Moodle 3 is coming!

There is never going to be one date that is ideal for all users, however, most of our large customer base within the HE and FE community prefer the dates which would appear to have the least impact for the most number of users.

Understanding the types of activities and interactions happening within your Moodle installation is key to finding out the best period to perform a Moodle upgrade. For instance you can request for us to provide you with reports within Moodle to identify the period with the least or no current Moodle/Turnitin submissions planned. Additionally we can provide data on the busiest and quietest days of the week throughout the year.

As with previous years’ upgrades, a snapshot is taken prior to the upgrade which is a complete copy of the live Moodle and provides students with ‘read only’ access to ALL of the material on Moodle while the upgrade is in progress. This minimises any actual downtime for users to around 15 minutes.

However, the read only site does not provide the ability for students to take part in activities, add to or change Moodle, for example, the following activities cannot be done:

• Submission of assignments via either Moodle or Turnitin
• Quiz-based activity
• Posting new forum topics or replies

Please take account of this when planning Moodle activities during this period.

Finally, one of the best things you can do to minimise any perceived disruption to your end users is to tell them of your plans well in advance. Focusing on the new features and tools that will be provided with this release, is a great way to get buy-in and excitement for the upgrade.

W: ulcc.ac.uk