Expect lots of enhancements in the new version – but don’t worry, the key functionality will be the same – and the upgrade is not going to break anything you’re setting up for your S2 iLearn site.
Why the upgrade and why July?
An upgrade to iLearn is necessary to ensure we remain on a secure and up-to-date learning platform. This type of upgrade usually occurs every two years in late January or early February. The last upgrade was released in January 2021 in the lull between COVID lockdowns.
The timing for this upgrade has changed due to the later-than-usual development of this version for all Moodle users. The release of the upgrade needed to be shifted to a time that would not fall during a major teaching period at Macquarie. The new version of iLearn will be released in July during the break between S1 and S2 to minimise the impact on learning and teaching.
Release date 1st July
What’s changing?
The upgrade will provide all users with:
- A refreshed look and feel
- Usability improvements that will enhance the experience of everyone on the system
- The option for staff and students to use a new customisable dashboard view of units to better manage the way they access their units, community units and other support units
- A cleaner user experience with updated icons to clearly identify items
- Updated item completion tracking to make it more obvious when items have been completed
- An improved navigation menu to provide access to support and other important links from every iLearn page to ensure support is never far away
- Improved drag and drop functionality to enable easier and faster arrangement of course content
- Renaming of the Label module – renamed to Text and Media Area to better reflect the purpose of that resource in units
A new customisable dashboard:
Improved navigation and icons:
Core functions remain unchanged
There is nothing that will break anything you are trying to do in iLearn!
The core functionality of the system, and all the activities and modules that we use, will remain the same. The upgrade will ensure the system remains secure and stable so that it provides the best possible learning and teaching experience for students and staff.
Preparing your iLearn site for S2
- You will not need to do anything different in preparation for this upgrade. The content of your unit will be unchanged as part of the upgrade.
- iLearn will be offline for the duration of the upgrade rollout. This will take place on Saturday morning 1st July from 6am – 12 noon and you will not be able to access the system at all during this time. Please plan ahead for this outage.
- You can prepare your unit as normal up until the weekend of the upgrade the same way you usually would. Once the upgrade is complete you will be able to access your unit and confirm that your content looks correct with the new look and feel applied.
iLearn will be offline Saturday 1st of July between 6 am and 12 noon.
Testing and configuring is underway to prepare for release
The iLearn team are currently in the process of testing and configuring the new version of iLearn and ensuring that all the quick guides and other support materials are updated to support students and staff through this change. There is a working group with Learning and Teaching representatives from all Faculties, the Library and the DVC-A who are meeting regularly to ensure that the coming changes will not cause any issues with the unit creation, enrolment, and delivery processes that are currently in place. We will be providing further updates as we get closer to the release of this upgrade.
We are looking forward to getting the upgrade released to the iLearn community so we can take advantage of the enhancements that have been made to the system in the two years since our last major update.
Stay tuned for further updates in TECHE as we get closer to the upgrade date.
Questions?
If you have any questions about the upgrade feel free to reach out to the iLearn help team at ilearn.help@mq.edu.au
Banner image: Illustration by Lightspring on Shutterstock
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