EdtechGuides: Prepare for new academic year guide: Rollover module content

About Rollover

The Moodle rollover tool has been designed and developed at City, University of London to facilitate the 'rollover' of Moodle modules from one year to the next (or one period to another). This page explains what is does, how it works and what it doesn't do! Before you start consider if rollover or import best meets your requirements.

About rollover to Moodle 4

Modules from academic year 2023/24 are available in Moodle 4 - moodle4.city.ac.uk to select as source modules for Import or rollover.

In 2023, IT backed up taught modules for 2022/23 on Moodle 3.9 and restored them into Moodle 4. The restored modules (no student data, no activity data and no blocks) can be used as source modules for Import or Rollover.

If you need to use a module from an earlier academic year or a PlaySpace as a source module for Import or Rollover, please log a Generic Service Request on IT Self Service Portal and IT can restore the module on Moodle 4.

Rollover tool explained

Staff enrolled as Lecturers or Programme Administrators can use the Rollover Tool. The Rollover Tool facilitates the copying of module content including activities (excluding user data - e.g. database and glossary entries, forum posts) and resources from one module (source module) to another (destination module). Rollovers can be setup in bulk and can be scheduled to run on whatever date is required.

Rollovers are run between 2am and 6am (GMT/BST) every night. So a rollover set up today for the next available date (ASAP) should be ready by 6am the following morning.

Rollovers can be scheduled for any date in the future providing the source and destination modules exist at the time the rollover is initiated.

The only option for rollover is 'content only'

Content only copies module activities and resources, summary info and summary image file. It will also match the number of sections with the source module - so if the old module had 23 sections so will the new one.

The following items may be optionally copied:

groups and groupings (but not their membership)
role assignments by role for the module (excluding students)

Please note: if you are rolling over a module with the Group Choice activity, you must select to roll over groups and groupings for the activity to work in the new module.

You will also have the choice to set visibility options, and notify the Lecturers on the destination module when the rollover is complete.

New modules are created using the City Course Format with a standardised set of blocks and layout.

The following items will not be included in the rollover:

Turnitin assignments,
Moodle assignments or Forums with the Turnitin plugin enabled,
Blocks.

The rollover tool is used by opening Utilities from the top navigation bar in Moodle and selecting Rollover.

You can only use the rollover tool if you have the relevant access to modules in both the source year and the destination year. You may need this access to be granted before you can perform a rollover. Lecturers should contact their Course Office to get access to relevant modules.

Prior to undertaking rollover, we recommend you check that rollover has not already been completed and that content has not been added to the Destination modules to avoid duplicating or overwriting content.

Before using Rollover Tool, find the Module short name for the Source and Destination modules. Open the module, select Settings from the contextual navigation menu. Copy the information in the Module short name field.

During use of the tool there are 3 screens:

Review your rollover queue and select default rollover options (and upload csv file of source/destination modules if allowed)

At the top of the page you can see a list of any previously queued rollovers. These should be marked Pending or Complete. The Source and Destination module names can be selected to visit the module.

The rollover tool listing queued rollovers

To carry out more rollovers, you first set the options under Add to Rollover Queue. Help icons can be selected to find out more about each option.

Add to rollover queue

To continue, select the Next > Select Modules button or Cancel.

Select Source/Destination modules for rollover

Select modules for rollover. The top menu shows modules that can be used as Source modules and the bottom menu shows modules that can be used as Destination modules. The boxes will auto-complete as you type a Module short name.

To add more, use Add another button and keep adding until you are done. Then select Next -> Review and Amend or Cancel.

If a module appears in the search box, but is not selectable and has grey background, then it is already queued for rollover and cannot be queued again until rollover has completed

Add to rollover queue page with source and destination modules selected

Review and amend Settings for individual source/destination modules,

Review the rollover settings. You can change individual settings for rollovers by selecting the value, changing it and selecting the tick or x icons. You can also remove entries from the rollover queue using the Remove link on the right.

Note that any Destination module that already contains content will be highlighted in Red. You may wish to check this module before committing to rollover.

Review and Amend settings page. The destination module is highlighted

Select which roles to notify of rollover, any users with these roles in the destination module will be notified when the rollover is complete.

Please check your rollover options very carefully as once you submit you will not be able to edit them again.

You will then be returned to the rollover tool start page where you can see your queue.

When your rollover is complete please check the new module and ensure any editing is carried out before the module is made available to students.

Note: The module will become automatically available when the module start date is reached.

The rollover tool will not create a Moodle module if it doesn't already exist. Blank Moodle modules for taught modules are created automatically when the module is setup in SITS. Other modules (those with shortnames beginning MDL_ or GEN_) must be created by IT and may be created in bulk before the start of each academic year or created ad hoc via requests to the IT Self Service Portal.
If a rollover has been carried out and there are further changes to the source module they won't be reflected in the destination module unless another rollover is performed or the user uses the import tool to copy individual activities and resources between modules.
Rollover does not alter in any way the source module. Source modules can be changed after rollover but changes won't be reflected in the destination module (see above).
The rollover tool is designed so that rollovers are not carried out immediately but in the next available period which we have set for the rollover process. That is currently 2am-6am every night. If you require 'instant' rollover you must use either Moodle's own backup/restore process or the import tool.
Rollover will never copy user data e.g. grades, submitted work, database entries, forum posts. If you need to copy user data you must use Moodle's own backup/restore process. You may need special permission to do this. Moodle treats database activity and glossary activity data as user data and so this is not copied during rollover, although the activity itself will be (just with no data).
Rollover does not include Glossary or Database entries. You will need to export these from the source module and import to the destination module.
Rollover tool will not allow the copying of student enrolments between modules. This is to avoid confusion with automated enrolments from other sources.
Rollover has been designed to exclude Turnitin assignments and Forum and Moodle assignments with the Turnitin-plugin enabled. We have restricted the rollover of Turnitin assignments as these were generating errors.