Moodle

In the summer of 2023, Moodle will be upgraded to the newest version, Moodle 4.

Moodle 4 is a major upgrade that will change the overall look and feel of your courses while improving navigation for learners.  
 
To support colleagues through this upgrade and to better support learning technology in general, the Learning Innovation Support Unit (LISU) have developed a SharePoint site containing key learning technology information. This includes:

• guidance on the use of new and existing Moodle tools
• a link to a test Moodle 4 site
• a timeline detailing the support you will be offered between now and September

Visit the LISU SharePoint site to find out more about Moodle 4 and how you will be supported through the upgrade. 

We will be updating the way that Moodle is integrated with Mahara, because the old system is no longer supported. This comes with some benefits and changes, and there are some things Mahara users will need to do before the upgrade. 

Benefits and changes: 

• Mahara will now be accessed as an external tool from Moodle and will appear on the list of activities. You can therefore link to Mahara inline in your course (with full single sign on) if you wish. 
• If grading is enabled in the external tool, portfolios can be submitted and graded directly within the external tool. See the Mahara manual for more information. If grading is not enabled, the link will lead to the Mahara front page.  
• The Mahara submission type in Moodle’s Assignment is being replaced with an all-new version. This should be more stable and reliable than the old version. 

Things to do before the upgrade: 

• Remove any deep links to Mahara from Moodle. There is no upgrade path from the current version, so deep links to Mahara will no longer function after the upgrade. 
• Complete any outstanding grading of Mahara portfolio submissions. Any Mahara portfolio submissions from Mahara to Moodle Assignment will no longer be available to be graded after the upgrade. 

Medial will be retired at the end of this Academic year(2022-23). In preparation for this, there will be a small change to Moodle’s Atto editor following the summer 22 Moodle upgrade.

The Medial button in the Atto editor will be removed. All functionality of Medial will remain but you will have to link directly to content and learners will no longer be able to use it for commentary pieces in Moodle forums, for example. Medial assessments will still be functional after this update, but we would advise moving assessments to one of our newest media repository tools, Kaltura.

If you have planned to use Medial to allow learners to upload media to a Moodle course, please use Kaltura. The Kaltura button is embedded in the Atto editor. If you require any assistance with this, please reach out to Mark.Boyle@glasgow.ac.uk within the Learning Innovation Support Unit or attend one of the LISU’s Upskilling sessions in August where we will cover Kaltura in more detail.

As part of the upgrade to Moodle 3.11.11, the way you log in to Moodle will change in line with other services like Zoom, the MyGlasgow Portal, and the UofG Helpdesk. This means the login screen will change to the same on those services already use.

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

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.

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.

• Find out more about Mentimeter

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.

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.

• Fix to ensure starred courses can be ‘un-starred’ if un-enrolled from a course.
• New White on Black theme will be added to the Moodle Accessibility Tool
• Enhance Class CSV Export - Add group and user status fields to class export of users.
• Further improvements on Accessibility
• General bug and security fixes

Questionnaire

The Questionnaire module allows course owners to create a wide range of questions to gather student feedback e.g. on a course or activities. The goals of the Questionnaire module are quite different from those of the Moodle Lesson or Quiz modules. With Questionnaire you do not test or assess students, you gather data.

PDF Annotator

The PDF Annotator activity allows students to insert questions, comments and remarks on learning materials in PDF format directly into the document.

New Quiz Question Types

All or Nothing Multiple Choice

Allows the selection of multiple responses from a pre-defined list and uses all-or-nothing grading (100% or 0%).

Word Select

Allows the creation of text where one or more words are indicated to be the correct answers.
All words can be selected by clicking on them. Correct words are defined by surrounding with delimiters e.g. The cat [sat] on the mat.

Multiple True/False (MTF)

In Multiple True/False ("Type X") questions, a number of options have to be correctly rated as "true" or "false".

Kprime

In Kprime questions exactly four options have to be correctly rated as "true" or "false".

Pattern Match with Molecular Editor

A question type where the user enters their response using the JavaScript Molecular Editor, and the response is then graded using the OU's pattern-match algorithm.

Formula

This is a new Quiz Question Type for Moodle with random values and multiple answer fields. The answer fields can be placed anywhere in the question to allow the creation of questions involving various answer structures such as coordinate, polynomial and matrix. Other features such as unit checking and multiple sub-questions are also available. These functionalities can simplify the creation of questions in many fields related to mathematics, numbers and units, such as physics and engineering.

Music Theory

The Music Theory Question type is designed for music theory instruction. It currently supports various exercises.

September 2020

Important COVID resources

Two new resources are listed on the Moodle left navigation bar under ‘Important Resources’. These resources have been included to help guide both staff and students to the appropriate resources in relation to returning to campus as a result of the COVID-19 situation. The Staff and PGR resource is a Moodle course that all Staff and PGRs must complete before returning to work on campus. The Student resource is an informational reference that provides links to the University’s main COVID resources (which are also applicable for staff).

July 2020

Blackboard Ally

Blackboard Ally enables you to access course content in different accessible formats.

Favourite courses

• Star your favourite courses from within a course
• More ways to reorder your favourite courses

Calendar and reminders

• Filter your calendar by day, month or upcoming event
• Improved reminders layout

Dashboard - Course Overview Block

The tabbed ‘Glasgow Course Dashboard’ block will be replaced by the Standard Moodle Course Overview Block. The standard block comes with improved filter capabilities.

Session timeout

You’ll receive an alert to extend your session if there’s been no activity for a while.

