Uvle

From Iskomunidad


The University Virtual Learning Environment (UVLê - uvle.up.edu.ph) is the online course management system of the University of the Philippines that enables instructors to

  • organize their classes around topics, themes, weekly schedules
  • upload digitized materials and share them with students
  • link relevant materials from other sites
  • post announcements that will be sent out automatically to students
  • create online forums and wikis for students to participate in.

<flvplayer>Image:Uvle_fopc_web.flv</flvplayer>
"UVLe" - Episode 1 - review it!



Powered by an open-source application called Moodle, UvLe is maintained and operated by the Diliman Interactive Learning Center (DILC). The name "UVLe" is a homophonic play of "Oblê" that's a contraction of "Oblation"--a university symbol. UVLê is a platform for students to freely interact or collaborate with their instructors and fellow students. It is constructed with a pedagogy that imbibes self-discovery, self-instruction, "learning by doing" and experimentation. Learn more about Moodle's pedagogy.

UVLe is now version 2.2, based on Moodle 2.2.3.



Modules, Plugins, and Blocks

In addition to standard Moodle 2.x features, UVLe 2.x now has the following modules, plugins, blocks:

Navigation

  • The Dock - provides shortcuts to the main UVLe page, to the courses the user is currently enrolled in, to the user's files, to blogs, to messages, to the form for requesting courses (visible only to users with current teacher role), to the user's contacts.



Resource Uploading and Sharing

  • GoogleDocs Reposity - enables one to directly share one's GoogleDocs files via UVLe. This feature will be visible after one clicks on "Turn editing on" | "Add a resource" | "File" or "Folder".


Evaluation Tools

  • Crot Tool for Plagiarism Detection - helps teachers detect plagiarized materials that students submit on UVLe. In your course page, use this feature under "Add an activity" | "Advanced Uploading of Files"


See Also: "How to prevent plagiarism" for further details on the detection tool and "Busting Plagiarism" for the substantive issues in plagiarism.

Communication

  • Quickmail - enables a teacher to quickly email some or all students in the course through a checkbox list. To be able to use Quickmail, the teacher or course manager needs to add the Quickmail block to the course page.



Mind Mapping Tools

See Gallery of Examples.

To create and save simple "mind maps" on UVLe/OVLe itself, use Mindmap (see below).

  • Mindmap[2] - enables the teacher or course manager to provide a "mind mapping" activity area in a course where simple mind maps can be created and saved. This feature is made available via Add an activity under a course topic (after you click on Turn editing on).



These tools require Java-enabled browsers.

Science and Math Tools

  • Tex Notation Filter - enables the addition of mathematical expressions in UVLe pages. See also Tutorials.




Organizational Tools

  • Committee Manager - an administration module that enables one to manage committees, upload public and private files, create events (meetings), plan meetings, manage agenda, minutes, business arising from previous meetings. Access is via "Add an activity" in your UVLe page.
Adding a new committee (Available via "Add an activity" after "Turn editing on" is enabled"



  • UVLe User Admin Module - a module to manage users who cannot be authenticated by UP Diliman LDAP Server or those who cannot have UP Webmail Accounts



  • Reservation - enables an UVLe user (with at least a teacher role) to use UVLe as a reservation system for a lab or any facility, for exams or consultation schedules. To activate in a page, turn editing on and 'Add an activity' | 'Reservation.' The number of slots, the opening and closing dates can be specified. Students can cancel their reservation. Reservation can also be limited by Department, Major, Course and additional categories can be requested from Team UVLe.
    This reservation system is limited by slot numbers rather than by time blocks. A "time slot" based reservation system may become available in future updates.
Reservation Settings available via Add an Activity > Add new reservation
Illustrative uses:
  1. a teacher wants to hold consultation meetings with her 30 students during her consultation period in September. Instead of doing a back-and-forth of emails trying to schedule such meetings, she sets up a 'Reservation' activity for her students so that they themselves can just sign up via UVLe, given the limited slots per period.
  2. a lab manager deals with the volume of requests for the use of a highly in-demand equipment. Instead of students coming to the lab to sign up, the students can just go to UVLe to file the request at their convenience.
  3. a college sets up a reservation system on UVLe for the use of its audio-visual room.



