New Moodle ready for start of session 2018-19!

After much work (in June, and August, and before and after!), a new Moodle Platform has been rolled out for the 2018/19 academic year, with migrated courses and Portico enrolment functionality ready for the start of term.  While Legacy Moodle will continue to be available for those finishing their 17-18 courses until early next year, all new 18-19 courses will be running in new Moodle. With staff in mind, we’ve outlined below a few things to bear in mind as you start teaching and welcoming students:

Update your courses

• Review your courses to ensure that content is up to date, especially in light of AMP Portico code changes.
• Check resources and activities are set up correctly, including Lecturecast links or Library Reading lists.
• Ensure that any assessment deadlines or activities, such as Turnitin, Moodle Assignment and Quizzes are up to date.

To help you with this we’ve created a New Moodle Checklist with key things to check, and instructions on how to make any changes, so that your course works well in the New Moodle and is ready for the start of term.

Check everyone is enrolled as expected

• Portico enrolments and CMIS group imports are now available in new Moodle. You can find guidance on how to add these here: https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/x/xgT0BQ
• Manually enrol any missing colleagues as required (see- http://bit.ly/uclmoodleenrolment ) .
• Note:  You will only be able to manually enrol students who have logged into New Moodle.

Make your course visible

• Even if you have students enrolled, your course will need to be made ‘visible’ so they can access it. Please follow the instructions here: https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/x/0An0BQ

Induct your students.

• Point your students to the Student Help menu available on at the top of every Moodle page.
• Consider sending your students the Moodle Quick Start Guide for students (also available in the Moodle Student Help menu) with an introduction message via a Forum on your Moodle course.
• Try to accommodate students who are new to virtual learning environments like Moodle by explaining what they can expect on the platform, and using the Student guidance available to support them: https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/x/RQKmAQ

Training and support

• New face to face training sessions are available for Getting started with Moodle – details available here.
• There is a vast amount of guidance available  on the Moodle Guides for Staff wiki: https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/x/-xliAQ
• You can log issues via the ISD Service Desk: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/help-support, but please do make sure that you include a URL to the page where the issue is occurring and a detailed description so this can be dealt with as fast as possible.

There are still a few known issues with the system which we are looking to resolve as soon as possible, but we do hope you’ll find the new system improved for the coming academic year. Do take a look at the list of new features and functionality available.

We know that this new version of Moodle has meant some extra work, and we greatly appreciate staff (and student) patience and involvement during this substantial undertaking!

from Digital Education team blog https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/digital-education/2018/09/28/new-moodle-ready-for-start-of-session-2018-19/
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Develop your digital skills this academic year

ISD Digital Skills Development has released new dates for autumn 2018.  As usual, we are offering a wide range of courses and workshops covering Word, Excel, Matlab, LaTeX, Photoshop, Stata, SPSS, R and more.

Please note that you should bring your own laptop for all of our R sessions.
Unless otherwise indicated, all other sessions are held in computer workrooms and any required software is already installed on the PCs.

Following our successful introduction of Excel Essential Skills workshops last year, we have now added workshops for Word for students.  Our workshops take a new approach to learning by presenting you with a problem to be solved and encouraging you to use your prior experience, web searches, in-application help and fellow participants to find a solution to the task.

By the end of the session you will have improved problem-solving skills, an increased knowledge of the topic, a ‘suggested solution’ to the problem you worked on and some resources and guidance for further learning.

For a full list of courses and workshops take a look at our course catalogue.  Visit the UCL booking system to book.

If you can’t attend any of the dates we are currently offering or there is no date available for the course you want, enrol on our Moodle course to be the first to be notified about any new sessions.

More digital skills development opportunities….

Digital Skills Development at IOE offer training in a wide range of digital tools including Microsoft SharePoint, Teams, OneNote and Visio, screencasting, infographics, mind mapping and presentation tools, with some sessions specifically aimed at Mac users. You can also learn about text-to-speech software, polling, blogging and much more.  Visit the Digital Skills Development at IOE booking system for details and to book.

We have a vast range of high-quality video-based courses available at Lynda.com. These cover technical skills but also business, personal and creative skills as well.  Visit the UCL Lynda.com page to find out more.

Not sure what you need or have a more specific issue you would like help with?  Come along to one of the Digital Skills Development drop ins for more individual support.

from Digital Education team blog https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/digital-education/2018/09/27/develop-your-digital-skills-this-academic-year-2/
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Converting a PDF into a Word Document

As PDF Converter will no longer be available via the software database, the option for converting PDF into Word can now be accessed via Word itself.

Just go to the ‘Open’ file option and in the drop down menu in the bottom right of the window select ‘PDF’ and browse to and open your file.

Word will then convert it to a copy you can then edit.

from Digital Education team blog https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/digital-education/2018/09/05/converting-a-pdf-into-a-word-document/
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