Tag: VLE

laptop opened on table showing a zoom call with many facial images appearing. With a cup right next to the laptop

Are we being “captured” by our content – an opinion piece

January 9, 2023 / Shaun Searle / 0 Comments

Where misconceptions remain, should we reframe our understanding to ensure we don’t fall into bad habits?

I had a very interesting conversation with a Learning Designer with regards to video content on Moodle. The impromptu office conversation is something I’ve treasured since we returned to Campus post-pandemic. One of the gems to come from this conversation was – what constitutes good online teaching and what relationship does that have to video content?

The office consensus, perhaps understandable given our teaching backgrounds, was that the context in which the video is used is vital. Whether used in a flipped learning manner to stimulate further in-person discussion or to progress learning beyond the glass ceiling of set learning outcomes.

Ale Armellini has promoted the message that context, rather than content is king. He has said this on various stages and I am fortunate enough to have been in the room where those discussions have taken place. For the unacquainted, he provides a brief outline here https://www.cla.co.uk/blog/higher-education/content-is-not-king. One idea is that the job of a university is to enable successful learning through quality teaching, but I wonder if sometimes ‘content capture’ falls into traps based on the phrase itself.

The use of the word ‘content’ is both understandable and important in its distinction from ‘lecture capture’, the process of merely recording on-campus taught sessions. The University’s Content Capture policy offers both a definition of the term and examples of the various forms it can take:

“For example, this could be a short recording (audio and slides), a written summary of the session or a clearly annotated copy of the presentation slides providing an overview of key points, threshold concepts, or discussing points that students find difficult to understand. Such summaries, which need only be a few minutes long, can be created quickly and easily using available technology” (University of Portsmouth Content Capture Policy for Staff 2022, 3.2 p.6)

While video tends to be the most popular medium, in terms of creation by academics and what is demanded by students, are we led to this by convenience and ease of access rather than what is the best for learning?

There is a danger that content capture can fall into the same trap that lecture capture falls into – the recording of an event. A means of cataloguing, or proving “teaching woz ere” at a particular place or time. The meaning of capture (hopefully ignoring the alternative meaning to take into one’s possession or control by force!) is below…

The question is what are we recording accurately here? Is it a glorified how-to video? Are there opportunities to use and apply the knowledge within for the student? I wonder if video content has good learning intentions but would this automatically translate to successful learning outcomes? There are a lot more moving parts involved. Just because a module has videos, it does not mean that it is a good example of an online learning resource.

VLEs at one period were rather like the Wild West. Modules would vary from town to town based on their sheriff – some hospitable to visitors, and some, a lawless landscape. A pandemic and the creation of a Blended and Connected delivery have helped improve the student experience online and has given them a much-needed consistent approach. The University quite rightly received plaudits with a CATE award. This rewarded the hard work and efforts of all involved but also recognised the drive to change the culture around online learning and content capture.

However, with the weekly format of Moodle modules, students expect staff to “deliver” videos about the relevant taught content on a regular basis. Do we lose the true meaning of content capture and fall into the trap of just capturing material week by week?

Rather atypical to an opinion blog piece, this is meant to pose more questions and stimulate conversation rather than drawing definitive conclusions (surely I can get another blog out of that!). The next time you wish to add a video to your VLE, perhaps it is also worth considering the given circumstances of learning around that material. Hopefully, then it will capture your students’ attention, meaning they will fully engage in not just the content, but the learning around it.

Credit Image: Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

The road to Moodle 4.0

September 1, 2022 / Tom Cripps / 2 Comments

The Technology Enhanced Learning team, probably to a fault, doesn’t usually talk much about our in-house development of Moodle. A new version appears around the same time each year, bringing with it improvements either in performance, security or interface, or sometimes all of those. We also understand that these updates can occasionally be unwelcome, especially if things that worked before are now different for seemingly no reason. Those changes can be frustrating, to say the least.

What I’d like to do here is lift the lid a little on the Moodle development process, to highlight some of the work that goes into these yearly updates at the University, and also explain some of the choices we have had to make this year in order to improve the experience for as many of Moodle’s users as possible.

TEL’s input into Moodle

Moodle comes as a complete off-the-shelf system. It’s a working system from the moment it’s installed, containing many useful features and a serviceable visual appearance. Why, then, does the University need to do anything to Moodle before it gets used for learning?

