Late Summer Assessments 2021

Important note: All centrally managed exams, and any departmentally managed exams and assessments that took place on AssessmentUCL during the main exam period will continue to be held on AssessmentUCL in the Late Summer Assessment period. The guidance below is not relevant to exams or assessments on AssessmentUCL. See the staff Exams pages for more information and guidance on LSAs and AssessmentUCL. If you have are planning any departmentally managed exams or assessments on Moodle during the Late Summer Assessment period, you should follow the guidance below.

This summer (20/21) sees a repeat of the processes introduced last year with regards to the running of Late Summer Assessments (guidance will be added to the Academic Manual in due course).

A snapshot of Moodle 20/21 will be taken on 12^th July 2021, 6:30pm (BST).  Moodle will continue to be available during the period.

Two live instances of Moodle will then be available:

• Moodle LSA(snapshot) 20/21 – to be used ONLY for Late Summer Assessments. This will remain live until 30^th November 2021.
• Moodle 21/22, which should be used for all continuing courses and new courses commencing after 13th July 2021.

Moodle use and Late Summer Assessments

To facilitate the combination of required end of year tasks and the running of Late Summer Assessments, some Late Summer Assessments should take place within the 20/21 Moodle Snapshot (called Moodle LSA 20/21).  This will be created on 12th July 2021 and made available no later than 12pm on 15th July 2021. If your exams or assessments took place on AssessmentUCL during the main exam period then this will be held on AssessmentUCL in the LSA period.

Why are we asking you to follow this guidance?

• All associated course content and student/cohort data will remain consistent and associated with the correct Moodle snapshot, in this case Moodle 20/21.
• Completing Late Summer Assessments within the 20/21 snapshot allows all the “live” Moodle courses to be reset and normal end of year course activities to take place from Monday 19th July 2021 (subject to change). Course teams will therefore be able to begin preparing courses for the 21/22 academic year.
• Additional Moodle course creation is kept to a minimum within the Moodle 21/22 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 20/21 Snapshot will remain read/write until the 30^th November 2021.
• Digital Education will make a landing screen/hub available as we did last year with a two Moodle selection page to direct students to 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 20/21 snapshot.

How can you prepare for Late Summer Assessments?

If you have Late Summer Assessments taking place and you wish to prepare assessment material/submission points in advance of the Moodle snapshot being taken on 12^th July 2021, we recommend the following:

• 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 Moodle 20/21 up until the 11th July 2021. Alternatively, it can be done within the 20/21 snapshot, which will be available at 12pm on the 15th July 2021.
• When you are ready to make Late Summer Assessment material/submission points available, simply unhide the section within the course on the 20/21 snapshot.

Details on how to create and hide sections within Moodle can be found in the miniguide – Moodle Course Structure .

A list of commonly asked questions about Late Summer Assessments is also available.

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