Moodle Data Feeds

Proposal Sponsor:

Mark Wetton / Anne-Marie Scott

Overview

Moodle is a VLE platform available to use at Edinburgh for courses that are taught completely online for distance students only. Currently courses are created and students are added by manual processes – either via the Moodle interface or by import of a CSV file. This creates a staff overhead that will be difficult to sustain in the medium to long term if the service is to expand to accommodate new and successful ODL courses as well as making it impossible to expand the use of the service for blended or on campus courses.

This project will deliver data feeds that:

· Create courses on request

· Create staff and student users in the system for those course where Moodle has been selected

Populate those courses with the students enrolled on those courses, as well as staff members such as the course organiser and secretary,

Other contributors:

Euclid – Student Systems Partnership IDM – IS Apps Service Management COM

What would happen if the project did not take place?:

Existing manual processes would continue to be used. As programmes using Moodle year on year increase, and the last wave of DEI programmes join, the effort required is becoming significant and will not be sustainable in the longer term.

Why is it needed/What are the benefits?:

Automate creation of courses and population of students to courses in Moodle to:

· Free staff resource from doing these tasks manually

· Create courses in a consistent way – remove human error in manually created/populated courses

· Create users in a consistent way – remove human error in manually created users

· Create enrolments onto courses from Registry data avoiding time intensive manual processes

· Increase the sustainability of the continued expansion of the system to ODL courses

· Allow the sustainability of increasing access to the service to courses other than ODL if required/desired
We will see reduction in effort spent on manual configurations, reflected in staff reporting.
We will see courses and users setup more quickly and with less errors, reflected in less helpdesk calls and negative feedback.

BI/MI requirement?:

N/A

External costs?:

N/A

Compliance justification (if relevant):

N/A

Fit with University strategy:

Goals – Excellence in Education	X	Doing this work will improve the student experience and deliver excellence in education as it will be quicker and more seamless for students to get access to their online teaching environment. For ODL students this is equivalent to having access to the campus itself. It will also make more efficient use of infrastructure and people by automating something that is time consuming and manual. Major Initiative Supporting growth The University needs a scalable technology enhanced learning capability which is well integrated with University processes, lowering barriers to increased usage and supporting a quality student experience.
Goals – Excellence in Research
Goals – Excellence in Innovation
Enablers - People
Enablers - Infrastructure	X
Enablers - Finance
Themes – Outstanding student experience	X
Themes – Global Impact
Themes – Lifelong community
Themes – Social responsibility
Themes – Partnerships
Themes – Equality & widening participation

Score for portfolio comparison:

Programme Priority (per separate guidance)	6
Overall Priority (per separate guidance)	2
Programme Scoring (per separate guidance)	1.Alignment with University Strategic Plan/Business Objectives	2
	2.Risk of not doing the project	2
	3.Benefits relative to cost	3
	4.Time to deliver tangible benefit	3
	TOTAL SCORE	19

Planning Status:

Proposal

Programme Priority:

Overall Priority:

Planned Start:

15/16

Multi-Year:

Project Owner:

ISG

Procurement > £50K:

Funding Source:

Core Grant

IS Admin Tab

Estimation Reference:

Estimation Types: Select the relevant option(s) – each option must be estimated separately
Business Case / Options Appraisal (BUS)			Software Development (in-house) (SWD)	X
IT Solution Procurement (BUY)			Agile Software Development (in-house) (AGL)
3^rd Party IT Solution Implementation (IMP)			Software Development and Configuration within Student Systems Partnership (SSP)
IT Infrastructure (TEC)
Estimated IS Apps Days (see additional guidance*)		M	Estimated Business Partner Days	M LTW
Estimated Service Management Days		M	Impact on other Service area	Student Systems Partnership S
Estimation Confidence (delete as required)	Not confident
Estimation References	We have built a VLE integration already between Learn and EUCLID/IDM. However we have never done this for Moodle, APIs may not be as well defined, and we need to do this for a sub-set of the student population, unlike Learn. Work will also be required on EUCLID to potentially configure the SITS interface, and provide data via a EUGEX view.

Estimation Confidence:

No Confidence

Estimated IS Apps Days:

Medium

Estimated Business Partner Days:

Medium

Estimated Service Management Days:

Medium

Impact on other service area:

Student Systems Partnership

Moodle Data Feeds

Overview

Major Initiative Supporting growth

Major Initiative
Supporting growth