The work we do to the off-the-shelf version of Moodle can broadly be categorised into three areas:

- Reliability – Ensuring the system is available for use by students and staff at all times, with as little disruption as possible. This involves working with IS on the database solution and making sure we can respond quickly to surveillance of various systems in order to prevent system downtime (this is especially beneficial around exam time).
- Usability – Ensuring the system meets all the legal and ethical requirements placed on the University. We want to provide a system that is accessible and usable to all. This means we include features such as a branded visual theme, provide various developments around accessibility, and tweak the interface based on feedback from users in the prior year.
- Suitability – Installing plugins and developing bespoke features that are either

- - Expected (where similar features have existed on the VLE in the past and removing them would cause an unreasonable burden on staff);

- - Desired (new features or services that will enhance existing teaching or perhaps provide new opportunities); or

- - Required (perhaps because a feature has become integral to teaching or is a requirement of a course, school, or professional body).

The development timeline

The TEL team first started discussing Moodle 4.0 slightly before the software was initially scheduled to be released, in December 2021.

Unfortunately, the initial, stable, version of Moodle 4.0 was not released until 9 May 2022. As you can imagine this delay was far from ideal. Whilst we could start some development on early code, the platform changed often – and sometimes drastically – so we held off as long as we could. This five-month delay was enough for us to question whether we would have to stay on the last version of Moodle for another year.

Normally a May–August development window would not worry us too much, but Moodle 4.0 had changed enough from the previous version that we wanted to look at our own theme, plugins and all the extras that we had added to Moodle over the years and give it all a review and refresh. We knew all of this would take time, so we were keen to get going as soon as we reasonably could.

We made the choice to develop a new theme, removing any technical debt from previous years. We also decided to review all plugins/extra features that we have added over the years: we wanted to know whether the requirement for them still existed, and in some cases whether a better solution existed. After all, if Moodle itself was getting an overhaul it seemed timely for us to review our own work!

Additions by TEL for the UoP Moodle 4.0 release

After several discussions we identified what we needed to develop over the standard Moodle release in the 4.0 upgrade. These developments included:

1. New branded visual theme

To make the most of the new interface in Moodle 4.0 we needed a new theme. The theme is what you see when you log in to Moodle – and for many people this is what they think of when they think of Moodle.

This was to be a brand new start. Rather than starting with the old theme and undoing things we did not want, useful features in the old theme would be brought over to the new theme. Many of the other features listed below also required development in the theme to support them: the feedback and accessibility tools are good examples of this.

2. Improved tabbed site navigation

We identified that some of our help and support pages could be improved, and they were less visible than they should be, so we decided to overhaul them. The first part of this work was to put our existing support resources in their own tab and then create more directed support, depending on whether the user was a student or a member of staff.

Moodle users will also notice that links to useful resources are now also on a page of their own, rather than being available via a dropdown. We made this change because we felt it was necessary to provide some context around the links – previously, it was not always obvious what resources the links were sending users to. We hope this new layout will encourage users to explore some of the great resources we have available.

In addition to these tabs, we are also working on an additional feature that gives users insight into their use of Moodle. The “My Activity” tab will give facts, figures and insight into a user’s own data, so they can more easily see how they engage with the platform. This feature is currently still being developed but should be ready around the start of term.

3. Direct in-Moodle user support/feedback feature

We identified the need to implement a way for users to view contextualised help, report problems or make suggestions from within Moodle itself.

Such a feature would help us in three ways:

- First, to make it easier for users to access self-help while using Moodle through a bank of context-sensitive frequently asked questions. Many queries in Moodle are similar, so if users can find answers to their questions immediately then it will improve their experience (as well as reducing the burden on us, where we repeatedly provide the same information).
- Second, to gather information directly from users at the time of the problem occurring. This allows users to log issues in a more frictionless way and also allows problems to be identified and resolved in a more timely manner.
- Third, a solution such as this allows us to automatically take the context of the user (name, role, department etc) and the page they were on (url), and submit it with the support ticket and their description of the issue. This will help to reduce the amount of time that our support helpdesk has to spend gathering that contextual information around a problem, reduce the usual to-and-fro with end users, and allow tickets to be investigated and resolved much more efficiently.

After analysing the problem, we developed a system whereby a user can click the help button from anywhere in Moodle, fill in a few simple details, and have a Servicedesk ticket logged and assigned to the correct team within seconds. Furthermore, all of the details of where the user was and what they were doing at the time are logged and included in the ticket. There will no longer be uncertainty about which module is not working or which page resource is missing crucial links.

