Colleagues,
I hope this message finds you well and that the semester is normalizing after last week. By now, most of you will have noticed that we did not upgrade our Moodle instance as intended, and you’re teaching, assessing, and providing content in the same, familiar version. Today, I want to share the backstory about our efforts to upgrade Moodle and the reasoning behind the choice to roll back to the current version.
As part of our commitment to enhancing UP’s academic technology, we initiated an upgrade of Moodle, aimed at providing an improved teaching and learning environment. During this process, we encountered unexpected challenges resolving connectivity issues between Moodle and Banner that affected our ability to create courses and users.
Despite the efforts of our team and our Moodle vendor over Christmas Break these technical issues proved more time-consuming than expected. Given our tight timeline, and in consideration of the need for a course preparation period before the semester, we made a strategic decision. This decision was not made lightly, but with a clear focus on what matters most: the quality of the teaching and the learning experience as it is affected by Moodle.
We decided to roll back to the previous version of Moodle. This version, while older, is robust and fully functional. This decision was driven by our prioritization of your needs and those of students. We know that ensuring your access to a stable and reliable platform during your course preparation is paramount, and ATSI will never stand in the way of that.
Looking forward, ATSI remains dedicated to improving academic technologies. We will continue to work on upgrading Moodle, with a renewed commitment to minimal disruption.
I appreciate any disappointment and ask for your understanding. As always, our team is here to assist you with any questions or concerns. Thank you for your support and collaboration.
