Moodle 3 Update 28 June 2016

Moodle will be updated to version 3 on 28th June during the 7-9am maintenance window.

Moodle 3 Developments

 The focus of this year’s update has been on minor improvements to streamline processes around set up of Moodle modules for the start of year. Feeding into this are:

• Recommendations from the annual Moodle user evaluation conducted with academic and course office staff.
• The annual plugin process where we review new plugins based on feedback in staff Ed Tech survey and from requests for new functionality raised throughout the year and
• A review of new core functionality with the update to Moodle 3.

Moodle 3 Highlights

So what can you expect from Moodle 3? Below are some of the highlights and we will be promoting new features through this blog. Refresher and What’s New in Moodle 3 sessions will be arranged for the summer period, aligned with School requirements.

1. Improvements when preparing modules for start of year

• There is shading to highlight to staff when a module is unavailable to students.

• Call to action on Topic 0 as staff were confused as to the purpose of Topic 0 and this topic is not currently used consistently.
• Ability to delete a section. This should help staff in management of modules as sections that are no longer needed can be deleted rather than moved to the end of the page and hidden.
• Recycle bin function. If content is accidentally deleted it can be recovered using the recycle bin function. This excludes section names and summaries.

2. Improved Dashboard

• Quickly switch on and off Quick Links, including Lecture Capture, directly from the Dashboard.
• Photoboard displays links to Lecturers, Students and Course Officers in a consistent manner to both staff and students.
• Course Officer link is greyed out if no Course Officers enrolled on a module.

3. Assessment Improvements

• Quizzes can now have section headings and questions can be shuffled on different pages. It is now possible to require that a particular question be answered before a subsequent one may be accessed. This allows lecturers more control over how Quizzes are structured and the order in which questions or a particular question has to be responded to by students.

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  As well as displaying Quiz results in a competitive league table, a new Activity Results block can show scores from any graded or rated activity on your module.

• More streamlined assessment set up with the ability to add a passing grade when creating an assessment.

4. Supporting Group Work

• Staff can create and allocate groups by CSV rather than manually.
• Post once to a Forum and your post can be copied to each group.

5. Introduction of User Menu

   

• Introduction of industry standard menu which provides access to user admin functions.
• Improved visual cue when role is change as staff reported it was not clear what role they were in when viewing a module.

This post is part of a series exploring what’s new in Moodle 3.