A new Moodle platform was rolled out in the summer of 2018. This was due to changes made by the Academic Model Project that meant that all modules now have new codes, making the module code data held on Legacy Moodle out of date. To ensure a smooth set up of Moodle courses for 2018-2019, it was pertinent that a new instance of Moodle was rolled out to host the new module codes and new courses.
The roll out of a New Moodle also gave us the opportunity to make some improvements to the system including updating the version of Moodle and making changes to the theme to make Moodle more accessible.
Although Moodle still works the same as before, and you should not find a significant learning curve with the changes, there are some really nice improvements (some may not be visible to end users e.g. changes to help make Moodle GDPR compliant).
Overview
An overview of the key new features, broken down in a friendly way for tutors and course administrators can be found on the Moodle.org website new features page.
For a detailed look at the changes to Moodle, please see the Moodle 3.4 Release notes on the Moodle.org official website.
Changes
As with any new system, you will notice a few changes/ improvements within New Moodle. These include:
- New landing page- To give you access to Legacy Moodle and Moodle 2018/19
- New course overview page: You will notice three tabs. In progress, Future and Past. Courses appear under each of these tabs based on the course start and end dates within a course. If you do not see your course after you initial log in-, check under each of these three tabs. Course start end dates can be edited by doing the following: Navigate to the course > Administration > Edit settings? Course start/end date
- Colour scheme, layout and view options have been updated to improve navigation and accessibility.
- ‘My courses’ and ‘This Course’ tabs have been added to the top of each Moodle course page to improve navigation.
- The ability to ‘Dock’ and ‘Undock’ blocks . The "docked" blocks appear as vertical tabs along the left margin attached to the page.
- The option to switch between Standard’ and ‘Full screen’ view – this allows a user to personalise the way they navigate within Moodle.
- Functionality
- Moodle Rubric – This should now display large and complex rubrics without users having to make changes to the coding of the Moodle page
- Calendar
- Category enrolments: Category enrolments now align with the data structure prescribed by the Academic Model Project.
- Lecturecast: The process of adding and mapping to a Lecturecast section has slightly changed. Please refer to our guidance on Create a Link on a Moodle Course to a Lecturecast Section
As always if you have any questions please contact the ISD Service Desk.
