Top Tips on Upgrading to

Moodle 2

South Devon College

Play with Moodle 2• Get to know your way around it• See what is different– There are lots of new things. Some are obvious,

some are not!– Decide which things you will use to promote the

changes (such as much easier uploading..)

Play with Moodle 2• Decide which version to upgrade to– Current version: 2.2– 2.3 available from 18th June• New in 2.3…– Drag and drop uploading (very cool)– Conditional release of topics– New course layouts (reducing scroll of

death)

Plan Ahead• Do a full action plan to include play time, decision

making, communication, down-time etc. • Work backwards from live date / down time.• Remember staff need support over holidays / before

students start.• If you have not started yet and want to upgrade for

September… get going fast!! It may already be a bit tight for time.

Look at your current Moodle set up

EVERYTHING works differently in Moodle 2

• Do you have any 3rd party plugins?– Look at what things have been updated for

Moodle 2 and which ones haven’t– Are there any ‘deal-breakers’?

Look at your current Moodle set up

• Integration – is there any that you need to check works?

• Have you made any of your own customisations?• Do you have your own theme? (It will need doing

again for Moodle 2).

Get management on board

• Outline the benefits to all the management team• Communicate the downtime, impact on staff,

benefits to students• Will help with support down the line!

Communication

• Keep everyone informed all the time• Key dates and deadlines• Support available• Regular updates (we posted the progress report weekly as we needed all staff involved)• Have key staff (managers / champions) to aid communication.

Back-up before you start!

• Take a full back-up, with user data, before you start anything!

• We still have this back-up for access and restoring of courses.

Do a practice upgrade

Find out what works and what doesn’t!

We found one issue to do with length of file names that stopped the whole upgrade!

Decide how you will be upgradingMain ways I have heard about…

• Start from scratch – all new• Upgrade all – all kept the same• Back-up and restore from 1 to 2 – only upgrade some

What we did…

Back-up and restore option• Copy of Moodle 1 and upgraded to Moodle 2• Teachers to review Moodle 2 course and check it

worked. Decide whether to use M1 or M2 course from September (or start from scratch in M2)

• Courses were backed up from M1 OR M2 and restored into new M2

Some statistics• Total courses within Moodle 1 in January 2011: 1037• 340 courses deleted in Jan – Mar clean-up• Courses upgraded / restored from Moodle 1: 116• Courses upgraded / restored from Moodle 2: 355• Total courses upgraded to Moodle 2: 471• Courses not upgraded: 226

The initial clean-up and the managed upgrade process to review all courses (rather than simply upgrade in full) resulted in a total of 566 courses NOT being upgraded This means…. 55% of our total courses in January were no longer needed in September but would have taken up server space!!

What we would do if we did it again…

• Upgrade all• Do full review of courses• Back up and restore only the ones needed FROM

upgraded Moodle 2.

• We would definitely not do a full upgrade in place– Good clear out– Ongoing issues with upgraded commoodle site

Things to consider..

• User data (what is needed?)• If user data is needed (assignments, grades etc).

Upgrade in place is about your only option (but look at future versions).

• User data includes glossary entries

Have plenty of training and support

• Summary of new features• Training on core elements / changes in Moodle 2• Training on developing courses to use new features

Talk about it all the time!

• Keep talking about Moodle 2 so everyone knows it is coming!

• Sell the benefits as solutions… “well in Moodle 2 we can…”

Should you bother?

• YES!!• Moodle 1.9 is no longer supported. (Serious security

issues supported by Moodle HQ until June 12 and by Catalyst IT until June 13)

• Moodle 2 functions are SO much better than 1 for teaching and learning

• Easier use for teachers

Best advice I can give….

• Upgrade – we LOVE Moodle 2!• Provide access to Moodle 2 as soon as you start

talking about it if you can (for training and playing!)• Have back-ups so that you can access and retrieve

data• Communicate to everyone throughout the whole

process

Questions?