Message-ID: <13838011.1182532575898.JavaMail.joeescobar@joe-escobars-computer.local> Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 21:39:18 -0800 (PST) From: moodleadmin Reply-To: Online Subject: Re: Start-of-term email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_Part_69_9285340.1182532575897" GWItemID: 459A6E96.LCC-Mail.MC_PO3.100.1346735.1.2C0A.1 ------=_Part_69_9285340.1182532575897 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe, Thanks for the thoughts on the auto-drop issue. That's one area I particularly wanted feedback. It was my thought to add the auto-drop feature both for the convenience of instructors and for the lack of confusion for the students. I thought that letting students unenroll themselves would be one way to deal with the issue of students who are concerned that they've dropped in ExpressLane but not Moodle. But your point about students accidentally unenrolling themselves makes me think that on balance, the benefits don't outweigh the potential confusion. Incidentally, if a student is unenrolled and then re-enrolled, they don't in fact lose their work. I verified this with one instructor earlier last term. But since the enrollment code has changed slightly, and since I haven't verified that it works the same way when the student does it, there's always the possibility that it won't work seamlessly--another good reason not to allow it. I'll make the appropriate changes to the message and send it out. Thanks for taking the time to look it over. David >>> On Tue, Jan 2, 2007 at 2:31 pm, Online wrote: > Fine letter David, > > But, we are not doing the auto drops. If you now allow students to unenroll > themselves from a Moodle class, I think that it will confuse the issue. If > they click unenroll, why wouldn't they also think they are getting a tuitioin > refund? Seems like a logical thought to me. I thought a large part of your > idea of doing both adds and drops in Moodle was to address this > liability/refund issue. If so, then I would not turn on the server setting > to allow students to unenroll themselves. (If you agree, remove that mention > from your letter/email.) > > More importantly, we don't know the Moodle behavior IF a student > accidentally clicks the unenroll button, say midway through the term, and > get's re-enrolled via the Banner script the next day, is all of their > previous work/posts/grades/etc. automatically re-attached to that account? > I do not know the answer to this question. Therefore, I would not allow > students to unenroll themselves. > > My $.02 > > Joe > > > Students should be sure to drop in ExpressLane first, however, because a > student who unenrolls herself from a course in Moodle without also dropping > in ExpressLane will simply be re-enrolled in Moodle. > > >>>> moodleadmin 01/02/07 12:31 PM >>> > Webmaster-type-people: > > Below is a draft of a message I plan to send to faculty today, on > start-of-term issues. If you like, please go ahead and look it over and > suggest revisions. I plan to change some of the formatting. > > Sorry for the last-minute nature of the draft; I actually planned to send it > this morning, and it occurred to me you might want to take a look. I still > plan to send this out this afternoon. > > David > > ---- > > Instructors, > > This message is the start of the usual flurry of start-of-term emails about > Moodle. I'll try to keep them to a minimum this term (no daily "Sorry, > Moodle is still not ready!" postings this time!), but I'll also apologize > now, in advance in case the number becomes onerous. > > Now, to business. > > > First: timelines. The first load of student enrollments will take place on > Thursday, sometime before 1:00 PM. This means that students will be enrolled > in your courses, and that you will be able to see them (and do things like > assign them to groups); it does NOT mean that they will be able to log in > yet. I'd be grateful if you could do a quick check on your Moodle > enrollments, if you have the time, and let me know if you see anything > strange (no students enrolled, vastly fewer students enrolled in Moodle than > are enrolled in Banner, or vastly MORE students enrolled in Moodle than are > in Banner). > > I will turn on the ability to for students to log in to Moodle on Sunday > afternoon. But please note that enrollled students will still be unable to > see your courses UNTIL you explicitly make the courses available. When > students log in, they don't automatically see all the courses they are > enrolled in: they see the courses that they're enrolled in that the > instructor has made visible. So even though we will allow them to log in to > Moodle on Sunday (this is for troubleshooting purposes--it allows me to run > some tests to make sure that everything is working), your students will not > see your course unless you've made it available to them. In fact, they won't > even see that your course exists unless you've made it available to them. > That brings