Note this feature will be delivered across TI2 & TI3

Key information 

Description of problem to be solved including articulation of the value to UCL / a user of solving it

The current theme used on UCL Moodle was selected in 2017, and is called Adaptable. UCL  has updated it and made it more accessible over the years. While it is highly customisable and great for the community it has also meant it has been relatively prone to breaking frequently with the development processes of our external developers. The principal maintainers of the theme, Jeremy Hopkins while at BCU and then at Coventry have now left the Moodle world and left us with it the theme to support. One of our external developers Gareth, is the lead theme developer, and is still supporting the theme so we could continue with it if required with significant reconfiguration for Moodle 4.x. However we have received direction of the OVPESE that making Moodle look better, more navigable, with a better student journey is critical in moving the platform forward. Given those objectives we believe that with the move to Moodle 4.0 in the summer of 2022, with significant feedback from the Education Domain, we are probably looking for a more radical change and a start from scratch is likely to be easier to maintain long term.

In order to deliver the value required for our customers, support significant changes in Moodle 4.0 and to provide us with a stable theme that can be supported, developed and enhanced we require a completely new Theme.

This new theme will be developed externally, we have Titus Learning, Synergy Learning and Catalyst available through our procurement framework for this. Gareth can also be engaged through this, if necessary. 

However, theme is only one limited part of the UX journey. Course formats have also been significantly been affected by the 4.0 redesign, and should be considered during this piece. Separate development packages can be covered to implement course format changes or new ones. 

Notes:

Need to consider changes coming into Moodle 4.0 - - https://moodle.org/ux

Accessibility should be inbuilt into the new theme and engagement with the new Head of Digital Accessibility will be required

• We did implement the local_accessibilitytool and report_myfeedback in user profile dropdowns.

There are a number of community themes & the Catalyst / UCL eXtend Theme could be look at to bring Moodle platforms into alignment. We should look at them to get some inspiration of what is possible. However, it's unlikely that they will work with 4.0 without significant effort. We can just go out and get a brand new one developed but we need to have requirements defined.

Question: This will require a significant UX exercise. Unclear who makes the value judgement on what is good. This area should be answered by working with the ISD UI/UX team who should help us engage a user group for value judgements.

Value

• Senior stakeholders - Institutional reputation, Modern and attractive to promote overall student experience and raise our rankings
• All Staff - Modern attractive and practical. Improvement to staff and student user journeys, improved landing dashboard, better navigation  (Less Clunky?)
• All Students  - Improved student user journeys, improved landing dashboard, better navigation, better presentation of "my" data 
• All stakeholders - Increased accessibility

In scope

Use this section to be clear about what user groups, technologies, key activities (research, interviewing, training etc) will be involved

• Engage with ISD Design team to help with the implementation of the new Moodle Theme.
• Gathering feedback from users in regards to current theme
• Identify and evaluate Themes available themes available for use on Moodle 4.0
• Gathering feedback from users in regards to possible themes
• Make decision on new theme taking into account feedback from staff/student groups
• Engage external theme developer to create or modify theme
• Make changes to Moodle theme to add in UCL specific requirements (branding, UCL specific Moodle features)
• Deploy to previews for feedback
• Iterate
• Deploy to production

N.B. Theme should support Behat.

Out of scope

Acceptance Criteria to include

Supporting documentation linked to page