Moodle Access to Moodle Courses from 2017-18 and Before

Updated May 2024

To ensure long-term sustainability and optimal usability for the Amherst Moodle, any Moodle courses more than six years old are archived annually. Archived courses are available to faculty only by request.

• Starting in August 2022 and recurring annually, Moodle courses that are more than six years old are moved off the live Moodle server and saved indefinitely as an archive in long-term storage. 
• All Moodle content and student data in the course are retained, and IT can restore a course to Moodle upon the faculty member’s request at any point in the future. 
• Faculty can “opt-out” specific courses from this process if they need continued access.
• Going forward, Moodle will house courses for the current academic year, plus the six previous academic years. 
• This plan was developed through discussion with the Faculty Computing Committee (FCC) who provided valuable guidance and feedback on the timeframe and implementation plan.

Why is this happening?

• We are making this change to ensure that the Amherst Moodle can continue to meet the needs of the community in terms of performance,  reliability, and usability. Moodle is not designed to be a long-term storage location, and a large volume of courses on Moodle puts us at risk for increased downtime and issues during upgrades and maintenance.
• This change will make it easier for faculty to find the Moodle courses they access most often. On average, only 10% of courses six years old are accessed by the instructor in a given year.
• In implementing this plan, Amherst is aligning with the practices of all the other colleges in the Five College consortium as well as national cohort schools using Moodle.

How will this impact me?

• This will only impact faculty who need to access material from a Moodle course six or more years old. 
• Should you wish to retrieve material from an archived Moodle course, email askIT@amherst.edu and IT will make it available to you within 5 business days (likely, much sooner!).
  • A course restored by request to Moodle will be available until the next archive cycle, unless the faculty member requests otherwise.
• Please see the timeline below, which will be updated annually.
• At least one month before courses are archived, faculty and ADCs will receive a personal email from IT listing their affected courses. 
• Your options at that point are as follows…

Options for Faculty

• Save My Content
  • You can choose to save your course content outside of Moodle so that you have access to the materials without needing to contact AskIT.
• Opt-Out
  • Email askIT@amherst.edu to let us know of any specific course(s) that you need continued access to, and they will be excluded from that year’s archive process.
• Opt-In Early
  • You can also contact AskIT if you have courses that you would like to have archived before the six-year mark. 
• Do Nothing
  • If you do nothing, your courses from 2017-18 and earlier will be archived in Summer 2024 and become available upon request from AskIT.

When will this happen?

The following table provides the dates for each academic year:

*archived courses are available upon request, email AskIT@amherst.edu

FAQ

Q: How can I save my course material?

• While all course material will be available to you upon request, you may also choose to download some of the content in your courses for your files. See this page to learn how to save Moodle content.

Q: Will content from external systems like eReserves, Video Reserves, Gradescope, Kaltura, etc., be saved in the archive?

• The Amherst Moodle makes use of many integrated services and tools such as eReserves, Video Reserves, Kaltura, Gradescope, Perusall, Google Assignment, etc. Resources and activities using these tools don’t actually live in Moodle, but on the platform for that tool. 
• Resources and activities on external platforms will remain on that platform. 
• A Moodle backup or archive will retain the links and references to what was used where, but the actual reading, video, assignment, etc, will not be included in the Moodle archive or backup (since it doesn’t actually live in Moodle). 
• Any grades passed to the Moodle gradebook from an external tool will be saved (since the grades do live in Moodle).
• Don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like to double-check how this applies to your courses.

Q: In the question bank of my current course, I see a category called 1718F. If the 1718F course is archived, will these questions be removed from my current course?

• Those questions will remain in your current course. That category name indicates that those questions were originally imported from a 1718F course, but they are copies that live in your current course and will not be impacted by any changes to the 1718F course. 

Q: How does this change impact students?

• Courses become unavailable to students six weeks after the end of a term, so this change will not impact students. 
• Also, most students in a course will have graduated by the time it reaches the six-year mark for archiving.
• If faculty need to access information about a student from a past class, for instance, to write a recommendation, they can request the course be restored.

Q: How does this affect Moodle course sites for departments or ongoing programs?

• Moodle courses that are departmental or used every semester will not be archived.

Q. How will I know which of my courses will be archived?

• At least one month before courses are archived, faculty and ADCs will receive a personal email from IT listing their affected courses.