Findings of the 2023 UOW Learning Platform Review

In 2023 the University of Wollongong completed a review of the Learning Platform, which is an integrated ecosystem of different software products designed to deliver course content, assessment materials and a range of educational experiences across a broad range of courses and subjects. These software products include, but are not limited to, Moodle, Echo360, Turnitin and a range of additional plugins and integrations with other systems.

This review analysed the current suite of systems and the ways they are used, and developed a future roadmap that will guide UOW’s decisions regarding what the Learning Platform will look like into the future.

As part of this review students were asked to complete a survey and participate in a series of focus groups to gather opinions, input and data about the Learning Platform from a student perspective. A big thank you to all students who provided feedback!

The survey and focus groups were undertaken prior to the Moodle 4.1 upgrade in December 2023 and some design decisions of the upgrade aim to address some of these findings (where possible).

The survey received 681 student responses to a range of questions, and 348 of the responses also included commentary in the free text comment field question.

The focus groups, drawing on themes that arose from the survey results, sought student input about:

• Moodle site design, layout and consistency
• Lecture recordings and video content
• Group projects: collaboration and communication
• Feedback on learning

The groups were also asked to share any other input they wished, and they provided lots of valuable feedback in other areas as well.

The student survey received 681 responses and 348 free text comments:

• 172/348 expressing a desire for more consistency/better organisation among Moodle sites
• 94/348 related to video and lecture recordings with key themes being:
  • Expression of support for the availability and desire for increased availability of recordings of lectures
  • A preference for, and support of, transcriptions/captions on recordings
  • Incidences of frustration with sound levels, audio quality or issues with playback and performance of recordings
  • Timing of automatically recorded lectures in theatres where parts of lectures may be missed at the end of the lecture

Other student comments included that they were happy with Moodle, etc., and others noting that the design seemed outdated, or that there was too much extra non-course related material in Moodle subject sites.

The survey question responses highlighted students’ desire for improvement on Collaboration issues, Communication options and Peer Assessment:

Students showed the highest disagreement levels (over 25% disagree/strongly disagree) with the following statements:

Some of the other issues, themes, findings and requests students raised included a preference for:

• A dark mode
• The ‘collapsed topics’ site format & layout
• A more uniform labelling or naming convention for items/resources within their Moodle sites (and Echo recordings)
• Content being available to students all at once rather than being hidden and revealed week by week
• Assessments being grouped together in one topic, and content being grouped/organised week by week
• Better dashboard/calendar type overviews (e.g. seeing what is new, updated, or due when logging into Moodle)
• New, updated content (notably when reused content, especially old recordings, has dated references to past events)
• Using laptops or desktop devices for dedicated study activities, but a desire to use mobile devices for ad-hoc consumption of course content such as readings, lecture notes, and recordings
• Transcripts on recordings even if they contain inaccuracies (within reason)
• Using external tools when collaborating with peers (i.e., using Instagram chat, Discord, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp to collaborate and communicate with other students) and underutilizing the available institutional tools (such as Microsoft 365, WebEx, Moodle, etc.) - but students would be more likely to use the institutional tools if they were pre-set up for them to use easily
• More detailed, personalised, timely, and actionable feedback on assessments as opposed to more generalised feedback or students having to seek out feedback

And:

• Dislike for how Moodle looks and functions on a mobile device
• Commentary on the variations of recording quality - some excellent, others suffer from being done on home technology, or instances where the lecturer in a theatre may walk away from the microphones, etc.
• Dislike of the practice of ‘hiding’ content from recordings to benefit students who are physically present, noting equity issues, cost of living, and the post-pandemic change in expectations
• A desire to retain access to subject sites beyond end of session
• Dislike that often students feel there is an assumption AI is used to ‘cheat’ or ‘presumed guilt’, and fears that this can also lead to less feedback being provided
• Mixed reactions and opinions to seeing rankings and relative positions within cohorts for assessments, etc., with some feeling like lower positions would be discouraging, bit others wanting to see how they are faring in the subject. Opt-out options would be preferable
• Post-exam feedback is desirable, but sometimes not offered

The Moodle 4.1 upgrade completed in December 2023 addresses some issues outlined above. Several of the design choices made during the upgrade were undertaken in response to this feedback:

• Selection of a custom theme (i.e. the ‘look and feel’ or ‘skin’ for how Moodle appears)
• Inclusion of a dark mode
• Removal of several Moodle site format options so as to increase consistency across sites
• A revised and updated site template (optional for academic use in their site)
• A redesigned Dashboard layout, menu options and calendar
• Improved mobile experience
• Improvements to how Moodle can show your progress and display what you have completed versus items yet to be completed
• Accessibility improvements

What has been completed?

• The enabling of UOW-wide ASR (automatic speech recognition) transcription on all new video content in Echo360 (EchoVideo) - now new videos in ECHO360 will have captions added by default.
• Adoption of a new plugin in Moodle (Brickfield) that gives academics reports, tips, and guidance to improve the accessibility of their course content and files, and gives students the option to download alternative file formats of the Moodle content (e.g. Braille, Audio, e-Book, etc.).
• The Echo360 Echo video watermark has been updated so there is less obstruction of content.
• FeedbackFruits – a set of tools that works in Moodle to improve student collaboration, communication and peer assessment – was piloted in Autumn 2024 and will be adopted starting in Spring 2024 because of the successful outcome of the pilot.

What is underway?

• Decommissioning of the Mahara ePortfolio system and seeking a replacement tool that is more fit for purpose.
• Revision of Echo360 Automated recording system settings in lecture theatres to either eliminate the 5-minute recording gap at the end of timetabled lectures, or failing that, move the 5-minute gap to the beginning of lectures to limit the loss of important content at the end of lectures.

What is planned to start soon?

• Re-opening of discussions around the possibility of extended access to subject sites (beyond just the current semester).
• Updating EQUELLA to the new improved user interface.

In addition, there are a number of other projects and initiatives around staff training and support, staff facing tools and data presentation, IT infrastructure, integration and technology updates, security and privacy enhancements, process changes and exploration of new services, tools and features - all of which have the goal of ensuring the best possible student experience for you and your fellow students into the future. 

Please let us know what you think:

Share feedback on this Report to lpag-ltc@uow.edu.au

Share general feedback about the UOW Learning Platform and its component tools to askuow@uow.edu.au