The winners of the 2018 VLE Awards have been chosen and details of the winning courses can be found here.  Thank you to all who put forward courses and contributed comments.

Nominations are open until March 9th for this year’s Blackboard & VLE Awards.   If you would like to highlight an eFolio site, Blackboard module or other Virtual Learning Environment course that provides excellent support for your learning, then submit your nomination by clicking on the image below.

There are categories for both students and staff to nominate; full details are here.

eFolio modules include code that automatically pulled details of the syllabus and displayed it on the Syllabus tab. The problem was that the code linked to Syllabus Editor, which has been replaced by Curriculum Manager, and that meant that users would be viewing out-of-date details that did not apply to this year’s modules.

Speedy work by the Enterprise Content Management Team in iSolutions has resolved this issue, and all modules now show a link that will take users directly to the latest syllabus details.

Staff listed as instructors for a module in Banner should be able to access the corresponding modules in eFolio. Please be aware that modules have been taking longer than usual to appear in eFolio, so you may need to wait a number of days after the Banner record has been updated. Update: This issue should now be resolved.

Blackboard’s new Class Photo Roster tool allows you to view photos of everyone registered on your module.

Tutee updates in Banner may similarly take a number of days before appearing in eFolio.

The winners of the 2017 VLE Awards have been chosen and details of the winning courses can be found here.  Thank you to all who put forward courses and contributed comments; the standard of feedback given has been excellent.

The module registers application has recently seen a huge take up use by academic staff this semester and we’ve already taken on board a number of great suggestions. You might have noticed the new ‘Print register students’ option allowing you to create a customized tutorial group register and print the students mugshots just in that register.

We’ll also be adding an overall attendance print out sheet allowing you have a single sheet for *every* session if you prefer working in that way.

Finally, the big change we’re proposing is that a student isn’t marked as ‘Present’ unless a register has actually been submitted. What this means is that:

– student reports will more accurately represent attendance i.e. not assuming they are there is the register hasn’t been submitted
– admin staff will be able to easily check which registers haven’t been marked and which academics are not engaging with the system

Basically, students will automatically come up as ‘Present’ by default in the mark register page, but this information won’t be represented on the report page unless the register is submitted.

Let us know if you think this is a good / bad idea, and if you’ve got any other suggestions for improvements.

Alex and the eFolio team

Please note that any Semester 2 marks which are visible in eFolio may not have been ratified and should therefore not be discussed with students.

Due to a significant technician problem we are going to have to restore the wordpress database back to state it was on Sunday evening.

If you have added any content to your blog since then please ensure you have a local copub of this by simply copying the text and saving in a local application like word.

We apologise for any inconvenience and please do get in touch if you have any queries.

We will be able to restore any recent posts made in the last 24 hours after the backup hasoftware taken place.

This backup should take place this afternoon and so access to wordpress blogs may be intermittent during this process.

Alex and the efolio team

For the start of 2016 we’ve just released a brand new wordress theme  called “Southampton University Theme 2016” for those members of staff who wish to deliver innovative module content using wordpress.

Key points about this new theme:

• It has the look and feel of the new University brand
• Its fully mobile responsive
• Content can be grouped into topics lectures and slides
• Lectures have the following options:
  • Approx duration
  • Associated quiz
  • Key concepts
  • References
• All media and videos are automatically collated and displayed in a references appendix

To enable this new theme go to your dashboard > Appearance > Themes and enable “Southampton University Theme 2016”.

If you’d like help using the theme or anything else get in touch by emailing iliad@soton.ac.uk

Alex and the eFolio team

We’ve just added an ’email my tutees’ function on your tutor dashboard. You can now quickly email all your tutees, or just those in a year group.

Have fun!

Alex and the eFolio team