Findings from City's Moodle evaluation with staff and student users. Development of a new grade report plugin.

1. What we discovered about Moodle
Olivia Fox, Natalia Czuba, LEaD.
Amanda Doughty, Naomi Wilce, ERES.

2. ■City is committed to academic
excellence and focused on
business and the professions.
■City has over 18,000 students
(46% at PG level).
■Moodle user since 2010.
■Moodle is internally hosted.
Introduction

3. Background to user evaluation
When Who Lab or DIY? Moodle version
Nov 2012 Staff & Students Lab & DIY 2.0
Dec 2013 Staff DIY 2.2
Feb 2014 Students DIY 2.4
Nov 2014 Students Lab 2.6
Nov 2015 Staff Lab 2.8 & 3.0
Nov 2016 Students & Staff Lab 3.0 & 3.2

4. Introduction to Project

5. What we did
Educational
technology
Survey 2015-
16
Review of
ServiceNow
tickets
Feedback
from
Educational
Technologists
Focus
Groups with
staff and
students to
check
assumption
Usability sessions at
City Interaction Lab with
staff and students
Focus Groups with
Course Officers and
Lecturers (online
assignment)
Informing our evaluation
User Evaluation 16-17

6. What we discovered about Moodle
Feedback not visible in Assign
Index Page

7. Uploaded feedback
not visible

8. Staff didn’t find it easy to move,
edit or delete comments.
Decision to switch off for next
academic year

9. Not obvious when
grade is hidden

10. Grey Moodle!

11. More clicks to Turn editing on in
Boost

12. Editing and Module menu in City’s Theme

13. Moving Content

14. Phase 2: June 2018
Moodle should be easy for staff to use
to create and present content and
activities online and they should be
shielded from errors.
Moodle should have a contemporary,
engaging and user-friendly design,
including navigation.
Taking the recommendations forward
Phase 1: June 2017
Assessment and Feedback needs to
be more prominent, discoverable and
visible for students.
Online assessment system needs to
be easy and intuitive for staff to use
and should provide warning
messages when key functions are
changed.
Assignment tools need to be flexible
to manage different processes and
feedback requirements.

15. Improving visibility of feedback
City’s new Grades
& feedback report
Core user report

16. Message when grade item is hidden/visible
Grade and feedback
hidden
Grade and feedback
visible

17. ■Moodle 3.2 goes live on 27 June.
■Communication and engagement
plan via our Learning at City blog.
■Evaluate the improvements to feed
into phase 2 with usability and focus
groups to inform theme design and
make Moodle easier for staff to use.
Next steps…