LSE Moodle academic year rollover (Moodle refresh)

Each year, LSE Moodle courses are refreshed to remove old student data and prepare for the next cohort of students. Current staff and students should take action to ensure they have all the information they need from Moodle before the refresh takes effect.

For the changeover to 2023-24, the Moodle academic year rollover process will run the same way as in previous years. We are planning to refresh courses in early September as usual, see below for details.

Key points

  • Student data for 2022-23 will be removed, course content will not be removed. As part of the Moodle refresh, the previous year's student data is removed from Moodle courses, but course content remains in place.

  • LSE Moodle will be unavailable for up to 24 hours on 7 September 2023 for the refresh. The site will be unavailable for ALL users while this takes place.

  • There will be no second refresh for dissertation courses. If you need to keep your course open for extensions to dissertation deadlines then please tag your course as ‘do not refresh’ (see below).

  • If you do not wish for your course to be refreshed on the above date you can tag your course with “do not refresh”. Please note that these courses will still be unavailable while we refresh Moodle, it just means they won’t be reset during the refresh period. See the “I am a Moodle editor – what do I need to do?” section below for further guidance.

  • Courses tagged ‘do not refresh’ will need to be refreshed manually later. This will need to be done by a course editor at a later date, but ideally before 2023-24 course selections start to be reflected in Moodle (see below). Please note that these courses will also be unavailable while we refresh Moodle. See our manual Moodle course reset guide. Contact the Eden Digital team if resetting after the start of the new academic year to update enrolments.

  • Student course selections for the 2023-24 academic year will be reflected in Moodle from 14 September. Students can make course selections in LSE for You from late July. If courses are not refreshed before this, then you will start to see 2023-24 enrolments mixed with 2022-23 enrolments.

We will communicate this through emails and on the Moodle home page, but do disseminate this widely, please.

Moodle Refresh Details

What is removed during the refresh?

  • All student enrolments

  • Forum posts (and attachments) by students, teachers, and editors

  • Events (in the course calendar)

  • All student contributions*, including :

    • Assignment submissions

    • Choices

    • Course completion data

    • Databases

    • Glossaries

    • Grades

    • Groups (and group members)

    • Local role overrides

    • Lessons

    • Quiz attempts

    • SCORM

    • Survey answers

    • Survey analysis

    • Wiki entries, comments and tags

*contributions only, not the activities themselves.

What is NOT removed during the refresh?

  • Any content uploaded by editors: Readings lists, lecture notes, links to papers etc.

  • Any moodle activities: quizzes, questionnaires, glossaries, Books, echo links (see next section for details) etc

  • User accounts; staff and continuing students use the same accounts in the next academic year.

  • Forum subscriptions

  • Forum tracking preferences

  • Groupings (groups of groups)

Any lecture recording activities in your Moodle course(s) will not be deleted and will still link to the lecture recordings for the 2022/23 academic year, so if you do not wish to make them available to students they will need to be hidden or deleted

  • Remember that last year’s lecture recording links will not automatically change to the current teaching year.

  • For new lecture recordings a new Echo360 activity will need to be added to the Moodle course, see the Moodle guide for more details.

Please note that in order for Moodle to automatically link to the correct lecture recordings, the lecture recording activity needs to be added AFTER your first lecture takes place. Adding the new, 23/24 lecture recording activity before your first lecture will result in you having to manually search for the course, section and term as outlined in our Add a Link to recorded lectures from other courses (Echo360 recordings) guide.

I am a student – what do I need to do?

Moodle will be completely unavailable while it is being refreshed, and after this you will be unable to access your Moodle courses for the 2022/23 academic session. Also, ahead of this date, many departments start to edit courses in readiness for the new academic year and will start to hide content as they do so. If you will require any information stored on Moodle before any of the above changes are made, you will need to download it beforehand. Alternatively, you may be able to access the Moodle Archive (when available), but you will need to contact your department for permission.

Unless your course leader states otherwise, 2nd September 2023 is the very latest date it will be possible to upload submissions (including dissertations) and download any items you may need (this is in addition to the deadline set by your department).  You will not be able to submit assignments for the 2022/23 academic year through Moodle after 2nd September, and must make other arrangements with your course teachers for late submissions.

Download centre

You can download course files and folders in bulk via the Download Centre.
Go to the course you wish to download materials from and in the quick navigation menu at the top click on ‘More’ and select the ‘Download centre’ from the dropdown menu.

By default all available files and folders are selected – deselect any that you do not wish to download and click Create Zip archive.

I am a Moodle editor – what do I need to do?

Before the refresh

Tag your courses if you want them exempt from the Moodle refresh

If you want your course to be exempt from the 2023 refresh you will need to Tag your course in Moodle. To tag a course log into Moodle and locate the relevant course. In the quick navigation menu at the top, click on ‘Settings’ to access the ‘Edit Settings’ area which reveals a fairly long list of settings.

Scroll down to “Tags” and expand it. If you want your course to be exempt from the refresh, type in and select the “Do not refresh” tag. Then proceed to click on ‘Save and display’ to update the course.

Please note that the majority of students will not have access to their 2022/23 Moodle courses beyond 4th September.  Students must have downloaded any items they wish to continue to use before 4th September, and you must have downloaded ALL student assignment submissions.

The exception to this is:

  • Courses that will be used again by currently enrolled students, e.g. departmental and programme level undergraduate courses. These will carry forward their student data to 2023/24.

  • Other courses tagged ‘do not refresh’.

After 4th September, unless courses are tagged ‘do not refresh’, Moodle cannot be used to collect submissions for assignments due in the 2022/23 academic session. Separate arrangements must be made for students submitting 2022/23 assignments after 4th September.

Students can download materials in bulk from their Moodle courses, using a feature called “Download Centre” in the ‘More’ dropdown of the quick navigation menu for a course.

You can also make content accessible for students by making courses available on the Moodle Archive.

 

After the refresh

Update and make your 2023-24 courses visible to new students.

As part of the refresh, courses are made unavailable (hidden) to students (unless tagged ‘Do not refresh’). You will need to make the course available to the new cohort of students when ready. For more information on how to get your course ready for the next academic year, check Get your course ready for the start of term: Moodle Checklist.

If you tag your course as "do not refresh" you will need to manually reset your course. If resetting after the start of a new academic year, please contact the Eden Digital team to update enrolments.

If you have any questions, please contact Eden Digital.