• Staff home
• IT and online services
• Learning and teaching
  • Community Engaged Learning (CEL)
  • Learning Design and Technology
    • Good practice in programme design
    • Designing Statements of Purpose and PLOs
    • Programme-level assessment
    • Assessment for, not just of, learning
    • Module design
    • - The Programme context
    • - Module aims and outcomes
    • - Module assessment
    • - Module content and activities
      • Module content / syllabus
      • Planning staff-student contact and student work
      • Blending modes of study
      • Flipped learning
      • Implementing the blend
      • Designing your VLE site for the module
      • Types of learning activities
      • Active learning approaches
      • Building in feedback
      • Choosing tools to support your activities
      • Using university-supported tools
      • Setting expectations of roles and participation
    • - Evaluating your module
    • Mentimeter
  • Quality assurance
  • Teaching development
  • Inclusive-Learning@York
  • Student learning support
  • Contacts and committees
• Administrative hub
• Research
• Supporting students
• Working at York
• Finance
• Leisure and culture
• Support, health and wellbeing
• Policies and strategies
• External relations

Designing your VLE site for the module

An accessible VLE site structure provides you with an opportunity to make the sequence of activities through the module explicit to students as the module progresses. Ideally, the VLE site will have a clear ‘instructional layer’ built into the site itself and this can be supported through announcements and other forms of asynchronous communications as the module progresses. The navigation structure and design will also be clear and consistent. Designing your site in this way sets out to provide a clear ‘road map’ guiding students through the asynchronous resources and activities and highlighting the connections to synchronous sessions. Inclusivity and accessibility are improved and any students who miss particular sessions or blocks of sessions are more likely to be able to stay on track.

Guidance is provided in the following sections of the TEL Handbook:
1. Baseline use of the VLE
2. Module site design, structure and layout
The VLE Transformation project website provides information about the upgrade to Blackboard "Ultra".