me to my next point: > > Please make sure that you make your course available to students in the > course settings page, before 8:00 AM on Monday, January 8th. > > That is the official 'availability date' posted on the front page. Students > will be confused if they log in after that point and don't see courses for > which they're officially registered in ExpressLane. That is something that > you need to do: we cannot do it for you. > > To make your course visible to students: go into your course. In the > left-hand administration block, click Settings. On the settings page, look > for the Availability menu, about half way down the page. By default, it's > set to not available (which means it's hidden). When you set it to > available, students will see it. That's all you have to do. > > > > Enrollments > > Students who are enrolled in your course in ExpressLane are automatically > enrolled in your Moodle courses. During most of the term, enrollments will > be updated each day at 5:00 AM, 12:00 noon, 4:00 PM, and 11:00 PM. In order > to keep the load on the Banner database low, the noon and 4:00 PM runs will > probably not happen January 5 (this Friday) through January 9th (next > Tuesday). We will monitor the load on the database and add these loads back > in as quickly as we can, but the first few days of the term have > traditionally been pretty high-traffic, so we are doing everything we can to > minimize the load on Banner, so we can keep things running smoothly. > > The net effect of all of this is that there may be some lag time between > when a student enrolls in your course in ExpressLane and when they're > enrolled in Moodle (for example, if a student enrolls in ExpressLane at 8:00 > AM on January 8th, she won't be enrolled in Moodle until 11:00 PM that day). > > Two other things to keep in mind: > > - Students cannot enroll themselves in classes. This has to be done either > through Banner, or by the instructor. If a student has already logged in to > Moodle, the instructor can do a search on the student's name and add him to a > course. But the student can't enroll himself: either the student must enroll > himself in ExpressLane (which will then be propogated to Moodle), or the > Instructor must do it. > > - Moodle does not automatically drop students when they drop in ExpressLane. > This was a request dear to many of you (myself, too), and I'd hoped to have > this up and running for Winter term, but unfortunately we aren't there yet. > We will allow students to unenroll themselves, however, so that should help > remove some of the cruft from your class lists. As the instructor, you also > have the ability to do that. Students should be sure to drop in ExpressLane > first, however, because a student who unenrolls herself from a course in > Moodle without also dropping in ExpressLane will simply be re-enrolled in > Moodle. > > > > Other terms > > The main moodle address (moodle.lanecc.edu) now redirects automatically to > Winter term, not Fall (that change was made on January 1). There are links > to the other instances of Moodle (Fall, Summer, and prior to that) on the > Moodle main page. > > At the moment, students continue to have access to their courses from Fall > 2006. I plan to cut off that access one week after Winter term starts, so > the last day they would have access is Friday, January 12th. > > > > Support > > Just a quick note here: this address (moodleadmin@lanecc.edu) is for issues > related to things related to administration of Moodle itself--course > creation, accounts, enrollments, and so forth. Students who need assistance > logging in should contact the Student Help Desk (SHeD) by email at > SHeD@lanecc.edu or by phone at 463-3333. There's a link on the main page of > the Moodle site that will take them to our Moodle information page. > > For instructors with questions about how to use Moodle, the faculty > webmasters are currently the folks to ask (this will be changing in the > not-too-distant future, as IT takes over faculty support). They can be > reached at online@lanecc.edu. There's also a link to the faculty support > page (https://teach.lanecc.edu/moodle) > > That's it for now. Please let me know if you have any questions. > > David Walton > > > > > =============================================== > David Walton > Moodle System Administrator > Lane Community College > For enrollment, course creation, logging in, or general server issues, email > moodleadmin@lanecc.edu > For faculty assistance using Moodle, email online@lanecc.edu > Voice: 463-3367 > =============================================== =============================================== David Walton Moodle System Administrator Lane Community College For enrollment, course creation, logging in, or general server issues, email moodleadmin@lanecc.edu For faculty assistance using Moodle, email online@lanecc.edu Voice: 463-3367 =============================================== ------=_Part_69_9285340.1182532575897--