Late Summer Assessments in Moodle

This year 18/19 sees a significant increase and change in practice to the late summer assessments process:(https://www.ucl.ac.uk/academic-manual/recent-changes/late-summer-assessments-2018-19).

In order to facilitate this change the new 18/19 Snapshot will remain read/write however until the 20^th September for the reasons detailed below.

Please note: If you have any assessment due after 20th September 2019, this will NOT apply to you. For example, if you run a Masters Dissertation Module every year this does not fall under this category and you should carry on with your exisiting process by using live Moodle 19-20 for your students submissions.

Change in Practice of Moodle Use and Late Summer Assessments

To facilitate the changing combination of required end of year tasks in combination with the late summer assessments, we now request that all late summer assessments take place within the 18/19 Moodle Snapshot that will be created on the 26^th of July 2019.

The reason why we are asking that you follow this guidance is as follows:

• All associated course content and student/cohort data will remain consistent and associated with the correct Moodle snapshot in this case 18/19
• Completing late summer assessment within the 18/19 Snapshot allows all the “live” Moodle courses to be reset and normal end of year course activities to take place from the 29^th July, so course teams can begin immediately on 19/20 courses
• Additional Moodle course creation is kept to a minimum within the live Moodle instance, and aids in Moodle housekeeping activities (reducing dead/unwanted courses, improving long term database performance).

What are we doing to facilitate this change?

• The Moodle 18/19 Snapshot will remain read/write until the 20^th September 2019 (2 weeks after the final assessment date for late summer assessments)
• Digital Education will retain the current two Moodle selection/landing screen however, it will be re-purposed to direct students to the Snapshot Moodle for late summer assessments
• Digital Education will create a global banner within “live” Moodle directing students to the Snapshot for the duration of the late summer assessment period
• Digital Education will place other redirection adverts/links within “live” Moodle to highlight to students that late summer assessment activities can be found within the 18/19 Snapshot

How can you prepare for Late Summer Assessments?

If you wish to prepare in advance courses that will have late summer assessments requirements, we recommend the following: –

Signpost in your course that students should be using that Moodle page to complete their late summer assessments.

Within any course where late summer assessments will be taking place create a hidden section and place any material or submission points within that section. This can be done in the current “live” Moodle up until the 26^th July 2019 as preparation. Alternatively, it can be done within the 18/19 Snapshot which will be available on the 27^th July 2019.

When you are ready to make late summer assessment material/submission points available simply unhide the section within the course on the 18/19 Snapshot.

Details on how to create and hide sections within Moodle can be found in the following miniguide: https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/x/RgxiAQ

For any questions regarding Moodle and Late Summer Assessments please email digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk.

We also have a page which has some commonly asked questions about Late Summer Assessments which may help:

https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/display/MoodleResourceCentre/Late+Summer+Assessments+-+2019