M30a - Duplicating your Moodle course with the CLC rollover tool

Rollover iconCLC Rollover tool 

What is the CLC rollover tool?

The Course Life Cycle (CLC) rollover tool creates a duplicate Moodle course based on an existing one, without any student content such as posts, assignment submissions, etc.
It allows the alignment with the next iteration of that course in Portico (but will not add any students at the point of rollover).
When you have rolled over the course, you will have two separate courses (such as ABCD001_22-23 and ABCD0001_23-24) with different start date and end date.
New rolled-over courses are hidden from students.

This process replaces the yearly snapshot, reset process, and allows all Moodle courses to remain in one site.

Who does the rollover?

Anyone with editing rights (such as Course Administrators or Tutors) who previously would have undertaken the ‘reset’ process for the new academic year, can access the Course Rollover function and rollover courses.

What do I need before I start a rollover?

You simply need to know which course you want to rollover to the next academic year and which Portico module delivery(ies) the module aligns to. This will be used to configure your course while it’s being rolled over.
It would also be beneficial for you to have the new academic year's course start and end dates to hand, so that the course appears in the correct place (Past/Present/Future) in your navigation in Moodle, once rolled over.

What does not get rolled over?

Zoom meetings, LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) links, Reading List/Library block, Common Timetable Block do not get rolled over into the new Moodle course.
Please review the checklist page M30f - Updating and checking your course, ready for use this academic year for a comprehensive list of items to review after you have completed the rollover.

What Moodle roles get rolled-over to the new course? 

No student roles are rolled-over.

 Click to review the full list of roles kept in the rollover.

The roles below keep their enrolments into the new 2023/24 course:

  • Accessibility Assistant 
  • Category Administrator 
  • Category Administrator (No E-Mail) 
  • Category Observer 
  • Course Administrator 
  • Data Protection Officer 
  • Exams Office 
  • External Examiner 
  • Faculty Learning Technologist 
  • Leader  
  • MyFeedback Departmental Administrator 
  • MyFeedback Usage Analyser 
  • Non-editing Tutor 
  • Personal tutor 
  • Service Desk  
  • SSW Supporter  
  • Staff Observer  
  • Tutor 

How to rollover a course from 2022/23 to 2023/24?

  1. Access the course you want to roll over.
  2. Click More in the tab menu at the top of the site, then click Course Rollover

    The Course Rollover tool will take you through a series of steps to confirm information about the course you are rolling over. 

    Step One - Alignment

    This step allows the tool to identify the data from Portico for the course you want to rollover.

  3. Select the Alignment Type for your Course – Module, Programme or Miscellaneous. This will automatically select the correct category for your course to be rolled over to.

    The first page will ask you to identify its category alignment. In this initial release, you will be able to align your course with:

    • Module(s) – Those courses that align with one or more Module deliveries. This means your module will be located in the Moodle category with all the other modules for the course.
    • Programme(s) – Those courses that align with a Programme or Route code. This means your course will be located in the Moodle category for the Programme, with all the other Programme-level pages.
    • Miscellaneous/Supplementary resource – Those courses usually align with one of several Programme or Route codes. This means your course will be located in the Moodle category for 'Miscellaneous'.

    Do not select 'Programme' if your course only aligns to Module delivery code(s). This would lead to having no suggested data in the next screen 'Course Data'. (see below)
    The tool will suggest the SITS-based names and codes based on your module(s) alignments or your programme(s)/route(s) alignments.

  4. Under Alignments with Portico deliveries, you are presented with a proposed delivery alignment for next year, based on current mappings of your course (if you have mappings in the Portico Block). This does not map student enrolments.
    Check whether a module/programme delivery was previously aligned to your course.
    You must select a delivery alignment for the rollover tool to work.
  5. Review the suggested alignments. Ensure the year in the suggested alignment year is 2023.

    The Course Rollover tool will show the Module Deliveries that “may” be currently associated with the course, and will do its best to auto suggest the next academic year equivalent Module deliveries.

