November 2014

Planned annual upgrade of Moodle VLE platform. We should be looking at a yearly upgrade but jumping 2 versions at a time (upgrading in June/July each year).  The exact version each year will be dependent on our plugins and how quickly they can be tested/redeveloped by non-Moodle HQ developers. At present we expect to deploy in July the version that comes out in the December previous

The development of pilot projects exploring the use of technologies and  functionality for innovative assessment and feedback practice. Focus will be on evaluating opportunities and challenges for integration with existing systems, best match with pedagogic requirements, adaptability and scalability. We anticipate that the technologies explored will be a mix of hosted (cloud-based) and installed here.  Schools and courses with a history of innovative approaches to assessment will be identified and invited to develop these pilots.

Three separate projects are expected :- Adaptive Learing - Started as TEL014 Map My Programme Feedback Analytics Capture Systems

This project will deliver a management information reporting solution that Schools and IS can use to understand the breadth and depth of engagement with IS Technology Enhanced Learning Services. It will be possible to see the picture at individual School level, at College level, or for the institution as a whole.

TEL011 (AP34-049)

Next Generation Personal Response System (PRS) - Procurement

Compliance  

Milestones   

RAG Status

GREEN

Report by Maurice Franceschi for November 2014

Achievements in Last Period

• Assessment of ITT written replies - under way
• Presentations from Suppliers - under way
• Hands-On testing - under way  

Issues

• no issues at this stage
• Two Amber risks - last reviewed 27th October (NHS and Wireless) - both being managed and cofnirmed as low risk  

Next Steps

• Assessment of ITT written replies completion
• Presentations from Suppliers completion
• Hands-On testing completion
• Finanace assessment
• Final score and award of contract

TEL013

Learn Automated Failover

Milestones

RAG Status

GREEN

Report by Colin Forrest for November 2014

Achievements in the last period

• Our final task is to deploy status checks to LIVE for use by relevant teams in LTW and IS Apps.

• There was a mismatch between database naming conventions (driver related) where LIVE had a different configuration to DEV and TEST.  The choice to be made was whether to take the naming convention through to LIVE or rollback DEV and TEST.  With the new Learn patch coming through the environments in November a decision has been taken to rollback DEV and TEST.  As our status checks are going to be referencing the db we had to wait for this decision before finalising the deployment to LIVE.
• We now have a clear path to final deployment of the status checks and will do this in the second week of December once our developer comes back from annual leave.

Issues

• The TAD has been altered by more than one project and there is a mismatch between what we have in the TAD and what is actually in the environments.  This is not necessarily an issue for this project but is notable as an issue when multiple workstreams are looking at the same system.  This is being resolved between this project, TEL017, Tech Man and Dev Tech.

Next Steps

• Put the status checks into production and close the project before the festive break.

TEL014 (AP45-059)

Online Assessment/Feedback Evaluations - Adaptive Learning

Milestones:

RAG Status

AMBER

Report by Sue Woodger for November 2014

Achievements

• All lectures have now been delivered
• QA was carried out on current version in order to flush out issues before next version released
• Infrastructure updates were released 27 November to address performance reliability and stability issues. However we did not see the results expected biut CogBooks informs we should improvements this week

Issues

• Lead Editor and SME now will consolidate images and animations and will add video
• We have split the sign off of materials into two signoffs.Geophysics and Global Tectonics. SME for Geophysics felt that he would not have enough time to review the materials due to the performance of the system and due to leave and would prefer to review the materials from home over the holidays. The Geophysics materials will be signed off in the new year with Global Tectonics. continuing as expected by 5 December.
• System is suffering from major performance issues where the pages are rendering extremely slowly. This is a major issue for developers when reviewing their materials and it will be unacceptable to present to students with such poor performance. CogBooks identifed the software components causing the issue and the fix was to be in the Infrastructure updates due on 27 November but SME's are still seeing issues. Now back with CogBooks to give us a specific date where we will see performance improvements otherwise we will have to escalate within CogBooks. Sign off of Global Tectonics  materials is to take place on 4 December and system sign off on the 11th and this will have an effect on whether we can continue with the Global Tectonics pilot.
• There are some major issues with the software. There is a new release due on 1 December which will be a more accessible version and is expected to fix Submit button for feedback issues, Custom Parameter to enable a deep link to part of a course module, mobile device issues. Plus CogBooks ar looking into fixing Custom parameters for linking to both courses and error messages to students when they attempt to move backwards in the materials

Next Steps

• Infrastructure updates to be released 27 November to address performance reliability and stability issues
• New version of CogBooks released on 1 December
• This version will be tested 2-4 December
• Sign off Global Tectonics materials on 4 December
• Sign off of system preparedness on 5 December with a fallback date of 12 December should issues come out of testing
• Sign off of Geophysics materials will now take place in January 2015

Project is on course according to plan but we are having major concerns over the viability of the software and whether they will deliver fixes in time so the project is AMBER

TEL017 (AP45-038)

VLE Student Analytics

Milestones

RAG Status

GREEN

TEL018

QMP Upgrade

Milestones:

RAG Status

GREEN

Achievements in the last period

• Project planning and budget was approved.
• Dev Tech (who are taking the mandatory elements of the project through to testing sign off) have begun work and currently on schedule for a mid December deployment to TEST which is on target.
• The project will initially work through the Mandatory elements of the project which is primarily the on premises update of QMP from 5.2 to 5.7.

Issues

• Currently no major issues.

Next Steps

• Carry out the mandatory elements of the project with an aim to deploy in January.
• After these elements have been completed we will look at the HD deliverables and re-estimate.