DOW – The Library Skills Tutorial on Moodle

Message from University Libraries

With the collaborative effort of the e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, Centre for Information Technology in Education and HKU Libraries, we are pleased to introduce DOW, the Library Skills Tutorial on Moodle.

What is DOW?

DOW stands for Discover, Organize and Write, and we hope the resource will enable users to do well, thrive and prosper in their study and research.  DOW aims to provide users with a general background on the information resources available through the library and to enable users to develop search skills essential to succeeding in their studies.  Each bubble in the tutorial leads you to a short video, a simple pdf guide, or a website. You are most welcome to join our course forum by posting your messages there.

How to access?

  1. Point to http://moodle.hku.hk
  2. Choose Non-HKU Portal user
  3. Login with the guest account:
  • Username: lib_skills_2012_hkul001
  • Password: Guest!23  (Note: password is case-sensitive)

Access is also available at HKUL Homepage > Research Guides > DOW

Any questions on DOW can be directed to the Information Services Division of the HKU Libraries (Email: hkulref@hku.hk).

e-learning News – September 2012

From Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning

For the full version of the September newsletter, go to:
http://www.cetl.hku.hk/elearning-pedagogical-support-unit/elearning-news/.

e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit Services
The e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit has allocated staff to each of the Faculties. Full details of the allocations can be found in the newsletter. Take a look to find out who to contact for your e-learning needs.

e-learning Officer Faculty Level Support
The majority of Faculties have appointed e-learning Officers to support e-learning initiatives at a local level. Support includes advice on making best use of Moodle to enhance teaching and learning along with wider advice on the use of technologies in teaching and learning. Read the newsletter to find out who your e-learning Officer is.

Enhancements to Moodle
Do you want Moodle to do something that it doesn’t do at the moment? Do you have an idea about how Moodle can be improved? You can make requests through the e-learning Enhancement Task Force. The newsletter will tell you how to get in touch with the Task Force.

Successful Completion of all WebCT courses to Moodle
ITS has successfully finished the year-long WebCT-to-Moodle course migration exercise. Three phases of course migrations had been completed as schedule and within timeline.

Moodle system has been upgraded from 2.2 to 2.3
Moodle version 2.3 was released on June 26, 2012.  There are some great improvements in version 2.3. Read about them here http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_2.3_release_notes.

Retirement of WebCT system
After a full-year parallel running of both WebCT system and Moodle, which enabled the successful and smooth transition of all WebCT courses to be migrated to Moodle, the WebCT system has retired on Aug. 16, 2012. Moodle is now the only centrally-supported LMS at the University.

Faculty of Education Moodle Users Group seminar
Every Thursday at lunchtime the Faculty of Education in conjunction with the CITE will host a Moodle Users Group workshop.  http://www.cite.hku.hk/news.php?theme=pd

Faculty of Education e-learning Moodle Seminar
Most Fridays at lunchtime the Faculty of Education in conjunction with the CITE will host an e-learning using Moodle seminar which focuses on the new tools and affordances that the Moodle LMS provides for the support of education.  http://www.cite.hku.hk/news.php?theme=itedu

e-learning News – August 2012

From: Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning

We are pleased to provide you with an e-learning update at HKU. Please visit http://www.cetl.hku.hk/elearning-news/ to read the full newsletter.

1. e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit Staffing
The e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit has a new staff member who will be providing dedicated support to the Faculties.

2. e-learning Officers in Faculties
The e-learning Certificate Course to prepare e-learning Officers to support their Faculties is almost at an end.

3. e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit Program of Work
The e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit has defined a comprehensive program of work to support Faculties with their e-learning needs in the coming 12 months.

4. WebCT System to Retire After August 15th
WebCT is to be retired and Moodle will be the only centrally supported Learning Management System.

5. Moodle Course Templates Will Be Created for All Official Courses Registered in SIS
Moodle course templates will automatically be created in the Moodle System for all official courses of year 2012-2013 registered in SIS.

6. New Departmental Course Administrator Role for Moodle Courses
A new departmental course administrator role has been created on our centralized Moodle system to give Faculties more flexibility with Moodle support.

7. Moodle Hands On Training Courses For Staff
A range of Moodle hands-on training courses will be offered by the  Computer Centre in August 2012.

e-learning News – July 2012

Prepared by e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, CETL

1. e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit (EPSU) Summer Activities

The e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit (EPSU) will continue to deliver seminars during the summer break. Details of these seminars will be provided as soon as they are available. A new series of e-learning workshops is being planned and these will be delivered prior to the start of the new semester. The workshops will focus on quick tips for making pedagogically sound use of Moodle for teaching and learning.

2. Completion of WebCT-to-Moodle Migration

The final round of migration exercise has been started at the beginning of June by the Computer Centre and is expected to last for one month. About 600 remaining WebCT courses will be converted to Moodle and made available for teachers and staff to access by the end of June 2012.

3. Moodle Video Tutorials for Teachers

In order to provide better support to our teachers and staff, the Computer Centre has started producing HKU’s collection of Moodle short video tutorials. They will be put on the Moodle support website as part of the overall support resources. Task-based videos each with duration of two to three minutes will be developed. They will form a large series of online video tutorials ranging from introduction to Moodle to more advanced topics and new features. To watch the videos, please visit:

[button link=”http://www.its.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/support_teacher.php” color=”orange” shape=”rounded” size=”small” ]http://www.its.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/support_teacher.php[/button]

4. Moodle Enhancements

Based on the enhancement recommendation report submitted by the EETF to the Computer Centre, the new features and enhancements of Moodle that will be ready in July 2012 include the followings:

  • A new Moodle user role: “Departmental course administrator”, will be introduced for the support of departmental e-learning officers and staff to provide basic Moodle assistance to the teachers in their Departments.
  • New course categories in the hierarchy of: Faculty -> Department -> Year be created for better course classification and administration
  • Customizable Faculty level theme support
  • Auto pre-enrollment of students and teachers for all new Moodle courses
  • Setting up a dedicated Moodle course reporting and statistics server
  • Enabling new repositories: GoogleDocs, Dropbox, Youtube, Picassa
  • Enabling new features (plugins): Drag and Drop File Upload and Group Choice
  • Enabling filters for Moodle courses
5. Moodle Hands-on Training Courses for Staff

The following Moodle hands-on training courses will be arranged in July 2012:

[button link=”http://www.itservices.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/moodle_training201207.php” color=”orange” shape=”rounded” size=”small” ]http://www.itservices.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/moodle_training201207.php[/button]