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Technology Enhanced Learning Team

TELT Newsletter - August 2023

Published:

Reminder – QMplus Upgrade on Tuesday 29th August

On Tuesday 29th August, we will be upgrading QMplus. On this day QMplus will be unavailable for 24 hours from Tuesday 29th August, 12am (midnight) to Wednesday 30th August, 12am (midnight).

This is a change to our original plans to start the upgrade work at 8am on Tuesday 29th. Unfortunately, this late change of plan has been necessary due to issues uncovered during our pre-upgrade work. We apologise for the late notice of the change and any inconvenience that is caused by the extra 8 hours of downtime.

Just a reminder that the QMplus archives will be available as usual during this time. When attempting to access QMplus during the upgrade work, users will be presented with a splash page which will provide a link to the index page for the archives.

You can find out more on our QMplus upgrade page.

QMplus 4.1 upgrade new features - TELT Top Ten

We held a few sessions to showcase some new features coming with the QMplus upgrade, scheduled for the 29th August.

If you were unable to attend one of those sessions, or just want a quick recap, then you can now watch this short video - a 5-minute whistle stop tour.

QMplus Hub (Mahara) upgrade and new features

We will be upgrading QMplus Hub on 19th September 2023.

Existing users will notice some changes to the look and use of certain features, but the upgrade will not change the content of your existing portfolios.

Further information will be made available nearer to the upgrade.

Introducing the new assessment panel

As part of the QMplus upgrade to 4.1, the Assessment Information Block will be replaced by a new Assessment Panel, which is much simpler to use.

If you used the old block, then all of your content will be automatically transferred to the new panel.

Find out more over on the TELT pages.

TELT are hiring!

We are advertising two new Learning Technologist roles. If you are interested, or know of anyone who may be, please select the links for further details:

If you have questions please contact Zaheer Daleel: z.daleel@qmul.ac.uk

Page Resource – Time to turn a new page?

In this article TELT Learning Technologist John Seamons explores the Page resource in QMplus.

Let’s Meet… Atif Matin

In this article, Zaheer met with Atif Matin, E-Learning Officer in the Blizzard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science.

Head over to the TELT website to find out more about Atif and his work at QM

Let's meet...our new student ambassadors: Anu, Ahrebah, Irha and Jessica

In June, we told you about the three student ambassadors who joined the Technology Enhanced Learning Team (TELT)  to help revamp our student induction programme over the summer.

We are now preparing for the next phase of the project where our TEL student ambassadors will work with us to deliver our TELT induction sessions during welcome week. The TEL team have recruited 4 new ambassadors to join our induction delivery team.

Let's meet our newest student ambassadors.

Q-Review - Getting Reacquainted

As the new academic year looms over the horizon why not take some time to reacquaint yourself with Q-Review, Queen Mary’s lecture capture system. Q-Review uses Echo360’s product Echo360 and not only does it record lectures there are a whole range of features to enhance learning and analysis.

This article provides information about updates, training, and resources and can be found online on our TELT pages.

Upcoming TEL staff development sessions

In September, we are running a number of Teaching Space Awareness sessions to demonstrate the technologies that academics and presenters will find in the QMUL Teaching rooms.

Please note that spaces are limited to 10 bookings per session, and each session will take place on a different campus. To book your place, please go to esdcourses.qmul.ac.uk and search course code TELT020.

Code

Title

Date

Time

Location

TELT001

Getting Started with QMplus

04/09/2023

10:00 - 12:00

Online

TELT016

Introduction to Blackboard Ally

06/09/2023        

10:00 - 11:30     

Online

TELT012

An Introduction to QM's lecture capture system - Q-Review (based on Echo360)

11/09/2023        

14:00 - 16:00     

Online

TELT020

Teaching Space Awareness

12/09/2023        

14:00 - 15:30

Drapers LT

TELT014a

MS Teams in Teaching (interaction)

13/09/2023

10:00 - 11:30     

Online

TELT020

Teaching Space Awareness

19/09/2023        

11:00 - 12:30

Perrin Lecture Theatre, W

TELT020

Teaching Space Awareness

20/09/2023        

10:00 - 11:30

Morris LT

TELT020

Teaching Space Awareness

20/09/2023        

14:00 - 15:30     

Willoughby Lecture Theatre

TELT020

Teaching Space Awareness

TBC       

TBC

Lincolns Inn Fields

 

Online sessions will take place using Microsoft Teams. Those with a venue listed are to be conducted in-person.

For more information and to book yourself a space please visit our online course booking system and search for the course code listed above. A link to the session will be sent to you at least one day before the session is due to take place.

FAQs

Q1: What are Question Banks?

A: Question Banks allows a teacher to create, preview, and edit questions in a database of question categories. You can read more information about them from Moodle's Question Bank page

Q2: I'd like to prepare my course for the next academic year, should I do a rollover or copy the course ?

A: If your course area is still in use by this academic year's students or staff marking, but you still wish to prepare the course for next year then it is best to copy the course. You can then update the new course information while others are still interacting with the previous version.

On the other hand, if you are certain all student / staff interaction on a course is complete then it can be rolled over. This is basically resetting the course page , therefore removing student data such as assessments and results, but excluding the teaching material. This method is usually made available after the archive of Qmplus is created during the summer. You will have access to the archived version of the course if needed.

For more details please see our Rollover Process Guide.

Q3: Can I access Turnitin directly, without the use of Qmplus?

A: No, we do not provide direct access Turnitin accounts. To use Turnitin's plagiarism detection services, a submission point must be created on a Qmplus course page with Turnitin enabled for students to submit their work. Please see our guides below for more information.

Qudos Corner

We would like to give a shout out to TELT staff Gill Richie, Alysa Bramble and John Seamons involved in the recent QMplus Upgrade Awareness Session who have received positive feedback.

Staff Development survey feedback:

TELT022 - QMplus Upgrade Awareness Session:

  • “Learned about the new features on QMPlus, as promised. Some tips on how to use the
    platform more effectively.”
  • “The objectives of training were clear”
  • “The clarity of stating what is going to change.”
  • “As usual, useful hour.”

Feedback also received for the QMplus Administrators course:

TELT017 - QMplus Administrators course (2023)

  • “The PowerPoint slides with very good use of pictures and interactive elements”
  • “Thank you for making this course available and letting me do it at my own pace.”

The Introduction to Mentimeter course was also very popular where positive feedback was received:

TELT018 - An introduction to Mentimeter (Semester B 2022-23):

  • “Interactive elements (asking us to answers questions via Mentimeter). These were fun and engaging.”
  • “several new tools presented”
  • “The general overview of all the functionality available”
  • “The link from QMUL staff afterwards for the Mentimeter help guide on QMUL webpage very helpful thanks”

 

 

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