TAFE South Australia has moved its entire online learning system, Moodle (known within TAFE SA as Learn) to Microsoft Azure.
Using Moodle, students can find and store learning materials, notes and videos; participate in chat rooms and forums; and complete and submit tests, quizzes and assignments.
TAFE SA director, ICT services, Craig Carter, said usage increased 57 per cent in the 12 months to September 2015, measured by the number of pages TAFE SA students accessed. About 38,000 students use it.
“The system has to be set up to handle a lot of use at any one time,” Carter said. “Our system reached a point where use exceeded the capabilities of the system, which put reliability at risk.
“We had a choice: replace the system with more powerful IT infrastructure, or move it into the cloud, using Microsoft Azure.”
TAFE SA’s ICT team worked with Microsoft to conduct the transfer, which was done within six weeks.
Carter said the change to Azure eliminated outages caused by extremely high Moodle use, which used to occur about once every 14 days. It is also setting the course to move other systems to the Cloud.
“This is a major benefit for us and for our students,” Carter said. “As demand continues to increase, having Moodle in the Cloud means it’s much easier to increase capability.
“It’s more robust, high performing and reliable, leading to fewer performance-related issues.”
