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Tag Archives: user experience

Integrating learning tools with our learning platform

The more learning management systems (LMS) are used for assessments, the more the stakes in the system grow and the more security becomes a serious issue. Iframes are an html technology that is frequently used to share learning objects within institutional systems such as LMS but they can represent a security issue. At Sussex we are […]

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Where is my feedback?

Tutors give feedback to formal assessments via our student administrative system. Up until March this year the students accessed this feedback through the same system. Now we have now added a new view of the data through our learning system (Moodle). Why did we bother? We feel assessments are core to students’ learning. They’re often the motivation […]

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A new Moodle home page: “I am studying towards a degree, not a group of related courses”

At Sussex University we have taken steps to reconceptualise our learning space from the point of view of the students. Students understand their educational journey to be one towards accreditation in a degree programme, but in the past our online space only reflected the compartmentalised courses (modules *) that made up their studies. As of March 2014 […]

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Recommendations for Moodle HQ

This blog post comes on the back of the Moodle moot conference we attended in Edinburgh this month. As in most conferences we received many comments from the Moodle community such as this one by Mark Andrews, University of Cambridge: “Sussex University seems to have sorted out all the problems we have with Moodle“ Well […]

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Easy-to-use integration of a library reading list system into Moodle

The library uses a system which allows tutors to create lists of reading resources which simultaneously inform the students what they should be reading and the library of what books and articles they need to purchase. The system is called Talis Aspire and is a market leader in UK University libraries. The system allows flexibility in the […]

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New names for the Moodle label and page mods

When you create a Moodle course you can add two generic types of learning material. One provides non-interactive content, and the other provides tools for student interaction. Moodle calls these two material types: “resources” and “activities”. Tutors create the material types through Moodle modules/mods, the names of which reflect what they do – so the […]

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Making the Moodle assignment module easy to use

Over the last year we have made a few changes to the assignment tool in Moodle to improve the student and tutors’ experience. We tried to simplify assignments by removing the confusing (or never intentionally used) options and adding in a few features our tutors did need including a ‘release the feedback’ button. For tutors […]

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E-learning team presentation at Moodle Moot Dublin 2013

In case our Moodlemoot Dublin abstract has left you salivating but you have found that our presentation wasn’t recorded, we thought we’d give a quick overview. Sussex University is a research-led Higher Education institution using a customised Moodle install called Study Direct. We have 1,500 editing tutors, 15,000 students, 2,099 2012/13 Moodle courses  and 13,500 unique hits per […]

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Better user experience; better learning experience?

In order for students to have great learning experiences, we believe that students, and the people who teach and support them, need to have great user experiences. That’s been at the heart of the work that we’ve been doing since 2010. John and I are in Manchester at ALT-C 2012, where we’ve presented a paper […]

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100% section titles

Section titles are important for a user to get a good experience of a Moodle site. They are used in the contents menu of the site thus making them primary navigation tools. They are like the chapter names in a textbook. They are essential for giving an overview of the site and for finding content within […]

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