Moodle development: upgrade and new look

Having delivered a successful rollover and archiving project for 2014/15 courses, we move now to the next stage of Moodle development. On Wednesday July 8th IT Services and the E-Learning Team will upgrade Moodle. Please note how this affects the service

1. Moodle will be unavailable from 16.00 on Wednesday 8th until no later than 17.00 on Thursday 9th July.
2. Moodle Archive will continue as normal throughout the upgrade period.

The upgrade will address a number of performance issues, and provide a robust and stable platform for our diverse range of E-learning activities. This is a minor upgrade in terms of functionality, and there will be no impact on existing activities and resources. We will take the opportunity to declutter the Moodle interface by removing some of the less useful tools and blocks.

The biggest change will be in the look-and-feel of Moodle as we move to support the increasing number of users who access Moodle with tablets and smartphones.& Put simply, Moodle will work on any such device. The E-Learning Team will shortly produce materials and offer workshops on how to make courses more mobile friendly.  Below is a rough-cut screenshot:

Other improvements include:

• an overhauled front page with targeted support and information for users
• a new editing toolbar
• increased support for screen readers

Please refer to the dedicated page on the E-Learning website for further information.

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Moodle 2: Where are we?

Many people – internal and external to Royal Holloway – have asked where we are in relation to Moodle 2.  While we have tried to maintain up-to-date information on Matt Lingard’s googledocs spreadsheet of HE/FE institutions and their plans to move to Moodle 2.x, we have only recently come up with a plan to move away from the soon-to-be unsupported and therefore unviable Moodle 1.9.

We are now aiming towards a September 2012 launch of Moodle 2.2, with Equella and Panopto integration.  We do not yet have a sandbox or cloned copies of our existing 1.9.13 instances but these in-house installations are about to be delivered.  We will be evaluating the platform in the RHUL context before Easter.  With only one Learning Technologist here we are bringing in a consultant on a short-term contract, to cover shortfalls in both the IT and Educational Development services.

Given the very short time-frame, the engagement levels you might expect in a research-led institution with very low levels of support – our main challenge is ensuring we have a Moodle installation and a support framework with which senior managers, service providers, academics, administrators and students have access to and confidence in.

The next post on this will cover the many advantages Moodle 2 will bring Royal Holloway.

Any questions?