E-Learning Newsletter – March 2016 | Technology Enhanced Learning Team

Here is the E-Learning Unit Newsletter for March 2016. We hope you find this month’s articles useful.

MUGGL comes to QMUL

On the morning of Wednesday 16th March we had the pleasure of hosting a meeting of the Moodle damian User Group Greater London (MUGGL). This is a group of people from universities across London who use the Moodle online learning environment (QMplus is Moodle). The meeting was very well attended and we listened to some great presentations on the topics of providing staff and student support and on improving the Moodle user experience. Our own Damian Hippisley from IT Services presented our ongoing work on Gradesplus, trying to improve how students receive grades and feedback on QMplus. It was a really entertaining and informative morning and showed what a vibrant community of Moodle users there is in London. Read more.

Spring clean your QMplus area – make your module run faster

It is that time again when the sun begins to rise in the sky, the washing can go outside again, the bulbs and buds start arriving…and your QMplus module area starts to look…well…perhaps slows down or looks a bit tired…

There are some ideas to get you thinking about how to tidy up your module area so that it loads faster and at the same time get it ready for the exam period or for your teaching over the summer. Read more.

Winner of the E-learning Video Competition

The E-learning Video competition was open to students at Queen Mary and ran over Semester A 2015/16. The goal of the competition was to produce engaging videos aimed at fellow students about various features on QMplus to aid them through the stressful and daunting induction period. To see more about what the competition entailed, click here. The winner of the E-Learning Video Competition is Michael Shaw, from the School of Medicine. Michael created a lighthearted and engaging, yet thoroughly informative video titled ‘How to submit a Turnitin assignment’. Watch the video here.

Improving grades and feedback on QMplus

Our 22nd March update to QMplus introduced the first version of a new feature called Gradesplus. Currently available to students in the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences and the School of Mathematical Sciences, this new feature provides an easy way for students to access their grades and feedback across modules and to view their performance. We are currently gathering feedback from our pilot schools but need feedback from users across QMUL more generally. Our A closer look at Gradesplus article describes what this new feature looks like and how it works. Our Gradesplus project page gives more information on the project and how you can get involved.

Staff development opportunities

Sessions We are running a Getting started with QMplus session from 13.00-15.00 on Wednesday 6th April in the Whitechapel library. Please see our course booking system for details and to book a place.

We continue to run our drop-in sessions from 13.00-14.00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the E-Learning Studio on the Mile End Campus.

Book a Learning Technologist appointments are now available for April. Why not make an appointment to chat to a member of the team about your e-learning ideas via QMplus?

Over the course of the academic year, members of the E-Learning Unit have been delivering bespoke sessions across QMUL on a variety of topics including:

Tips and techniques for making best use of lecture capture
Using video in teaching
Using online learning environments for language teaching
E-portfolios and QMplus Hub

Sessions can be hands on workshops or can be as simple as a presentation and a Q&A on a particular topic at a departmental meeting or anything in between. Is there something specific you’d like us to do for your course team or department? Get in touch with us – elearning@qmul.ac.uk.

QMplus updated in March

On Tuesday, 22nd March 2016, some new features were added to QMplus. We also fixed some outstanding issues as well as released new functionality including:

Gradesplus – the first version of a new feature aimed at improving access to grades and feedback through QMplus
Anonymous assignment submission downloads – it is now possible to download student work in an anonymous format
News/announcement forum – you can now choose whether to display news at the top of your module area in full or in “digest” form
Rollover enhancements – aimed at those who are responsible for managing QMplus module areas, these changes will make life easier when getting ready to starts teaching next academic year
Freeze gradebook column – it is now possible to freeze the first few columns when working in a module gradebook
Web link default behaviour – web links added to QMplus module areas now open in a new tab by default

You can read about all the features in the March update.