Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) Support

Case Study 1: Topic & Supervisor Selection Online project Problem

Over 300 students were asked to fill in paper based forms to select from over 30 academics in preference order for their report and topic dissertation choices. These paper forms were then collated into a giant excel sheet by hand. Then the students received their final selection and had to meet with their academic and get another paper based form signed and then hand this back to the admin team who would again collate this once more. The process took days to facilitate and collation of choices very problematic.

Solution

We turned the paper based form into a Moodle questionnaire and asked the students to fill in their preference choice directly onto Moodle. The questionnaire mimicked the paper based version in every respect and also streamlined mistakes such as unreadable handwriting, writing down a wrong supervisor or topic.

We also allowed the final approval process to be completed on Moodle with the option for students and staff to follow this process after they finished their meeting together to approve the final topic title and supervisor. Using a text-based Moodle assignment that allows students to simply type in their final topic title, which the academic can then select “Approve” as a grade. This has streamlined the process and again removed the need for another 300 paper based forms to have to be collected and processed by the admin team.

Benefits

• No need for students to print out 300 individual paper forms.

• No administrator needs to manually hand type up the forms into excel.

• Minimise handwriting mistakes and extra correspondence with students to correct choices.

• Overview of who still needs to fill in their form, increasing success of the topic choice allocation.

• Permanent record of selections.

• No need for students to print out 300 confirmation forms.

Next Steps

The yearly hustings that takes place face to face and takes hours on a single day, may be offered as a recorded online hustings. Saving both time for academic sand students, as well as allowing a more thoughtful choice with time to think and contemplate. (Possibly enhancing the questionnaire to enforce some constraints that Moodle does not make readily available)?

Testimonials

"It has certainly cut down on administrators’ time and email traffic, so all your work is much appreciated. It saved a good deal of administrative time, particularly with Form A, as it cut out a large number of emails between students, administrators and supervisors. We have a permanent record and it also avoided the need to log the information from the forms separately, not doubt reducing errors!”

From the Programme Service Coordinator

Topic & Supervisor Selection Questionnaire

Problem

Primary PGCE academics alone had over 22 individual Moodle spaces for both 2015/16 and 2016/17 academics years in their Moodle course list. This meant that academics had to constantly scroll around on their course menu, revealing hidden courses and wasting precious minutes each time a course needed to be accessed. New staff would sometimes make mistakes by updating the wrong academic year course, as the course menu did not differentiate the relevant courses so well.

Solution

We created a dedicated Staff Navigation Space, which was a separate Moodle course that all staff were enrolled onto. The Moodle course had all the course links organised in a logical academic year arrangement.

The staff no longer need to filter through their course list they simply click on the staff academic navigation space and then open up the course links from there. The links open as a pop ups which leaves the navigation pace constantly open. An additional benefit was that important announcements could be added to the page, as a block, in case staff missed any emails that were sent.

Testimonials

"We have a high number of course spaces due to the complexities and high volume of content on our PGCE. Over a period of years, the tutor process of searching for a specific space to which to upload, for example, a session ppt, became unmanageable in terms of requiring endless scrolling through cryptic course names with various years attached. We took this issue to the Moodle Team, and they were able to design a 'landing page' for tutors, with clear tiles linking to each relevant Moodle space, arranged in blocks by academic year. This has been a game-changer on speedy and manageable navigation for our busy and occasional-user academics".

From the Primary PGCE Tutor: Moodle Content and Tracking Lead

Screenshot of the Academic Navigation Space below: