Planned downtime
Mahara
- Tuesday 20 July, 9am to 12pm BST
Moodle Upgrade 2021
Moodle will be upgraded to version 3.11 this summer according to the planned downtime schedule above.
Decommission of YACRS Class Response Services
As Mentimeter has now been introduced as a tool for classroom voting and interactive presenting, we will be decommissioning the YACRS (Class Response) solution. YACRS will no longer be available from the 13th July 2021.
Resetting of Moodle Courses
Following the implementation of Assessment & Feedback Grade Capture and Aggregation Tool (GCAT), it has been agreed that as part of the Moodle summer upgrade, the ability to use the course ‘Reset’ function will be removed from usage.
The alternative method for rolling courses forward to a new academic year will be to use the ‘Backup & Restore’ approach, with the previous year’s course archived and remaining accessible to students. The new course will be a copy of the original course but with no student data. This ensures minimal risk of losing historical grade data which is key for the Student Dashboard display.
Please take a moment to review the section on ‘Archiving Courses’ in the Assessment & Feedback Training Hub. The training hub site contains a wealth of information on all things Assessment & Feedback, so please do have a review of other areas. You may also need to engage further with your College or School Moodle Administration team to discuss and agree the process and responsibilities adopting this new approach to course management.
Moodle Assignment 'Use Marking Workflow': default setting change
Following the implementation of the Assessment & Feedback Grade Capture and Aggregation Tool (GCAT), it has been agreed that as part of the Moodle summer upgrade 2021, the Moodle Assignment Setting ‘Grade - Use Marking Workflow’ will be updated to the default setting of ‘Yes’. Release of grades should be done via the GCAT Release Provisional Grades / Release Final Assessment Grades functions, ensuring a controlled process.
For those who are not using GCAT, you will have the option to revert the setting to ‘No’ if required.
Please take a moment to review the section on ’Setting up an Activity’ and ‘Releasing Results to Students’ in the Assessment & Feedback Training Hub. The training hub site contains a wealth of information on all things Assessment & Feedback, so please do have a review of other topics as required.
Summer 2021: improvements for staff
Participants
- Search and filter course participants more efficiently.
- Add multiple conditions for filtering the participant list.
Video: Participants filtering in Moodle 3.9 (Moodle YouTube channel)
Copying Courses
Easily duplicate courses if you have the relevant permissions. This can be done from within a course or from the Course & Category management screen.
Video: Course copy feature in Moodle 3.9 (Moodle YouTube channel)
Activity Chooser
- Locate, star and view recommended items in an improved Activity Chooser.
- Moodle Administrators can recommend activities and resources (if setup).
- Search in the Activity Chooser.
Video: Activity Chooser in Moodle 3.9 (Moodle YouTube channel)
There will also be changes to H5P as well. We will add more information on this at a later date.
Summer 2021: improvements for everybody
Download Course content
Specific course items, currently content from the File, Folder, Page and Label can be downloaded if enabled site-wide by Moodle Administrators and enabled at a course level by course Administrators.
Students
If the feature has been enabled at course level by an administrator, then students and other users with the capability to download course content will see a button in the top right of the course. Clicking the button will display a pop-up and link to a zipped file.
Staff
If the feature is made available by the Moodle Systems Administrator, then those with course administration permissions can see an option 'Enable Download Course Content' in the course settings. As a course administrator, you can then choose Yes to make content downloadable, or No if the preference is to not permit access to this feature.
Video: Download course content in Moodle 3.10 (Moodle YouTube channel)
Activity Completion information
Students
- Completion conditions and activity dates are clearly visible on both the course page and within the activity resource.
- Students can manually mark an activity as complete from within the activity.
Course administrators
- Course administrators can hide or show activity dates and completion conditions on the course page.
- The activity completion report also has improved filtering.
Video: Student activity completion in Moodle 3.11 (Moodle YouTube channel)
Quiz setup and completion
Quiz Setup
- Set quizzes to be marked complete based on one or more attempt
- Add a file-size limit to the attachment files in an Essay Question Type
- Add a maximum and minimum word count for the Essay Question Type. Students will be alerted if they write too few or too many words.
Completing a Quiz
- Students can easily see remaining time with a new scrolling quiz timer display.
- View required pass grades when accessing a Quiz.
- Students will be alerted if they write too few or too many words for a Quiz Essay question.
Video: Quiz improvements in Moodle 3.10 (Moodle YouTube channel)
Folder Resource
View images and HTML files directly in the browser (no download required).
Video: Folder improvement in Moodle 3.10 (Moodle YouTube channel)
Other changes
- Clearer navigation in the Book feature
- Draft filter added to assignment grading table
- Remove multiple unwanted private files with a new bulk delete option
- Clearer focus on selected links in Atto Editor
- Allow maximum number of attempts in a Lesson to be unlimited
- Use autocomplete widget for course category selector
- Option to not include legacy course files in backup and restore process
- Ability to summarise all forums in a specific course
- Workshop should remember collapsed/expanded sections