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How is QMplus evolving?

28 June 2016 Posted in: Articles, News Tagged: , By: Gill Ritchie

I love qmplusOn Tuesday 21st June, members of the E-Learning Unit donned our t-shirts again and ran our annual event outlining the changes coming to our main e-learning application, QMplus, in July this year. It was great to see so many of you join us and to be able to share what’s coming next with you. Thank you to all of those who attended and participated by asking questions. This article provides an overview of the event and links to recordings of the presentations for those who weren’t able to attend, or those who’d like to experience the event again!

If you have any questions about anything that you see here, please get in contact with us through elearning@qmul.ac.uk or pop in for a chat on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-2pm.

Themes

In our event, we chose to focus on the major changes that we believe are of interest to the largest number of our users namely:

  • Changes to our media server QMplus Media – we are in the process of changing the product we use for our media server which will bring improvements in functionality for those using, or wishing to use, video and audio in their teaching. If you are already using QMplus Media, find out what the changes mean to you. If you’re not a user yet, find out about the great things you can do.
  • Changes to the Q-review block and access to lecture capture recordings – after the upgrade, the Q-Review block will no longer be available in QMplus module areas. We now have a new and improved way to make lecture recordings available to students. Find our what Q-Review will look like after the upgrade.
  • Changes to assessment and feedback – we now have a new way of using the Turnitin plagiarism detection service and our new Gradesplus feature provides improved access to grades and feedback on QMplus. Find out what you need to do now and how things will be after the upgrade.
  • Improvements to the quiz activity – with new question types and new adaptive and interactive modes, the quiz becomes even more flexible. Find out what you’ll be able to do.
  • Improvements to accessing Talis reading lists – an improved integration between QMplus and the Talis Aspire online reading list makes access to readings more flexible. Find out how you can integrate your reading lists into your QMplus module area.
  • Quality of life improvements – little things mean a lot. There are lots of small improvements to QMplus which make using it a little easier and less frustrating, find out what they are.
  • The team answer your questions – It all sounds great but what does it mean? The audience asked their questions during the event through our Mentimeter online poll and we rounded up the event with a question and answer session to answer those questions. Find out what was on the audience’s mind. It might be on yours too.

Changes to QMplus Media

QMplus MediaPresenters: James Stewart and Manoj Singh

QMplus Media is our solution for hosting video and audio content. Due to changes in the company who provide the service we have had to change the product we use. From the end of August this year we will be moving to a product called Kaltura, although we will continue to call our service QMplus Media. If you currently use video in your teaching, you should not experience any disruption as we move from one product to another. However, moving to a new platform has given us the opportunity to review the market and to choose something that we feel will provide an even better service for those wanting to use audio and video in their teaching.

James and Manoj provided information on the new features coming with the change in the product and the opportunities that these present to staff and students in the future:

  • Video assignment – allow your students to submit videos as assessed work.
  • Editing – currently, QMplus Media does not provide any tools for video editing. All editing must be done offline with video editing software. The new QMplus Media will provide a variety of editing features, accessible through a web browser.
  • Analytics – ways to find out who is engaging with your videos
  • Video quizzes – a tool for adding simple quizzes into your video content
  • Audio – better support for the playback of audio files.

View James and Manoj’s presentation.

Changes to the Q-Review block

Q-Review Logo(2)Presenter: Richard Chantler

Currently students access Q-Review recordings through QMplus through the Q-Review block which sits on the side of a QMplus module area. After the upgrade, the Q-Review block will no longer be available and there will be a slightly different way to provide access to your lecture recordings.

Richard presents the details of how Q-Review will integrate with QMplus after the upgrade and also touches on some of the other changes to the Q-Review lecture capture service.

Watch Richard’s presentation

What’s coming in assessment and feedback

Presenter: Gill Ritchie

Over the past two years, we have had two different assignment types in QMplus. If you want to use the Turnitin plagiarism detection service, you have to use a special Turnitin assignment type. Updates to QMplus mean that the Turnitin assignment type has been merged with the standard assignment type. This means you now have access to all the features provided by both the standard and Turnitin assignment types, without having to choose between them. If you have been using the Turnitin assigment type you now have access to lots of new fuctionality such as anonymous assignment downloads and grading workflow.

We have also been working on making it easier for students to access their grades and feedback through QMplus through the development of Gradesplus. This provides students with quick way of viewing and accessing the grades and feedback across all their modules on QMplus. This development has been piloted in the School of Mathematical Sciences and the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences. After the upgrade, it will be available to all students across QMUL.

Gill shows what the new “integrated” assignment type looks like for staff and students and shows how easy it is for students to access their grades and feedback through Gradesplus.

Watch Gill’s presentation

Improvements to the quiz activity

Presenter: Anisa Patel

The quiz activity is one of the most popular activities on QMplus with an increasing number of people using quizzes in their teaching in a variety of different ways.

Anisa describes some of the improvements coming to the quiz tool including:

  • New question types – drag and drop matching and drag and drop text
  • New adaptive and interactive quiz modes – adaptive and interactive modes allow you to set up a quiz which allows the student to try questions multiple times. In addition, interactive mode also allows you to set a quiz in which students have to answer one question before they answer another.

Watch Anisa’s presentation

Improvements to online reading lists through Talis Aspire

Talis AspirePresenter: Manoj Singh

The Talis Aspire system provides a way for academics to set up online reading lists for their modules. Previously, access to a Talis reading list through QMplus has been through a reading lists block. Improvements to the integration mean that there are now more options for displaying your reading list to your students in QMplus, in particular by breaking the list down into chunks which can be displayed in topic areas in your QMplus module area.

Watch Manoj’s presentation

Quality of life improvements

Presenters: Alysa Bramble and Brett Lucas (from the ether)

Alysa takes us through a few of the many small improvements that are coming to QMplus which are likely to make a big difference to how people work. These include:

  • Being able to sort students by last access to your module area
  • Making it easy to see which students on your module aren’t in any group
  • Being able to delete a topic/section…without having to move it to the bottom and then delete it
  • A cleaner looking user profile
  • Improvements to the module information block
  • Making it easier to roll over module areas

All the way from Iceland, Brett gives us a presentation on the changes that are coming to the look and feel of QMplus which focus on changes to the home page and improvements to the quiz, glossary and lesson tool.

Watch Alysa and Brett’s presentation.

Answering your questions

Mentimeter pollThroughout the event, the audience asked their questions through our online poll. At the end of the event, the team gathered together to try to answer them.

You can watch the whole question and answer session, or you can click on the links in the list below to jump to the specific questions.

Resources

You can find more information about the upgrade, including important dates, on the QMplus 2016 upgrade page.

If you are interested in finding out more about the new product we are moving to for QMplus Media, it is called Kaltura.

You will be able to attend workshops which cover the new features when our scheduled workshop programme begins again at the beginning of September.

You can access all of the presentation recordings through Q-Review.

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