Coming soon - Minerva
Over the summer, the present Portal and VLE will merge to become 'Minerva, the new Portal and VLE'.
Minerva is being built on the Blackboard platform, which means that module and organisation areas will remain as they are now in the VLE, but accessed from a new front page. Academic and support staff will not need to change their module or organisation areas, other than the usual work of updating the rolled-over modules for the new academic year.
Minerva, the new Portal and VLE, will go live on 27 July, ahead of admissions for 2017/2018. Stella Butler, University Librarian and business lead for the project, says, "The name Minerva was chosen because of its association with wisdom, which all of us in the University aspire to! Minerva will provide students with convenient, one-stop access to learning resources and other services."
The screenshot above shows a draft version of Minerva's 'Learn' tab, with an example of the module/organisation list together with Library and IT functionality.
Over the next few weeks, more detailed information will be shared with specific groups around the University who currently use or refer to the Portal, the VLE or both in their work. It is important to note that any student-facing documentation which refers to the Portal or VLE will need to be changed to refer to Minerva instead, and instructions may need to be updated.
More information is available on the Portal Blog, which is being updated with frequently asked questions and answers.
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