Exeter College developed a successful SharePoint-based virtual learning environment and now aims to create a hybrid SharePoint/Moodle environment hosted in the cloud. They have established a development environment to generate new interactive course content and test it with students. Over 300 users and 48 courses have been involved in trials of the new Moodle environment. The production environment will soon be available to benefit from the new design and improved functionality, accessibility, and performance anticipated from a cloud-hosted virtual college.

1. Exeter College – Virtual College in the Cloud
Exeter College has developed a SharePoint based VLE which has won an AoC
Beacon Award and received praise from Ofsted. Using Cloud Technology Exeter
College now want to develop a hybrid SharePoint/Moodle VLE, developing an
economically sustainable model going forward.
They hope to create a virtual College environment which better meets the needs of
learners and teachers. The aim is to provide the best experience for students with a
range of opportunities for more capable and engaging e-learning delivered across
diverse platforms. It will also encourage innovative teaching and learning by making
teachers more self-sufficient in the use of ILT by allowing them to create interactive
course content more effectively.
Progress
Following the selection of an initial hosting partner, setting up hosting and migrating
an existing VLE to the Cloud, Exeter College have been able to identify a number of
considerations to be included in the main project activity, of creating a new cloud-
hosted Moodle to sit alongside their SharePoint Portal.
The College have established a development environment within which they are
evolving the new VLE; practitioners are working to generate new bespoke content
and testing this with a small number of students.
After a thorough review of technical and business needs, capabilities and SLAs, the
College has carefully selected support and hosting partners and the implementation
of the production environment is now underway.
Achievements
The new design has been developed in consultation with learners and teachers.
During the proof of concept and small scale trials, the Moodle environment has been
populated and used by 335 users and over 48 College courses.
New content has been generated in 7 subject areas with significant engagement of
teaching practitioners in evolving the new design.

2. The production environment will shortly be available benefiting from the new design,
structure and functionality.
Future Work
Exeter College anticipate that the improved interactive functionality will create a
more intuitive experience than previous platforms. Improved availability and
anytime/anywhere performance is also anticipated and will be evaluated after full
College roll-out in September 2013.
The project is being used as a test-bed for the building of a new, ‘think cloud-first’,
ICT Strategy for the College.