Rollover Explained

This article describes the annual roll over process. The Rollover process is performed each June to prepare Myplace for the up-coming academic year.


Around the 2nd week of June, a process known as  "Session Roll Over" takes place. The exact date is determined in early August of the preceding year, based on the published Calendar of Dates and overseen by the Learning Enhancement Committee.

The purpose of the session roll over is 2 fold:

  1.  Taking a snapshot of Myplace from the current academic year to act as a starting point for the teaching materials for the future academic year.
  2. Upgrading the underlying Moodle platform for future academic year version of Myplace.

During this period there is a short interruption of service to the current academic year version of Myplace. This is the one available at http://classes.myplace.strath.ac.uk/ 

This interruption is normally less than a few hours and once completed the service will be available again and the majority of classes, including classes that have a PEGASUS class code will continue on with no differences. 

Preparation of the future academic year version of Myplace takes approximately 4 days.  This academic session is indicated on the URL of this service, for the 2019/2020 session it would be http://classes2019-2020.myplace.strath.ac.uk/ .

Classes that have set a rollover action of Move will be affected (more on this later)

The exact details of what happens to a class site is dependent on the Roll over action set on the class site.

Providing a class site is not associated with a Class code, the Owner may set the action to one of: Rollover, Move, Archive.


Why don't we upgrade old versions of Myplace?

Older academic year version of Myplace are not typically upgraded to newer major  versions of Moodle.

Each new major version of Moodle can introduce significant differences to the teaching & learning tools available, and we try to minimise substantial changes to historic version of Myplace to ensure consistency when accessed in the future.

Normally they would be upgraded in line with security fixes until they reach end-of-life.


Classes with Rollover Action

No changes are made to class sites on the current academic year version of Myplace.

Classes with the Rollover action set have the following actions applied on the future academic year version of Myplace:

  1. All student enrolments refreshed to match the future academic year
  2. All student submitted work (i.e. assignment submissions, quiz attempts) is reset (See sidebar "Non-reset activities").
    1. This includes resetting Turnitin Class and Activity details to preserve the previous year's Turnitin information.
  3. An attempt will be made to adjust submission dates for activities based on the new academic year
  4. Features will be upgraded

Teaching materials and activities remain configured.

Key Tasks following rollover:

  • Review materials & update for future year
  • Review all dates to ensure they are appropriate
  • Review new features & changes to existing activities.
Non-reset Activities

The following activities are not reset as part of the rollover action:

  • Database activities - Database activities may be used to create or gather student created content that is persisted over academic years, or as an activity that is entirely bounded within an academic year.

    As it is not possible to determine which model is being used, Database content is not automatically reset each year.

  • Glossary activities - Glossaries may be used to create or gather student created content that is persisted over academic years, or as an activity that is entirely bounded within an academic year.

    As it is not possible to determine which model is being used, Glossary content is not automatically reset each year.

  • Wiki activities - Wikis may be used to create student created content that is persisted over academic years, or as an activity that is entirely bounded within an academic year.

    As it is not possible to determine which model is being used, Wiki content is not automatically reset each year.

  • OUBlog activities - OU Blogs may be used to create student created content that is persisted over academic years, or as an activity that is entirely bounded within an academic year.

    As it is not possible to determine which model is being used, OU Blog content is not automatically reset each year.

If a class has been set to one of the following Roll over actions, then there may be a number of impacts.

Classes with Move Action

Classes with a Move action will have the following actions applied to the current academic year version of Myplace:

  • Class will be hidden and made unavailable to all users.

Classes with the Rollover action set have the following actions applied on the future academic year version of Myplace:

  • Class will be available
  • Features will be upgraded

My students have disappeared!

No changes to class enrolments will be made, however if your class enrolments are based on the current academic year, this will now refer to the future academic year. If you have any questions about this please contact learning-technologies@strath.ac.uk. 


Key Tasks following rollover:

Classes with Archive Action

Classes with an Archive action will have the following actions applied to the current academic year version of Myplace:

  • Class will remain available

Classes with the Archive action set have the following actions applied on the future academic year version of Myplace (i.e. https://classes2019-2020.myplace.strath.ac.uk/):

  • Class will be hidden and made unavailable to all users.

I want an archived class site back!

If a class has been marked as Archive it can still be restored. When it is restored it will be in whatever state it was at the point of session rollover in June. Any changes made to the currently available site will not be reflected

If you need an archived site restored contact learning-technologies@strath.ac.uk 


Actions Applied

Current Academic YearFuture Academic Year 
Rollover ActionAvailable on this server after RolloverAvailable after rolloverRemove student submitted content
Archive(tick)(error)N/A
Move(error)(tick)N/A
Rollover(tick)(tick)(tick)

University Calendar of Dates key events

These events determine the exact dates of the scheduled Myplace upgrades, rollover and session change.

See https://strath.sharepoint.com/sites/calendardates for full details of the Calendar of Dates.

December

Week following end of Formal Assessment Period

June

Week following Final Date for Approval of All UG & PG Awards for Summer"

August 

Day after Deadline for eturn of UG Exam results to Student Business

Related Articles