Decommissioning of older installations¶
Every year in September, the oldest archive installation will be decommissioned, following the five-year operational period defined in the ELF Life Cycle.
What does the end of the oldes installation mean?¶
The oldest 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.
How can I keep my courses in an archive installation at the end of its life cycle?¶
You have two options to preserve your courses: transfer them to the the installation for the current academic year or download a course backup file.
Transferring it to the the installation for the current academic year 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. Unlike regular transfers, it will not be possible to use the course transfer module for transfers from the old installation; transfers will be performed by the user support staff.
Using the form below, you can request course transfers to the current installation. Requests will be accepted from April until the start of the autumn semester. 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 the oldest installation to any installation other than the current one, 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 the oldest installation?¶
Many older 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. You can import dictionary data (official documentation) separately or request assistance from the user support staff for additional transfers.
What is the timetable for the removal?¶
The decommissioning will proceed as follows:
- In April, the oldest installation will be disconnected from newer installations, ending the ability to transfer courses.
- From April by the start of the fall semester, you can request course transfers from the oldest installation to the new installation.
- The new installation will launch in August, and the user support staff will begin transferring requested courses.
- The oldest installation will become inaccessible by the start of the fall semester.
- The installation will be permanently deleted at the end of the year.
Why does the old installations need to be removed?¶
These installations have been an archive installations, preserving course content, study materials, and learning outcomes from their 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.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.