Course Backups from LATTE have been shared with Faculty via Brandeis's Box tool. This allows for that content to become available for use in either the Brandeis Moodle Courses site or in Brandeis Moodle Communities site. An additional benefit is that using Box will allow an instructor to upload a course that is larger than the maximum file size upload limit (of 60mb).
You may have received a message from a Brandeis automated process. You can disregard this email. It is an automated notification from Box indicating that shared files are available for you, as a result of the content migration process.
The folder contains backups associated with an individual that was enrolled in a LATTE course as an Instructor, Primary Instructor, or Secondary Instructor.
The .mbz files contained within are only usable in Moodle. They can’t be opened or used independently from the Moodle Learning Management System.
There is no need to access these files through Box, they can be used to restore part of a course (or the course in its entirety) via the Course Reuse function in Moodle. Instructions on how to do this are available here: https://guides.library.brandeis.edu/c.php?g=1377461&p=10287943#s-lg-box-32417619
What will happen to the content from my past courses in LATTE?
In an effort to minimize disruption, the content from the majority of past Academic terms in LATTE have been exported from the LATTE environment, uploaded to Box, and shared to the associated faculty through messages distributed this spring. The filenames of those exports, which by default reflect the term when the course was taught, have been updated to reflect the date that the migration to Box took place. Content from the last two terms when LATTE is in use (Spring and Summer 2024) will also be exported and shared, as those terms conclude.
I received an email from “AutomatedProcess Moodle” inviting me to work together in a Box folder. What should I do with this?
You can disregard this email. It is an automated notification from Box indicating that shared files are available for you, as a result of the content migration process. You can access these backups in Box through the Moodle course restore process.
Why am I missing a specific past course from LATTE in my BOX folder? I can still see the course in LATTE.
There are a number of reasons why content from a particular course may not have been moved in an automated manner into BOX.
The course backup was too big - Extremely large courses (higher than several GBs) cause the automated migration process to halt.
Use of Reserved Characters in a course title - Backup filenames containing reserved characters such as the following can cause automated processes to fail:
! # $ & ' ( ) * + , / : ; = ? @ [ ]
You do not have the course role of Primary Instructor, Secondary Instructor, or Instructor in the particular LATTE course.
If an individual was added to a course as a Grading TA, Academic Administrator, Guest, or any other role other than the three Instructor roles, they will not receive a backup file of the course in Box as part of the automated migration. This individual should reach out to those with Instructor-level access permissions to request access to the course backup file.
It seemed like a course I wasn’t anticipating appeared in my Box folder, but then it was removed. Is there anything I should do?
No action is needed. On rare occasions, the use of Reserved Characters in filenames generated false backups with no content, and deposited them in a random assortment of folders. They have since been removed.
Backup file names are of the form backup-moodle2-course-[coursename]-date-hour.mbz, ending in -nu.mbz when backed up with no users and -an.mbz with anonymized names. A Moodle backup file (with distinctive .mbz extension to avoid confusion with .zip files) is provided for the LATTE Migration within Box folders.
The coursename string contains the Moodle Course ID number + the Workday coursename. The Moodle Course ID number is revealed in the URL of the course.
(ex. https://moodle2.brandeis.edu/course/view.php?id=18611 reveals 18611 is the Course ID number for the Learn LATTE course)
Workday coursenames consist of a Term Code + Subject Code + Class Code + Section.
Term codes follow a predictable pattern. ex, 221 for Spring 2022 courses
First two digits are the last 2 digits of the year (2022 = 22) and the third digit is the term (Spring=1, Summer=2, Fall=3)
Backup-moodle2-course-18449-193rus-29b-1-20240419-0238-nu.mbz can thus be interpreted as the backup of a Fall 2019 course from A&S Russian Studies, class 29B, section 1, and that the backup was run on April 19, 2024 in such a way that no student data was included.