Tutorials

Teachers



Students



Course Creators

A department or college can designate a staff as course creator. The course creator creates UVLe courses that the department or college faculty can run on UVLe. The department chair or college dean can simply email DILC's Tech Support Team about such assignment.



General Use



Taking screenshots is important in communicating with DILC's Tech Support Team for them to be able to diagnose problems that UVLe/OVLe users may have.



Cookie problems? Cookies are messages that Web servers pass to your Web browser when you visit Internet sites.



Administrators




Request more tutorial.



More Useful Tools on UVLe




Utilization

As of August 5, 2011, UVLe 2.0 has 19,139 users.

UVLe New Users Registration from Sept 2008 - January 2011
activities on UVLe from 1 Oct 2008 - 1 Feb 2011. Zeroes are times when UVLe is down for upgrades.
















History

the orginal Uvle

Initially developed by 3 UPD students in 2000 with the guidance of the UPCC, UVLê pursues UP's tradition of excellence in academic computing. It won the "Best of Student Projects (Institute of Higher Learning)" in the Asia Pacific Information and Communications Technology Awards in Kuala Lumpur, in 2001.

From the initial hosting of 33 "virtual classes" during the first semester of 2001, the old UVLe had since hosted close to 880 classes for 16,953 users as of September 2008. It got to version 2.3.3, with advanced features indicated on its Change Log.[3] Old UVLe's beta release was on Nov 13, 2000.[4]

While UVLe is now on Moodle code base, it has a long history of technical innovation. (See Old UVle's changelog.) The pre-Moodle UVLe is now known as "old UVLe" and is no longer supported by the UPCC. The current UVLe was launched on October 6, 2008, on the occasion of DILC's 5th anniversary. DILC now operates and supports the new UVLe.

UVLe 2.0 was released on April 11, 2011. Versioning with the revitalized UVLe, however, is different from that of the old one with a different code base. Now it closely follows Moodle versioning.

Uvle front page circa 2008


UVLe circa 2010
UVLe 2.0 - released 11 Feb 2011





Backup Practice

UVLe's database and user files are backed up daily in a remote server. UVLe's configs and scripts are also backed up regularly. Snapshots of the server are done once in a while.



To Dos

  • integration of more useful Moodle plugins and extensions like
  1. Mapping Activity or Block
  2. Easypost
  3. eMail
  4. MOSS
  5. Administrative Email
  6. Ajax Marking
  7. Analytics and Recommendations
  8. Group selection
  9. Progress Bar
  10. Video Consultation Seminars
  11. Twitter Block
  12. Facebook
  13. Birthday
  14. Skype
  15. Feedback
  16. Google Apps
  17. Certificate
  18. BigBlueButton
  19. OU blog
  20. UVLe User Admin Module
  21. Moodle-Mediawiki integration



  • UVLê-CRS integration. Features: single-click UVLe course creation, integrated submission of grades
  • improve ease of use and "sociability" a la Mixable, GradeGuru, Finals Club, OpenStudy



Staff

Peter Sy (Project Management)

Wennie Saludes (Support Manager)

Dawn Benigno (Developer)

Jastinne Cesar Macalalad (Developer)


Past Staff

Mark Benedict Uy (Developer)

Lawrence Libo-on (Developer)

Myra Jill Siason (Technology and Quality Control Consultant)


See Also



Notes

  1. ↑ See FreeMind filter on Moodle. Also initial discussion on mind mapping on Moodle.
  2. ↑ See Mindmap plugin on Moodle
  3. ↑ See old UVLe's Change Log
  4. ↑ uvle-old.up.edu.ph

Readings

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