Preparing your 2023/24 Minerva Modules
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What’s in this article:
Preparing your 2023/24 Minerva Modules
Building Modules and Copying Content
Accessibility
Your Feedback
Keeping updated on changes to Minerva
Preparing your 2023/24 Minerva Modules
New Minerva module areas for the 2023/24 academic were made available for population in June, and staff are now reminded to build their modules before teaching begins in the new academic year.
Content for 2023/24 will not be automatically copied from the previous instance of a module. Once staff have reviewed their teaching content, straightforward copy functionality can be used to copy individual items or folders from previous modules at the click of a button.
Building Modules and Copying Content
To help you in this process, we recommend that you begin by reading our:
Top tips for building modules in Ultra Course View guide
Reminders for copying content
If you are new to Ultra Course View (introduced in Autumn 2022), read our Getting Started guide.
Accessibility
Materials hosted on Minerva and other virtual learning environments need to comply with web accessibility standards as far as possible, even if you don’t think you currently have any disabled students. Accessibility Advice for Educators provides helpful tips to make improvements to your digital content.
“Organisation of online learning environments has been a challenge for many years, and inconsistency of the student experience on Blackboard/Minerva is a fixture on the agenda of our staff-student meetings. The module template has gone a long way to resolving those issues by providing a systematic structure for the organisation of learning materials, hosting of key assessment documents, and links to key digital learning tools. Student feedback has been very positive about the new layout and staff have broadly adapted well to the change with valuable support from the SES and Learning Technologist teams.”
Dr Chris Hassall, Associate Professor of Animal Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences and Digital Education Academic Lead
We’ve listened to your feedback
Since last summer, we’ve asked for your feedback so that we can work with Anthology, the company that delivers and develops Minerva, to identify areas in which key updates can be made to assist both staff and students. We’re really pleased to say that a range of updates have been made since summer 2022.
Keeping updated on changes to Minerva
We continue to respond to feedback and work with Anthology to bring further updates to functionality. You can access information on previous updates at our Minerva Monthly Updates page and we’ll continue to keep this updated in line with future developments.
“In my 14 years at Leeds I have seen a lot of student feedback, but never have I seen specific positive feedback on the organisation of module content on Minerva. After fully following the institutional template for the 2022/23 academic year, I observed very specific comments from students on multiple modules, noting the good organisation of information and easily finding the information that they needed”.
Dr Mark Thomas, Lecturer, Faculty of Environment and Digital Education Academic Lead
Keep in touch
You can keep in touch with news, updates and developments in digital education systems on Twitter at @DESystemsUoL or by signing up to our mailing list.
You can also contact your local Digital Education Enhancement Teams who are available to provide advice to support you with the copying process.