By default, all Moodle modules are created with the City Course Format, but alongside the introduction of Moodle 4’s other new features, the upgrade on July 17th 2023 also features the rollout of a new course format – Grid. This blog will detail the main features of both formats.

Please note that whichever format you select, this should be agreed and applied at a course level to provide a consistent experience of Moodle for your students.

City Course Format

When the City Course Format is applied to a module, content is presented in the central column in collapsible sections. Sections can be displayed as topics or by week.

In Moodle 4, there have been a few changes to the standard City Course Format.

• The General sections (aka Topic Zero) at the top of the module can now be collapsed. Previously, it remained open at all times, meaning that staff and students had to scroll past it each time they accessed the module.
• Navigating and organising the module is now easier thanks to the Module index which provides a table of contents view of the module content. The panel can be closed and opened and the sections within the index can be collapsed and expanded.

Grid Format

In Moodle 4, you now have the option to apply Grid.  This is a third-party format that creates a grid of icons (one for each section) with short titles. Users select the icon to open the content for the corresponding section. This format retains the Module index for quick navigation and a Block drawer for easy access to Blocks.

Once a section is open, the user can select links to open resources and activities.

There are some limitations to the Grid format – such as the lack of a dashboard, restrictions on the length of section names and the inability to collapse the general section – that you should be aware of before you decide to use it for your course.

Going forward

Our guidance site has been updated with details of the formats, how to apply them to your module and how to edit them.

Some colleagues from Law and Bayes also use their own specialised formats on specific courses which have been devised for them.