4. Develop Moodle for personalised learning

The Dashboard is an area that, up until Moodle 4.0, was primarily for the display of enrolled modules and courses. Moodle 4.0 introduces a separate courses page, which frees up a lot of room on the dashboard to provide more information and insight into the content and resources a user has available to them. The focus of the dashboard is now on personalised learning, offering insights that aim to improve a student’s engagement – for example, showing a student a list of resources they haven’t viewed that are currently popular with others in their cohort. We have introduced or developed several other widgets that aim to achieve a similar level of personalisation, and intend to introduce more as the year progresses.

We have developed and integrated a new user bookmarking system. This allows any user to simply “star” any resource or page in Moodle, where it will be added to their personal bookmarks list, accessible from almost anywhere in the system. We hope users will employ this feature both as a way to keep track of useful pages in the long term, and also highlight resources they wish to look at later in the short term.

This year we are providing space to add system notices to the dashboard, and have made it easier for our student survey links to be added (in past years this was a process that involved some manual work; it is now a form on the site admin section in Moodle). Students will be able to see links to the SITS ‘Student View’ system to view their timetable and other personal information.

These features combine to increase the usefulness of the space to users. We have also changed the layout from a single column to an adjustable grid, which should allow more flexibility when users choose what items they want to see on this page.

5. Enhanced accessibility tools

The existing off-the-shelf accessibility tools were now several years old and we identified the need to improve the offering. After looking at the Moodle plugins available for these types of tools it became clear that the best experience for users would be if we developed something in-house, as these types of tools benefit from being closely tied in with the Moodle theme. We have therefore been able to create and add the following features this year:

- Three colour schemes: a light, dark and a dark high contrast theme
- The ability to remove problematic motion from the interface
- The ability to revert to non-brand fonts if required
- The ability to force underline all links in the course content
- The ability to alter the interface for more accessible controls (affix the in course menu to the top of the screen when scrolling).

These features are all created specifically for the University of Portsmouth Moodle and they work because of the custom theme we have produced. The way these have been developed will also allow for easy expansion and improvement of these features based on any feedback we receive during the course of the next year.

6. Moodle Baseline tabbed block

Moodle Baseline has continued to provide a standard for all Moodle modules and, following the introduction of the in-course or secondary menu in Moodle 4.0, we decided that this would be the best place to house the Moodle Baseline options. Users will now find reading lists, assessment information and the rest of the content from the tabbed block in this secondary menu. Moving the information to separate tabs allows the course content to come first, with administrative information still easily available, but not taking up screen space all the time.

7. Module level accessibility statements

In 2018 the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations were introduced. As part of this legislation we were charged with providing a site-wide accessibility statement to communicate which areas of our website are fully accessible, which areas need work and, most importantly, what work we were doing to improve the areas that did not meet the standards set.

Supporting this statement in a virtual learning environment, which contains largely user-generated content, has proven to be extremely difficult for all universities. Although we provide advice and training, we have a challenge in publicly stating that all of our content meets any specific standard and, without checking every site every day, we simply are not in a position to know whether we are meeting specific standards.

This is where the module level statements come in: this year, in addition to the platform-level statement, we have provided an accessibility statement for each module, editable from within the module settings by those who are producing the content itself. This will allow content producers to communicate which areas of their content are accessible, which aren’t, and how users can gain accessible versions of any content that they are unable to access.

It is important to note that in the 2022–23 academic year there is no expectation that these statements will be modified by staff. If staff do want to modify the statement then they can certainly do so, and we would encourage them to make the statements as useful as possible for users.

8. Add the ability for TEL to show user notices to Moodle users

When the pandemic hit in 2020, we found we lacked ways to easily communicate more than a few words to Moodle users via Moodle itself. The implementation of a more robust notification system was essential. We now have the ability to post notices:

- On the front page (login page) of Moodle (x1)
- On the dashboard (x2)
- In an ‘emergency’ news banner notification either only on the dashboard or site wide (an option that is most often used if Turnitin or other assessment platforms experience an outage that affects submissions)

9. Updated and revised rollover mechanism

Many of you will be familiar with the rollover mechanism. This is a bespoke development by the TEL team to allow administrators to rollover modules for the new academic year with the click of a button. This feature had to be updated to take into account the changes from last year to this year, including changes in course formats and the offering of a different set of options for non-standard modules.

The rollover mechanism now includes a new “Quick roll” feature, which allows Online Course Developers to roll-over large numbers of modules in a single batch, with minimal manual input required. Not only is it quicker than before, but by interfacing more closely with SITS the mechanism also ensures data is more accurate, meaning fewer enrolment queries at the start of term.

That’s not all!

