student data such as grades, assignment and assessment submissions? – If so, they’ll need to be enrolled on the course as either an Instructor or a Teaching Assistant which gives them access to the Teach tab.
2. Do they need the power to be able to enrol other people on the course? – If so, they’ll need Instructor access
3. Do they need to be able to upload files to the course area? – If so, they’ll need to be enrolled on the course are as a Designer which gives them access to the Build tab (remember you can be an Instructor or a Teaching Assistant and a Designer)
4. Do they just need to be able to see the course materials? – Give them Auditor access

Once you know what level of access is required, if you are a course instructor yourself, you can enrol others as Teaching Assistants, Designers, Auditors or Students through the Grade Book tool in your course area. If you require someone to be enrolled with Instructor level access, you will have to request this through vle-support@qmul.ac.uk. We generally do not give access to course areas without the permission of one of the primary designers.

Further information

Further information is available on our online support site on http://www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/elearning/support/vle/

Photo Credit

aeioux on flickr