September 2020

Levelup +

This enables the addition of a gamification feature to Moodle courses. Course Administrators / Lecturers can configure this resource as required, enabling learners to gain experience points for participating in their courses. For guidance on usage for staff, please refer to 'How to Moodle – Remote Teaching Guides'. For students, this new gamification feature may not be applicable for your area of study. Your course administrator/tutor will advise if this new feature will be used as part of your learning.

Turnitin

An updated version of the Moodle Turnitin plugin. Turnitin have made some improvements focussed on accessibility(applicable for staff and student usage) and additional similarity checking features (staff only). For similarity checking, a new ‘Flags’ option is visible on the Feedback studio viewer. You can read more about this new staff feature on the Turnitin website. (Please be advised that the reference to the ‘Document Details’ feature should be ignored, we are not currently licensed for this feature.)

Sharing Cart plugin

The Sharing Cart is a block for duplicating course items into a personal library and an easy way to move those Moodle resources and activities within a course or between multiple courses. Further information on how to use this plugin.

July 2020

Digital accessibility

Blackboard Ally will assess course materials’ accessibility and provide recommendations on how to improve them. More on Blackboard Ally.

Similarity checking - Turnitin replaces Urkund

Turnitin replaces Urkund for similarity checking on Moodle Assignments. Advance notification of the removal of the Urkund Service was communicated last year.

It is now crucial that any active course assignments that still have the Urkund setting enabled are updated as soon as possible.

No Urkund similarity reports will be available to staff or students after the Moodle upgrade date of 21 July. 

If you are unclear about any of the above, please raise a support ticket for guidance as soon as possible to avoid any potential problems with your content.

H5P

Incorporate interactive media, slideshows and videos created in H5P into your Moodle pages, books and lessons through the Atto editor.

Assignment Submission Report changes

• For assignments where extensions are permitted, you can now add extensions of whole days directly from within the Assignment Submission Report.
• For assignments with 'blind marking' enabled, the Participant Number is now shown in its own column.

Forums

• Assess student forum contributions
• Export forum discussions
• View a detailed summary report of student activity

Quiz

• View Question ID numbers and tags
• New Edit menu for Quiz creation and management

Course editing

Access frequently used admin functions without having to navigate to the menu listing.

Forums

• Manually lock discussions
• Option to allow students to post and reply anonymously

Moodle Assignments

• More options for feedback format
• Bulk downloading of student work and feedback files

Plug-ins

• Support for Learning Tool Interoperabilty (LTI) 1.3
• Updated Quiz plugin to improve entry of several numbers in a series

In Summer 2019 UofG is upgrading from Moodle 3.5 to 3.7

Moodle 3.7 includes a range of new core features and local enhancements. You'll also notice some visual and navigational improvements based on user research with UofG students and staff. If you'd like to take part in future user research on Moodle and other University systems, join the MyGlasgow User Panel.

Dashboard

• Quick access to your recent courses
• Star your favourite courses
• New ways to sort and display your course list
• Ability to hide courses 

Forums

• Post anonymously (where course allows this)
• Star discussions you want to keep track of
• Accessibility improvements

Messaging

• Slicker interface
• Group messaging
• Ability to disable email notifications

Also...

• More options in Accessibility Tools
• Enhanced privacy features for GDPR
• Changes to the 'breadcrumbs' at top of page

Find out more from Moodle.org

• New features in Moodle 3.6 (also included in the version we're upgrading to: 3.7)
• New features in Moodle 3.7
  

In Summer 2018 UofG is upgrading from Moodle 3.3 to 3.5.

Moodle 3.5 looks very similar to 3.3, but includes a wide range of tweaks and additions to improve the user experience.

Customise your dashboard

Optional new layout developed by UofG IT Services

• Add courses to your new Favourites tab by clicking on the star
• Drag and drop to reorder your courses

Notifications

• Much clearer notifications in the web version
• The updated Moodle Mobile app can do push notifications

Global search

• Search everything you have access to (coming in September 2018)

Moodle Help Centre

Developed by UofG IT Services

• Find solutions to common problems
• Report problems and get help more quickly

Enhanced security

• Switch to HTTPS means all traffic between you and Moodle will be encrypted
• New framework and tools to support GDPR compliance

New URL

• The URL to access Moodle is now moodle.gla.ac.uk
• Links published in the previous format (moodle2.gla.ac.uk) will still work though, so there's no hurry to update documents 

Improved app

• The Moodle Mobile app has a new design more consistent with Moodle 3.5, to offer a seamless experience between devices

Find out more from Moodle.org

• New features in Moodle 3.4 (also included in the version we're upgrading to: 3.5)
• New features in Moodle 3.5
  

Course administration

• Managing users: all these tools are now accessible from the 'Participants' page, instead of being spread across two pages
• Course completion settings: new options to add an activity that is only marked as 'complete' when checked-off by course staff
• Calendar: new option for category-level events
• User tours: new options
• Analytics: new engine to analyse student activity to find learners at risk of dropping out

Moodle Assignments

• Accepted file types: improved user interface to choose file types
• Anonymous marking: now enabled thanks to updated ULCC plug-in

Helpful system notifications

Developed by UofG IT Services

• Automatic notifications for course staff: these will appear at the top of course pages in certain circumstances, e.g. when a course is hidden from students, or has no students enrolled on it yet
• You'll be able to temporarily dismiss these notifications if you prefer, but they'll return after a few days, until the situation they are notifying you about changes

Plug-ins

• Updated ULCC plug-in for anonymous marking
• All plugins except GISMO have been reviewed, and where necessary updated, to work with Moodle's new GDPR framework
• The GISMO plug-in is not GDPR compliant and will have to be removed. IT Services will contact users to find out whether there is an immediate need to replace this functionality, e.g. with the new Moodle Analytics solution