Campus Updates - December 2022

Virtual Campus Moodle Updates 2022

What's happening in December?

The Leadership Academy's Virtual Campuses (VCs) are powered by the open source software, Moodle - https://moodle.com

The campuses also have a number of Moodle plugins installed to enable extra tools and functionality to allow you as participants and faculty to deliver Leadership Programmes.

As with all software, there are frequent updates to the underlying system that hosts the VC, Moodle software itself, and the plugins that need to be installed to ensure that the Virtual Campuses are reliable, secure and safe for you to use. Most of these are very slight updates that don't affect the look or behaviour of the VC so go unnoticed.

We now need to carry out a more significant update so the VCs continue to use a supported and updated version of Moodle. 

When will this happen, and what will I see as the update is in progress?

This work will be carried out in December 2022 as formal programme delivery reduces. Most updates will be carried out in the week before Christmas, so from 19th to 23rd December.

Each VC will be placed in a maintenance mode briefly to allow the Digital Team to update the Moodle version. This will take a few minutes in most cases, but some VCs will need a little more time so may be unavailable for up to an hour. If you try to access a VC that is in the process of being upgraded, you may see a maintenance message or be unable to access it at all and see an error message. These won't last long, so please try again an hour later. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but hope you understand why this critical maintenance is needed and why we're carrying this work out at this time.

What changes will I see after the update?

The Digital Team have worked hard to minimise the impact of the Moodle update and to ensure your experience remains as familiar and consistent as possible. The most significant change you're likely to notice is that the 'Mark complete' options have changed.

From the main module or programme page, you may be used to a column of checkboxes that you can use to mark each activity as complete:

These have been replaced with individual 'Mark as done' buttons underneath each activity:

Functionality remains the same; you can click each button to toggle completion status on or off (so 'complete/done' or 'incomplete/not done'). This change is probably implemented to improve accessibility and how the VC works on smaller screens (for example, phones and mobile devices).

Within each activity, the green 'Mark complete' button you may be used to at the bottom of the screen is now a 'Mark as done' button underneath the title at the top of the activity or page.

Current 'Mark complete / Mark incomplete' buttons at the bottom of each activity:

New 'Mark as done' button at the top of the activity:

Again, functionality is the same in each case; the button can be pressed to toggle between complete and incomplete, or 'done' and 'not done'.

Further Support

If you encounter any issues, please use the usual support channels for your programme.

Thanks for your patience and understanding as we carry out this work.