From May 25th 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into full swing in the European Union as law, focused on individual privacy and access/use of personal information of European Union citizens.
At Titus Learning, we take our responsibilities under the new regulation seriously, and we’re committed to ensuring full compliance across all of our business activities.
To date, we’ve taken the following action:
Commissioned an internal review of our policies to assess any areas which need improvement before the May 25th 2018 deadline.
Completed an internal training programme to ensure all staff, contractors and suppliers are aware of how GDPR affects their role.
Engaged with software partners, including Moodle HQ, to verify that any changes or improvements needed have been completed by the May 25th 2018 deadline.
Updated our comprehensive privacy policy to cover all areas affected by the GDPR.
Contacted our customers to inform them of any scheduled updates or changes to their products necessary to comply fully with the GDPR.
Developed a GDPR-compliant data processing and retention policy.
To assist our clients and any other Moodle users in preparing for the GDPR deadline, we ran a webinar on the topic. The recording is available here.
If you have any questions about GDPR compliance, please feel free to contact our team or book an online demonstration here
Moodle 3.5 is available for download from today, so as usual we’ve taken a look at the most exciting features and improvements in the new release. If you’d like a more in depth look at the latest version of Moodle, feel free to contact us for a quick online demonstration.
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GDPR compliance
With the deadline looming for organisations to be fully compliant with the EU’s new legislation, it’s good to see a number of related improvements in Moodle 3.5 (also available as plugins for Moodle 3.3.6 and 3.4.3)
Moodle administrators can visit the new “Privacy and Policies” area under the Users tab to find these new options:
Privacy settings – allowing administrators to request an age check for new users, and offer them a direct link to contact the Data Protection Officer for queries.
Policy settings – allowing administrators to specify and manage their site and privacy policies and configure how users give their agreement to these.
Additional functionality – handling of data requests, defining and maintaining a data registry and managing data to be deleted.
Aesthetic improvements
Moodle 3.5 now has Bootstrap 4 stable as standard, allowing for much more attractive and accessible course overviews.
Key features include:
New icons for course links
Adding images to enrolled courses.
Auto-replacing missing images with patterns.
New fonts available.
Also, in this version each cohort can be assigned its own specific theme. This is activated in the Theme settings page and defined in the Cohort area of Site Administration.
Direct multimedia recording
Audio and video content can now be recorded and embedded into learning materials quickly and easily using the Atto editor.
Global search
Moodle 3.5 no longer requires administrators to install an external search engine – the built in global search can now provide search results from the entire Moodle site. Administrators can activate simple search and index the Moodle site in the Advanced Features section.
New badge criteria
New badge options in Moodle 3.5:
Allows uploading of profile pictures.
Badges can be used as criteria for other badges.
Membership of a cohort can be used as criteria for badges.
Of course, these highlights are just the tip of the iceberg – there’s a long list of further tweaks, patches and updates also included in Moodle 3.5.
The full list can be found in the release notes over at the Moodle site.
We’ll be testing the new version over the coming weeks and will be in touch with each of our clients to discuss individual upgrade schedules. If you have any questions about Moodle in the meantime, please feel free to get in touch with us or book an online demo:
On May 25th 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into full swing in the European Union as law, focused on individual privacy and access/use of personal information of European Union citizens.
International schools across the globe will be affected by the new regulations in various ways.
To assist our clients and other Moodle users in preparing for the GDPR deadline, we recently ran a webinar on the subject, which is now available to view on our YouTube channel:
The session is aimed at Moodle users of all levels, including teaching and support staff as well as Moodle administrators. In it, we cover two main areas:
1. Best Practice
Hosting
Moodle version
Password management
SSL Certificates
2. Moodle Plugins
Privacy officer role
Policies
Data Privacy
If you have any further questions regarding GDPR, or anything else to do with Moodle, please feel free to get in touch with us or book an online demo:
Nord Anglia Education (NAE) is an organisation of 55 international schools located across 25 countries, with almost 10,000 staff providing education for over 50,000 students from 2 to 18 years of age.
Staff across the organisation use a centralised Moodle platform for professional development branded as ‘Nord Anglia University’.
Problem
Nord Anglia University saw the need to improve the look, feel and navigation of their Moodle site so that it is user-friendly and meets the e-learning needs of everyone at the organisation.
