LearnZone and HE LearnZone both go through the annual rollover process. This year the rollover process is earlier than normal. The process itself is undertaken to:
- provide continuity for our learners;
- provide a repository of assessments in line with awarding bodies requirements;
- clean our installation to meet our GDPR responsibilities;
- update and improve facilities;
- minimise the costs of subscriptions such as Turnitin.
All of the Digital Learning systems listed below will be unavailable to both staff and students for the following dates:
- LearnZone – Further Education – 5th, 6th, and 7th of July
Your 2020/21 learners who need to complete their courses should use the learnzone.loucoll.ac.uk/20-21/ so that their work is kept together for auditing. - HELearnZone – Higher Education – 5th July + an additional date in September to be agreed.
You can work on preparing next years materials sing the learnzone.loucoll.ac.uk/21-22/. Any changes to https://helearnzone.loucoll.ac.uk/ will not be copied to the new site after the 5th. - PreProgramme – 5th July
- StaffZone – 5th July
You will need to make alternative arrangements or deadlines for assessments and access to resources during the stated dates.
Contact the Digital Learning Team if you require any further clarification regarding the rollover process and timings.
What you need to do
As usual, you will need to update contact details, assessment schedules, and handbooks to ensure they are correct for the next academic year.
You now also required to check the accessibility of any of your resources inline with the new legislation. If a document is not accessible you should hide this resource until it has been checked. Follow this link for our blogs on accessibility.
Turnitin assignments will also need to be recreated as these are not copied into the new LearnZone site to reduce subscription costs. However, you and your learners will continue to have read-only access to any previously submitted work on the 2020/21 LearnZone/HELearnZone sites.
Once the rollover process is complete learnzone.loucoll.ac.uk will load the new 2021/22 site. Staff and learners will be able to access this year’s archived site here learnzone.loucoll.ac.uk/20-21/.
HELearnZone will remain the same until later in the year but changes made after the 5th July 2021 will not be carried over into the 2021/21 site. Once rollover is complete links to all years will be provided in the footer of the new LearnZone/HELearnZone sites.
Staff will have access to all of the same areas as they do currently. However, access to the 2020/21 sites will be set to READ-ONLY.
Key Changes
One of the major changes for LearnZone and HE LearnZone, this year is how learners gain access to the course materials. Learners will only be able to enrol themselves on courses, units or modules during the first two weeks of the term. After this initial period, future enrolments will be managed by staff who can add students to LearnZone manually. The Digital Learning team will provide training and support for this process at the start of the autumn term.
Previously, Teams and LearnZone have been integrated in order to provide some consistency across the platforms. However, once the rollover process has been completed this will no longer be active. As a result, you will be required to set up and manage your own teams on Microsoft Teams.
Updates and new features
Most of the updates, although essential, are behind the scenes this year however, you may find some small changes to the appearance and options across the LearnZone and HELearnZone sites.
We will be introducing a new accessibility plugin called Blackboard Ally. Blackboard Ally provides a raft of features to help staff make resources accessible, ensuring students can access them in a format that suits any specific needs. Keep your eyes on the Digital Learning blog for more news.
Help and support
As always contact the Digital Learning Team to find out more information, guidance and support.