Decommissioning the ELF3 installation¶
The ELF3 archive installation will be decommissioned in September 2025, following the five-year operational period defined in the ELF Life Cycle.
What does the end of ELF3 mean?¶
The ELF3 archive installation will be shut down and deleted. All content—including courses and learner results—will become permanently inaccessible.
This change will not affect courses in newer installations (ELF 20/21 onwards).
How can I keep my ELF3 courses?¶
You have two options to preserve your ELF3 courses: transfer them to the 25/26 academic year installation or download a course backup file.
Transferring it to the ELF 25/26 installation is recommended if you plan to reuse a course in future semesters. The E-Learning Office’s user support team will assist with course transfer and perform technical checks to prevent future issues. Note that transfers from ELF3 must be handled by the user support staff, as the standard course transfer module cannot be used.
Using the form below, you can request course transfers to the ELF 25/26 installation. Requests will be accepted from April until the start of the autumn semester of 2025. Actual transfers will begin once the new installation becomes available in summer (when standard transfers from other older installations will also be possible).
To transfer a course from ELF3 to any installation other than ELF 25/26, don’t hesitate to contact us by email.
Attention
Please do not request transfers for courses with updated versions in newer installations or that you don’t plan to teach again.
For courses you won’t teach again but wish to preserve, you can create a backup file and download it to your device.
What problems can occur with courses transferred from ELF3?¶
Many ELF3 courses were created in a significantly older version of Moodle. As the system has evolved, some components are no longer supported or function differently. Courses converted to the current version may appear or function differently than their original versions. In some cases, transfer may not be possible.
Some modules—specifically the Gallery image module and specific Folder module customizations—are no longer supported and cannot be transferred to the current system.
Unlike standard transfers, dictionary entries from the Dictionary module won’t be preserved when transferring from ELF3. You can import dictionary data (official documentation) separately or request assistance from the user support staff for additional transfers.
What is the timetable for ELF3 removal?¶
The decommissioning will proceed as follows:
- In April 2025, ELF3 will be disconnected from newer installations, ending the ability to transfer courses.
- From April to September 14, 2025, you can request course transfers from ELF3 to the ELF 25/26 installation.
- The 25/26 installation will launch in August, and the user support staff will begin transferring requested courses.
- ELF3 will become inaccessible on September 14, 2025.
- The installation will be permanently deleted on December 31, 2025.
Why does ELF3 need to be removed?¶
Since autumn 2020, ELF3 has been an archive installation, preserving course content, study materials, and learning outcomes from its active period. It has allowed students to access their enrolled courses and instructors to transfer courses for re-teaching.
The five-year termination requirement exists for several reasons:
- Most actively used courses have already been transferred and updated to newer installations.
- The Faculty of Arts leadership has set a five-year retention period for learning activity results.
- Moodle installations over five years old fail to meet current security and technical standards. They lack security updates, run on outdated server environments, and contain incompatible modules and styling.
- Courses left unchanged for five years often have technical issues.
We cannot guarantee the functionality or security of older Moodle installations nor the usability of their courses.
This decommissioning marks the first implementation of our five-year archive removal policy within the ELF life cycle. Future archive installations will undergo the same process as they reach their retention limit.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.