I have not mentioned every addition – we have made many little adjustments, from adding header images to the top of course pages to ensuring Moodle communicates with our student systems correctly. This means the Moodle you see and use has been created for you as much as possible.

Inevitably, some people will be unhappy with how Moodle now behaves or how certain things have been implemented: Moodle has to work for everyone, which in turn means it is probably no one’s perfect system. Nevertheless, although we shall concentrate on bug fixes for the next few weeks, development of all of these features will be ongoing and you can expect to see new functionality throughout the year. Please keep feeding back to us on your experience of Moodle. We can – and do – make changes based on your feedback.

Learning in lockdown – 5 months on

August 24, 2020 / Becky Holman / 0 Comments

It’s been around 5 months since I started my degree, and what a time it has been! (Laughs maniacally, cries a little bit).

Seriously, what did I tell you in my last blog? Go read it if you haven’t, but didn’t I tell you my life is nothing but hectic, didn’t I?! I knew things would be tough, but I didn’t foresee a pandemic to be thrown in the mix. As usual, things always go a little bit mental when I start something. But never mind! If we don’t go through upset and discord then how do we grow and learn? I know, like most do, that this too shall pass so what’s more to say and do except for roll up our sleeves and move forward.

And roll up my sleeves up, I have. I’ve just submitted my second assignment and completed 10 different projects. Past Becky was a bit naive and thought this would be a piece of cake. Ah my sweet summer past Becky, how wrong you were. I have learned an incredible amount since I’ve started my online degree. I thought that in my line of work, I would somehow have the magic key that would give me a head start. It didn’t. Like everyone else that studies entirely online I’ve learned the hard way that it is my responsibility to set myself time aside to do things, to get feedback from my peers, friends and family, and to go outside of my comfort zone and experiment and try again. The learning journey is indeed that, a journey, and for this degree, in particular, it’s not about creating the best art, but to show the process. Asking questions like how did I get here? Who is my audience? Will they understand this symbolism? Could I try a different texture here?

Just like the pandemic is teaching us different things about ourselves, and the importance of community, this degree has taught me a lot. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Setting aside study time – I’m currently lucky enough to work from home at my desk, and as soon as the clock ticks over 17:15 pm I can get started on studying. I’m really good at it now, but the discipline I’m now practising has been learned…the hard way..as usual. It is so, so important to do this. I like to use Trello and my Google calendar to organise myself.

Finding a quiet place to study – At the beginning of lockdown I was working at my dining table. This got really distracting in the evening (three words, Midsomer Murders repeats). So eventually I commandeered my husband’s desk and got into a far better routine, with no distractions. I’ve also started taking myself out with my iPad on a free, sunny day, studying outside in the sun with a coffee. I’ve found it very freeing and I get so much more done!

Reflect, reflect, REFLECT! – It’s so easy to get wrapped up in something you can get lost in the initial brief and go off tangent. Getting constant feedback from your peers, and stepping back from your project is so important and refocuses what you are doing. To get constructive criticism for your peers and tutors is never a negative thing, it’s all part of the process. It’s also important to be able to show your tutors how you got to your final piece. Showing them a final product is almost useless if they have no clue as to how you got there in the first place!

Communication – Online learning can be a lonely place since you have no bricks and mortar campus to connect with others. I’ve been making the most of the forums, Zoom sessions and Discord channels to communicate. I’ve already made lots of friends and we regularly meet up online to play Drawful! I would have certainly struggled if I hadn’t had these places to chat or share ideas.

So what about the OCA itself? Has it given me food for thought on how we as a university can deliver our online learning better….well, it has and it hasn’t. To be blunt, I had expected an institution associated with a TEF Gold university to be leaps and bounds ahead of us when it comes to online delivery. Well, they are not, in fact, they are only really starting to blossom, in my opinion, along with so many other institutions. What has really stood out is how the student body has found many innovative ways itself to up the ante with communications, but I can see so many things that the OCA can do better with their VLE and that’s why you are now looking at the newly elected student representative in TEL and IT for the OCA Student Association. Because, you know, I don’t have enough to do. But seriously, I really think I can help make a difference working with their TEL team and the student body. I’ll update you all on what has happened with that in my next blog.

I definitely do not regret my decision to study online. My little brain may be working overtime, but I’m enjoying it immensely. I keep seeing lately that there is no wrong path, and it’s so true, so if you’re putting off taking something on like this then do it!

Until next time, stay safe!