    Screen shot of suggest delivery alignments section

  6. If this is not correct, or you need to align to multiple module deliveries, use the Search box to find your module delivery(ies) or programme entities from Portico (if your course is not aligned to a Portico module, but a programme or department).
  7. Select the module/programme alignment(s) required. Ensure the year in the suggested alignment year is 2023.
  8. Click the Next button.

Step Two - Course Data

This step confirms course dates, naming and category location in Moodle.

  1. On this screen, you see a summary of the configuration for your Current course and the Rolled-over course you are about to create.
    The tool will auto-populate the fields from available information within Moodle/Portico, and based on the information you provided in the previous screen.


    Screen shot of course data for rolled over course

  2. Check the course start and end date. This is important as it will determine if your course appears in the 'past', 'in progress' or 'future' filters within the My courses tab in Moodle.
    The suggestion is taken from the module delivery data in Portico.
    You can change the current course’s start and end date.

    If the course start and end date change in future, you can still change them in the Moodle Course Settings for the course.

  3. The rolled-over course information will offer Course full/short names as well as a Course ID number and will display course start/end dates as currently listed within Portico.
    The tool uses the alignment you previously selected and also highlights the Moodle category that the course will be rolled over to.

    You also have an option to amend the Course full/short names as well as a Course ID number. We do not recommend you change this unless you are making multiple copies of the same Moodle course (see M30c - Duplicating a Moodle course within the academic year).

    If the rolled-over course already exist, you will have an error message as you cannot have a source with the same name/title.
  4. Check (and amend if incorrect) the rolled-over course start and end date.

    Going forward with future developments, course end and start dates will be highly important, as they will be triggers for automated activities within Moodle.
    It is important to remember that only courses that fall within a current start/end date will be displayed by default on the My courses tab as this displays “In Progress” courses by default.
  5. When you are ready, click the Schedule rollover button.

  6. You will get a confirmation of the scheduled rollover on-screen.

  7. You can navigate away from this screen. You will receive an email of confirmation when the rollover is complete. Return to the new 2023/24 course to check and update the course for the new academic year.

PLEASE NOTE: By default, the new course will be Hidden from students. However it will still be visible to staff within the My courses tab. The label Hidden from students will display over the course image to make its status clear.

At any point after you have scheduled a Rollover, you can click the Course Rollover link from the More tab to see its status.
This can be one of five statuses: Queued, Pending, Processing, Complete or Failed. 
Queued means that the rollover is in a queue and it will be processed as soon as possible;
Pending means that the rollover is about to be processed;
Processing
means that the rollover is yet to complete;
Complete means that the rollover has successfully completed and a direct link to the new course will be provided on this screen;
Failed means that an issue has occurred with the rollover (please see Known Issues page).

What if the rollover fails?

If the rollover fails, there will be an error message in first column of the table. This should indicate the reason for the error.
Review the Course Rollover Tool: known issues page to check whether it's a known error and please contact the Digital Education team if this doesn't resolve your issue.

What do I need to do after the rollover?

You can update the activity due dates, amend content, and then enrol the new 2023/24 cohort of students. 

  1. Follow the checklist M30f - Updating and checking your course, ready for use this academic year to finalise course configurations and amend your new course for the new academic year.
  2. Activate mapping(s) to add students to the 2023/24 page if you use the Portico block for enrolments.
  3. Make the course visible.

FAQ

 Frequently Asked Questions

Rollover tool

Q. What do I need to prepare /do before rolling over my course?
A. You need your course name, the Portico delivery code(s), start and end dates for your course.


Q. Who can do the rollover?
A. The rollover function is available to the Moodle Course Administrator and Tutor roles.


Q. What happens to my old course once I have rolled over?
A. The old/current course will have a course end date set and will be placed in the 2022/23 category structure, otherwise it will remain unchanged and continue to be available as previously.


Q. Can I edit my course full name, short name, Portico ID, category?
A. Yes.


Q. Can I edit the start date / end date of the rolled over course?
A. Yes.

Please note having a correct course start date and course end date is critical to the operation of Course Life Cycle processes. Inputting of incorrect dates may negatively affect your course interacting with Moodle activities.