They chose to work with Titus Learning on a number of projects including tailored Moodle development and to create a new theme for their Moodle site.
The key aim of the new theme was to improve both the aesthetic and usability in order to support a target to double the amount of site visitors.
“We were referred to Titus Learning by our Hong Kong IT team. We felt that they showed a good understanding of what Moodle could do and also how it was actually used day to day by both end users and the people maintaining the site.” – Joanna Lay, Programme Lead for Nord Anglia University at Nord Anglia Education.
Action
With such a large and diverse user base to cater to, designing the new Moodle theme was a challenging prospect. We sat down with the team at NAE to establish the key parameters which would make the new theme a success:
Clear and consistent branding throughout to communicate and support the Nord Anglia Education visual identity and its presentation to users
Reduction of visual clutter and increased prominence of most relevant or frequently used sections
Enhanced functionality and usability to encourage increased usage of the site
Embedded translation tools to allow the site to be used in multiple languages
“The process went very well. We were kept informed of what was happening by your team throughout the process through email and regular catch up meetings. The consultation was handled professionally and was a two way communication that allowed us to adapt our plans to be more effective. The development went well apart from a few small hiccups which for a project of this size was actually very successful! Any issues that were found were dealt with quickly and effectively.” – Joanna Lay
Results
The platform now allows staff to enrol in short online courses to further their professional development, as well as communicate with one another via online communities, complete directed self-study modules and access an extensive library of research materials including journals, video resources and e-books.
Custom development
Since launching the platform, we’ve continued to work closely with Nord Anglia Education on a number of bespoke projects, some of which are currently under development including:
Customisation of the media gallery plugin
A new, highly visual dashboard with at a glance access to key user data
An events tool which allows scheduling and management of online seminars
A content tagging and streaming interface
A media driven social sharing environment
Looking to the future
Nord Anglia Education also subscribes to our proactive support service to support the UK and Hong Kong based administration teams in the day to day running of the sites.
As part of the service they have access to a named contact in our team who can advise on tweaks and improvements to ensure their Moodle is well used, as well as spotting any minor issues before they become a problem.
“Overall things have gone extremely well and we already have plans in place to work on further projects and functionality for the website.” – Joanna Lay
In addition, we have also started working with a number of NAE member schools on their individual learning platforms, including Dover Court International School in Singapore and the British School of Beijing. We’ll publish separate case studies for these projects shortly – watch this space.
To learn more about the work we’ve done with Moodle, or to find out how we could help your school or organisation improve engagement, communication and learning outcomes, book a short online demo with one of our team.
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Phuong Nguyen Hong
Digital Marketing Executive
Super talented, unflappable and very funny, Phuong supports the whole marketing team in her role as Digital Marketing Executive. Phuong holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and recently completed a master’s degree in Management and Marketing. Originally from Hanoi in Vietnam, Phuong is now based in the UK and climatising brilliantly to our weather and food.
Phuong owns a food review Instagram page as travelling and food are her passion. She also has a cute little french bulldog.
Ellie Sharkey
Head of Marketing
Ellie was the first woman to join Titus and has paved the way for many more since then. After studying for a degree in Fashion and Marketing, Ellie was lucky to find herself at fashion weeks and photoshoots.
Now she’s switched from talk of the front row to front end design and has brought loads of transferable knowledge to Titus. Ellie has also found a real passion for tech, especially in the learning sector, helping clients create positive change for their organisations.
Callum Barrett
Senior Brand Executive
As one of the youngest people at Titus but at the same time one of the oldest serving members of the team, Callum has graced Titus with his broad smile and positive attitude for over 5 years now. As a key member of the marketing team, Callum works across all areas, both on and offline, to ensure that all Titus brands and communication are on point.
After missing out on the opportunity to go to University the first time around, management encouraged him to enrol in our course alongside his work. He is now studying to achieve his Level 6 Diploma in Professional Digital Marketing.
Dec Connolly
Acquisition Marketing Manager
Always bringing innovation and new ideas, Dec studied a degree in Journalism but found his passion in digital marketing. Dec has also worked in marketing for one of the countries biggest retailers and within the property sector.
Outside work, Dec Co-founded a news publication where he collaborated with global brands like Uber, Amazon, BooHoo and countless SMEs.
