Digital Declutter: Getting ready for the new academic year

Below are some ideas to get you thinking about how to tidy up your module area so that it loads faster and make improvements for the academic next year. 

This article covers: 

• Ideas to declutter your QMplus module area - help your QMplus course to load faster
• How old is your course area? 
• Exam ideas
• General QMplus spring clean tips
• Get help

Ideas to declutter your QMplus module area

1. Did you know that QMplus has a 5 year archive? That's 5 years worth of content. So no need to store all those old files in your live teaching module area, clogging it up for current students, as they are already stored on the archive. Even if you hide them, having too many documents and embedded content makes your course slower to load for you and your students.
2. Delete hidden files lingering in this year's module. E.g. last year's lecture slides and other resources. These files are already in the previous year's archive so please delete them... now... go!
3. Delete documents that are no longer needed for your next cohort of students. Before hiding the documents, consider if they can be deleted. 
4. Check your course logs to see what students are looking at and downloading. If they aren't using resources it might be time to delete or modify them? 
5. Remove unnecessary additional content from the top of your module. Keep the ‘admin’ space at the top of your module as short as possible so teaching content shows on smaller screens.
6. Convert PDF files in your module to QMplus Books or Pages. This will reduce the size and make it much easier to view for students on mobile devices. 
7. Speaking of mobile, have a look at your module homepage on a tablet or smartphone….does it look like you expected? If it doesn’t then consider how modifying the layout might improve things?
8. Check for broken external weblinks – and while you are checking links have you added descriptive text explaining to students why the link is important?
9. Large images need to be resized before being uploaded to QMplus. Use smaller images where possible, or better, think about if the image is even needed.
10. And while you are thinking about those images, if you decide to keep them, have you added some descriptive text to the image for accessibility?
11. Move ALL audio and video files uploaded to QMplus into QMplus Media and delete the content in QMplus – this will definitely make your module load faster.
12. Have you embedded video onto the main course page? If you have lots of videos embedded on the main page, this will slow it down as these need to be loaded every time someone lands on your page. Consider linking to the video instead – or if you want to embed it, then consider embedding it on a QMplus page instead, and then link to that page. You can also add some descriptive text or some questions about the video on the page.
13. How are you structuring your sections? Weekly? By topic? By content type? Should you really be putting all your lectures into one section? Is the method you use still appropriate? If you are not sure then now is the time to ask your students what they think.
14. Convert your static reading list to a dynamic one using TALIS Aspire. You can add all kinds of content beyond just books and journals and it can also generate a CLA licence coversheet for scanned chapters of books.
15. Check your Assessment information..is it up-to-date. E.g. Is the teaching and learning profile still correct? And please check your assignments and assessments. We have a list of assessment tips and tricks, we hope you have had look at. If not, now is as a good a time as any to review them. 
16. New Subsections: Have you explored the new subsections in QMplus. These were released over the summer as part of the upgrade and are a great way to include content in a more structured way. 

How old is your course area? 

We recently received an email from a student as one of their QMplus module areas was not working and kept crashing. When we investigated we found that the QMplus module area was indeed slow to load – the issue down to a number of possible factors, some of which we addressed above. 

A big area of concern was that the QMplus area was created in 2012 – 12 years ago. The issue with these older module areas is that inevitably there will be old files lurking around (probably justified as being hidden) but also, in the background there may be references to old plugins that are no longer used at QMUL. These are a sure way to slow down the QMplus module area. 

Our recommendation would be to build a new QMplus module area, and move needed content across. This can be done using the QMplus sharing cart plugin. 

Exam ideas

1. Have you provided a link/s to the relevant exam papers?
2. You could highlight specific exam resources in a QMplus tab or a custom HTML block (e.g. with links to relevant exam info).
3. Add a special exam revision discussion forum where students can discuss areas they may have concerns with. Style the forum or rename it to something different..e.g. Revision clinic…
4. Release your Q-Review lectures to your students via the Q-Review Block if you haven’t already done so.
5. Why not record yourself doing some exam revision exercises and post them into QMplus. You can use the Kaltura Capture software for QMplus Media and easily post a video to QMplus for your students. The Kaltura Capture software is available for free for all QMUL staff and students. OR you can use the Kaltura Media app and upload a video from your mobile device.

General QMplus spring clean tips

1. Look at the ‘My Modules’ list in My QMplus.. unenrol yourself from the modules you no longer teach on or you no longer need access to…you can normally unenrol yourself by clicking on the ‘More’ option and clicking on the ‘enrol me from [course name]’ option.
2. If you are unable to unenrol yourself do contact your local QMplus or e-learning support or raise a helpdesk ticket for us to assist. 
3. Also, why not delete modules that no longer exist. If you need to keep a copy check on the archive first where they should be accessible.
4. Tidying up QMplus like this will make it run much faster for everyone! Send the module link address to servicedesk@qmul.ac.uk if you can’t delete.

Get help

If you are not sure what to do or how to modify things then you could arrange to talk to a member of the TEL team….come to a drop in for a quick chat or Book a Learning Technologist for 1 hour. Have a look at our TELT support page for more information.