Credit Image: Becky Holman – Southsea Seafront

Bird in flight creating a shape of an arrow

Remaking Marking Conference

February 6, 2019 / Stephen Webb / 0 Comments

Along with colleagues from about 30 different UK universities I attended the Remaking Marking: Electronic Management of Assessment conference held on 4 September 2018 at the University of Reading. I came back feeling confident that, here at Portsmouth, we are developing the electronic management of assessment (EMA) in a reasonable way. Our use of Moodle gives us an element of flexibility that some institutions, using other VLEs, are lacking. Furthermore, the drivers for implementing EMA and people’s hopes for this approach appear to be the same here as everywhere else in the sector. On the other hand, academics have some legitimate concerns – DSE worries; offline marking; having to scroll through documents; the functionality and usability of marking tools; the need to take account of disciplinary differences – and these are shared across the sector, Portsmouth included.

One worrying aspect of the conference was the number of institutions that had tried to implement a marks integration project – and failed. It seems strange that data held in one electronic system (the VLE) cannot readily be transferred to another electronic system (the Student Record System (SRS)), but this seems to be the case. It is particularly strange given that the data we want to transfer – student marks – is so important; surely we shouldn’t have to rely on an intermediate stage in which humans can introduce error? We thought we’d cracked the problem here, several years ago, but the proposed solution was not guaranteed to be sustainable at the SRS end. Perhaps the new SRS will open up new possibilities for us.

Some interesting discussions centred around:

the use of rubrics, and whether (and how) they should be used more widely;
the use of shared QuickMarks – should a central department or section provide a library of generic QuickMarks, containing links to high-quality support resources, for use across a faculty or institution?
the increased use of audio feedback – research suggests that students appreciate audio feedback, but only in certain cases.

One suggestion I found particularly interesting came from Dr Rachel Maxwell, University of Northampton. They thought it important to manage student expectations regarding EMA. In particular, they found that students didn’t have a clear idea of what the assessment process entails at university level.

Header image taken from the Remaking Marking: Electronic Management of Assessment Conference (2018). Birds Migrating in Formation

(The University of Reading). Retrieved from https://sites.reading.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2018/06/Remaking-Marking-5.png

(Assessed: 12th November 2018). Thank you to The University of Reading for letting us use their poster.

A book laid open with a pen and an eye glass resting on it

3 eLearning definitions for new University students.

August 24, 2017 / Tom Langston / 0 Comments

After the stress of sitting A-level exams passes, and the last of the summer fades, the realisation dawns that you are about to start university. For many of you the first few weeks of university will constitute your first real taste of freedom away from your family home, and getting settled here at Portsmouth will be high on the agenda. You will rightly be concerned about making friends, joining clubs and societies, and exploring your new environment. Of course beginning your studies is important too, so in this article I have tried to create a quick summary of what is to come in terms of eLearning.

In this post I have picked out the top three most commonly used terms that occur around the University. There are, however, many phrases, abbreviations and acronyms that you may hear which will soon become part of your own life’s lexicon. The Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team has a glossary of eLearning terms that you might also find useful.

So the three terms that will be most likely to be relevant from your first day at university are:

VLE.This stands for Virtual Learning Environment; at Portsmouth, this is Moodle. This is the place where academics and administration teams provide information, learning materials and interactive activities for you to complete during your course. Moodle is normally the place where you take quizzes, submit assignments and check your writing for plagiarism.
Plagiarism.Plagiarism is essentially the copying of other people’s work and passing it off as your own – a serious academic offence. To help with this, the University makes use of software called Turnitin. Turnitin checks your work against its vast database of past papers, journals and internet sources for similarities; although many people refer to it as a plagiarism checker, all it’s really doing is checking how similar your work is to existing sources. Our Youtube playlist looks at Turnitin and Moodle Assessment to help you understand how to use the software. If Turnitin returns your work with a high similarity score the problem might not be plagiarism, but poor academic referencing. Which brings us to the third term I want to discuss.
Referencing.Correct citation and referencing will help you to avoid high similarity scores in Turnitin – and might help you gain marks. Plenty of help is available. The University Library, for example, offers a comprehensive referencing tool to help you; and the Academic Skills Unit provide guidance and workshops on a range of subjects, including referencing – and in academic writing more generally. This video was produced by one of the ASK tutors called ‘One way to write an essay’ that will help you start, plan and execute your academic writing style.

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These definitions are just the first step into eLearning at the University. We hope you find them useful but remember they are by no means the exhaustive list of terms or services that can help you complete your studies. For instance, Lynda.com has been rolled out for the first time at the University and has increased the depth of resources for both staff and students. Read more about this provision in this blog post.

Header image taken from Unsplash.com under a free to use license.

João Silas