Changes to Moodle papers July 2020
Many of our students are affected by travel restrictions due to the Coronavirus outbreak in China. As part of the University’s commitment to support these students, we are identifying papers that have students enrolled who are currently based in China. Your paper may have one or more students in this situation. In this page, we:
- explain how this will affect the delivery of your paper this trimester,
- outline some of the support available to you, and
- explain the changes that have been applied to your paper automatically.
I’m already teaching online - why does it matter that some of my students are in China?
Some of our common tools and strategies for online teaching do not work reliably for students based in China. This means that some elements of your online environment may need to be adapted.
Where possible, we have looked for ways to automate these adaptations. These automated changes mainly relate to how students will access video resources. From Thursday 9 July, these automated changes have been applied to your Moodle paper. We summarise these changes below.
What support is available for me?
Unfortunately, not all necessary changes can be automated. We have "Ask Me Anything" online drop-in sessions to support you in making any other necessary adaptations. You can also make an appointment with an eLearning Designer to provide a quick overview of:
- tools and strategies that may not be reliable for students based in China;
- alternatives; and
- additional support available to help you adapt your paper.
What changes have been automatically applied to my paper in Moodle ?
The automated changes will affect how video recordings are managed:
- Groups
A new grouping “Student Location” have been created.
It will contain 2 groups: “I’m in China”, and “I’m not in China”.A group choice activity have been added to the end of your Introduction section called
“Make a choice HERE to be able to watch the class videos”Once a student makes a choice they have access to a link to the class videos via either Panopto (if they’re not in China) or OneDrive (if they are in China).
- Links to Videos
- Instructions for students on how to download videos from OneDrive with a link to the OneDrive folder.
- A link to the Panopto videos.
Below the group choice there have been two items:
Until the student makes a choice they will see neither of these.
Once they make a choice they will see one of these, but not the other.
The students may change their choice because some are currently changing their location.
Before making a choice they see:
If they choose “I’m in China” they see:
If they choose “I’m not in China” they see:
Why do students in China need to access video in a different way?
When students access videos via the Panopto block, they are streaming videos from our servers in New Zealand. This requires a reliable, fast internet connection, which may not be available to students in some parts of China. In addition, we want to avoid high download traffic from large video files, due to uncertainties over whether this might cause content from our university to be blocked.
To avoid these issues, we have organised a way for students to access our videos from servers based in China. This solution is much less demanding on students’ internet connections, and also avoids high download traffic to the University’s servers.
How can I make YouTube videos available for students in China?
If you are relying on YouTube hosted videos you can request that ETV add the video to their collection on your behalf and then legally download the video to share with your students. This screencast explains the process.
What should I do if my videos are over 250 MB?
If the file size of your video is over 250 MB (as a rule-of-thumb a one hour Zoom recording is around 200 MB) you will need to split the recording into shorter videos. This screencast explains the process.
Aside from making sure my videos are under 250 MB, what else do I need to do?
Many of our common tools and strategies are not reliable for students based in China. Google tools and services, for example, including common resources like YouTube, are blocked by the firewall. We strongly encourage you attend an "Ask Me Anything" drop-in session or contact one of our eLearning Designers who can provide an overview of:
- what may not work;
- alternative strategies; and
- support available to help you adapt your paper.
We appreciate all the work you are doing to support our students in complex and dynamic circumstances, and look forward to seeing you online soon!