Latest project updates

From December 2023 until January 2024, we evaluated the impact of the Brookes VLE template on the experience of staff and students who used Semester 1 2023-2024 modules. We have published and communicated the results in Staff Update Newsletter of 7 March 2024.

Semester 2 modules for academic year 2023-2024 have been released to Module Leaders. For any issues please contact your Faculty Digital Media and e-Learning Developer (DMeLD).

The rollover process has finished and your Faculty Digital Media and e-Learning Developers are checking every modules before signing it off and release to each respective Module Leader.

We have disable the Weekly format in Moodle.

Our Moodle partner started the rollover of modules for Semester 2 2023-2024 on 24 October 2023.

We have published the recording and the slides of the Moodle 4 webinar that took place on 13 September 2023.

We have published the recording and the slides of the Moodle 4 webinar that took place on 11 September 2023.

The Moodle 4 upgrade has started. Please come back later/refresh this page for updates or contact the IT Service Desk if you need further assistance.

Reminder: Moodle 4 Upgrade - Friday 28 July 2023

This is a reminder that our hosting provider will be upgrading our Moodle instance to version 4 tomorrow, Friday 28 July 2023.

Moodle will be unavailable between 7am - 10am BST on the day and, depending on whether any issues will arise, we are aiming to make Moodle available as soon as possible after that time.

We will be maintaining regular communications via this project site on the day about when Moodle will become available.

During 7-10am BST all staff and students will be unable to use Moodle, therefore:

• Staff won't be able to update their courses or upload grades and feedback.

• Students won't be able to access course content or grades and feedback.

• All staff and students might be unable to log in to Panopto, because the Moodle login screen will be unavailable.

Moodle 4 includes a number of new features and changes which we will communicate tomorrow after the upgrade is completed via this project site, a notification in the Moodle Dashboard and email.

As part of the Moodle 4 upgrade, our partner will be resetting the Moodle Dashboard for all staff and students. This is necessary to ensure that the online resources for students that we have signposted in the Dashboard appear for everyone.

Note: resetting the Dashboard means that any custom text blocks that you might have added to your Dashboard manually will be lost and cannot be recovered. If you have added any custom text blocks, please make sure to copy and paste the text in a Google Doc before Friday. When the upgrade is completed you will be able to copy the text from that document and paste it in a new text block on your Moodle 4 Dashboard.

We have published the recording and the slides of the Moodle 4 webinar that took place on 23 June 2023.

As communicated previously via our FAQ section, the third-party course formats we use in Moodle (i.e. tabs, grid, collapsed topics) won't be available for September 2023 courses.

We have officially disabled them today in our Moodle instance and they won't be available in the course settings dropdown menu.

Please note: 

1. All academic Moodle modules (i.e. linked to Banner) that start in September 2023 must use the Brookes VLE template which is based on the core Topics format.

2. Any academic Moodle modules (i.e. linked to Banner) from previous academic years that used the third-party course formats will continue to do so even after 28 July 2023.

3. Any non-academic Moodle courses (i.e. not linked to Banner) that are using third-party course formats will continue to do so even after 28 July 2023.

4. If at any point you switch an existing Moodle course (linked to Banner or not) from a third-party course format to another one, you won't be able to switch back to that original third-party course format.

Details on the Moodle 4 upgrade day

Our hosting provider will be upgrading our Moodle instance to version 4 on Friday 28 July 2023.

Moodle will be unavailable between 7am - 10am BST on the day and, depending on whether any issues will arise, we are aiming to make Moodle available as soon as possible after that time.

We will be maintaining regular communications via this page on the day about when Moodle will become available.

During 7-10am BST all staff and students will be unable to use Moodle, therefore:

• Students will be unable to view any content, grades/feedback and submit their work.

• Staff will be unable to update/view their course content, set up any assignments, or mark any submissions during that period.

Please ensure that any work in Moodle falls outside of the maintenance window.

Moodle 4 includes a number of new features and changes which we will communicate via this page as we are approaching the day of the upgrade.

We have sent the rollover spreadsheets to our Moodle partner who will start the work on Monday 15 May 2023.

We have published the recording and the slides of the Moodle 4 webinar that took place on 10 May 2023.

We have posted preview images of Moodle 4 that includes screenshots of the Dashboard, the 'My courses' page and the Brookes VLE Template.

We need your help! As we have contracted a third-party to perform the rollover this year, we need Module Leaders to let us know which runs from previous years we should roll over content from into September 2023 runs.

You will have received an email from your Associate Dean for Education and Student Experience or your Programme Lead with a unique link of a spreadsheet for your faculty and further instructions on how to complete it.

As a response to feedback we have contracted a third-party to carry out the rollover of academic modules for September 2023.

The final version of the template is ready. You can view the skeleton of the template by self-enrolling on the course.

We have added an FAQ section in this microsite to answer frequently asked questions.

Our Moodle partner has completed the rollover for a number of academic modules and your Faculty Digital Media and e-Learning Developers (DMeLDs) are adding Module Leaders back on the modules for 90 days.

We are putting this temporary enrolment in place until the enrolments from Banner come into place (which is going to be before the 90-day period runs out).