   

Q. Can I roll over the same course multiple times?
A. Yes. But you will need to amend the rolled over course name as the course names are unique.


Q. Can I roll over a course reading list?
A. Course Reading lists need to be re-configured after the rollover. Course Reading lists rely on the 8-character module code. The naming convention used by the course rollover tool ensures old and new courses will be able to access it.


Q. Who receives the rollover completion email? Can I add another user?
A. The person requesting the course rollover. No, but you can forward the email when you get it.


Q. How does the rollover work for courses that run in alternate years when there isn’t a 2022-23 instance to rollover?
A. Delete the suggested incremented delivery alignment in step one, search and add the term 2023 year alignment.


Q. What happens to my 2022-23 course when I roll it over to 2023-24?
A. As your 2023 new course is moved to a 2023/24 category for your department, your 2022/23 course is also moved to the equivalent folder for 2022/23. Nothing else happens: the 2022/23 course is still visible and no enrolments or content are altered. 
Please note, however, that the dates you select for the 2022/23 course on the second screen (Course Data) will change if different dates (it defaults to SITS data) are selected.


Q. What happens if somebody forgets to rollover their course? How do they get this resolved?
A. They roll the course over.


Q. I started rolling over a course but I don't have any suggestions in Step 2: Course Data. What can I do?
A. It's likely that you have selected 'Programme' alignment on  'Step One', then aligned to only Module delivery(ies) and no programme. 
If so, use the back arrow in your browser to go to the previous screen and select Module alignment, then carry on. The tool should now suggest Portico-based names and IDs in the rolled-over Course Data screen. If you still experience an issue, please contact digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk.

Q. I started rolling over a course but my course suggested category is 'Temporary 23/24 Courses'. How do I fix this?
A. It's likely that you have not selected a 2023 alignment on 'Step One', and then aligned to a Module delivery that would be in a category year that doesn't exist in Moodle (e.g.: 2020/21).
If so, use the back arrow in your browser to go to the previous screen and select a 2023 delivery alignment, then carry on. The tool should now suggest the appropriate category in the rolled-over Course Data screen. If you still experience an issue, please contact  digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk .


LSA

Q. Where do I run my (non-centrally managed) Late Summer Assessments (LSA)?
A. All Moodle Late Summer Assessments are to run in your 2022-23 course in Moodle.


Course alignment

Q. What happens if my course has no mapping?
A. You must select a delivery alignment to use the rollover tool. The alignment decides which departmental category the course will be rolled over into and is based upon which department the course belongs to.


Q. What happens if my course has multiple delivery codes/mappings?
A. The tool allows you to align the course to multiple course deliveries.


Q. What happens if my course is aligned to a programme/route?
A. The tool allows you to align your course to a programme or route.


Q. What happens if my course is mapped to a module and to a programme?
A. The tool allows you to align your course to both module(s) and programme(s).


Q. What happens if I add an alignment to a 'timeless' course to roll over content?
A. It will move your timeless course into the relevant year/department category relative to the Portico delivery. Your mapping will appear (inactive) in the Portico block in your course.


Q. Can I rollover my Term 1 course into a Term 2 course?
A. Yes, you can delete the suggested incremented delivery alignment in step one, and search & add the term 2 alignment. You can then proceed with the rollover.


Process and Tool development

Q. Why is this better than the current process (for teachers and for staff in departments, not for Digi Ed colleagues)? What is the resource/time gain?
A. The timeframe where courses can be prepared for the next academic year is expanded significantly - it can happen much earlier - which allows workload to be less compressed.


Q. What guidance will be provided to departments to ensure that we are not rolling over copyrighted material that is out of licence/checking that we are removing old assessment information etc.? Will we need a Moodle page rollover health check or something for colleagues to work through?
A. Any guidance you provided before is the same as when using course reset. The rollover process is the equivalent to the reset process.

Q: What happens if we use a course as a landing page? Will the link to the relevant courses be replicated?
A. You will need to update the links in the rolled over course.