The Moodle Course Lifecycle can be described in four phases:
Jump to a phase to see the actions, roles and responsibilities.
The Moodle Course Lifecycle applies to the majority of courses. Exceptions to the process are listed at the end of this article.
Moodle Shell Creation
Moodle shell created
Moodle shell templates are auto-generated when a new CRN is added to Banner.
New template shells will initially have course start and end dates based on the first and last day of the Banner term. This may change with future versions of Moodle to use the start and end dates of the CRNs as they exist in Banner.
Courses are created in Categories in Moodle, based on Banner ORG code, and organized by School > Program Area (Dept and/or Program) > Term.
Who does it?
- Registrar’s Office (Academic Scheduling): Responsible for adding and maintaining course information in Banner.
- eL Support: Responsible for maintaining the categories each term.
Students and instructor(s) enrolled
In most cases, students are automatically enrolled into a Moodle shell based on active registration in the corresponding CRN in Banner. If a student is dropped for any reason within Banner, then their corresponding enrolment is suspended and they can no longer access the Moodle course.
Instructors are also enrolled based on information in Banner. If the wrong instructor has been assigned to a new Moodle shell (or if an instructor is missing from the enrolment), this must first be corrected in Banner, and the corrected information will be passed on to Moodle.
Who does it?
- Department Leaders or Assistants: Responsible for notifying Academic Scheduling who then updates the data in Banner.
Course content added
The template shells auto-generated by Banner contain the basic Moodle template contents. Instructors can either use this to build a new course from scratch or can import a previous course into the new shell. There are guidelines and instructions for this process.
Instructors are responsible for the quality and functionality of their online courses. CEE can provide help and advice in course design and delivery, and there is a host of support materials available.
Who does it?
- Instructor or designate: Responsible for content import or creation.
Moodle Course Delivery
Course made available to students
When the course is ready to deliver, the instructor makes it visible to students.
Who does it?
- Instructor: Responsible for setting the course visibility to “show”.
Support during course delivery
Issues and bugs are resolved via the online help system.
Who does it?
- eL Support: Responsible for troubleshooting course delivery issues.
End of Course Procedures
Gradebook downloaded
If the instructor has used the gradebook to collect and display grades (recommended), the instructor or designate will need to export this at the end of the course. Grades need to be maintained for 7 years according to the VCC Records Retention Schedule. A secure, shared space for departmental/program/school gradebook storage should be identified, as well as a process for managing the retention and eventual deletion of this data.
Who does it?
- Instructor or designate: Responsible for downloading and retaining the gradebook for 7 years.
Student submissions downloaded
Students are responsible for keeping a copy of any assignments or other work that they submit to a Moodle shell. This includes any documents they upload as well as any forum postings they make. If an instructor wants to keep a copy of a student’s work (e.g. as an exemplar for future students), they should seek the permission of the student and then download their own copy of the work.
Student Backup of Forum Posts
On the student's profile page, in a box titled Miscellaneous, there are "forum posts" and "forum discussions" links. Clicking either of these will produce every reply, or every topic, respectively, that a student created. Students can print these to PDF if they wish to retain a record of their postings.
Who does it?
- Student/Instructor: Responsible for downloading any content they wish to retain after the course end date.
Course hidden
The instructor can now set the course to “hidden”. Note that, unless dropped in Banner, all student enrolments remain and data are maintained for as long as the Moodle shell remains in Moodle.
As long as a course shell’s visibility setting is set to “show” students will retain access to the content of the shell. It is entirely up to the instructor to determine if and how long a course shell should remain visible, and to change the setting accordingly.
Who does it?
- Instructor: Responsible for setting the course visibility to “hide”.
Long-Term Course Deletion
Course deleted
In line with VCC Records Retention Schedule, we delete Moodle shells at 36 months after the end date of the term in which the course was delivered.
Deleted courses are permanently erased and cannot be restored from an offsite backup.
Who does it?
- eL Support: Responsible for notifying course owners and deleting shells.
Exceptions
If a Moodle course does not have an end date (e.g. a continuous intake course) then it will be retained in a long term storage (LTS) category in Moodle and will not be deleted without consultation with the instructor or designate. Departments must provide a rationale for a course to be exempted from the deletion process, however).