Announcing Moodle 4.1

On Thursday, July 13, 2023, UMass Amherst Moodle in the Cloud will be upgraded to Moodle 4.1 to meet and maintain security and accessibility requirements from our cloud-hosting service. Moodle 4.1 comes with a significantly updated interface and navigation system. 

Planned Maintenance for Moodle Upgrade

Moodle will be unavailable from 1 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Thursday, July 13, 2023 while UMass Amherst Information Technology (IT) completes the upgrade to Moodle 4.1. If you are unable to access Moodle outside of these service hours, please contact the IT Service Desk at it@umass.edu or 413-545-9400. 

IMPORTANT:

Canvas has been selected as the new single Learning Management Service (LMS) for the campus. The transition is already underway; Instructors wishing to use Canvas can request their courses in SPIRE instead of using the new version of Moodle. To learn more about the multi-year transition to Canvas, see: Learning Management System Transition at UMass Amherst. 

 

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User Tour

The first time you login into Moodle 4.1 you will be offered a User tour highlighting the key navigation features and new look of Moodle. If you skipped the tour or you want to watch it again, scroll down to the bottom of the page, click Help (? icon), and select “Reset user tour on this page”.

 

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What's Different

Tabbed Navigation:

A series of tabs will appear at the top of your Moodle pages as you navigate the site. These include: 

• Moodle Home (the home page of Moodle)
• Dashboard (a page that aggregates tasks, calendars, and timelines)
• My Courses (a list of all courses you have access to)
• Help (Support for instructors and students)

Tabbed course navigation:

While in a course, many of the features of the Course Navigation panel have moved to a tabbed course navigation menu at the top of the course page. Additional features and settings are under the More link. 

The Course Index (formerly Navigation tray):

The Course Index offers navigation through the sections and content within your Moodle course. Navigating to grades and other courses has been moved to the tabbed navigation at the top of the course page. 

The Blocks Drawer:

The right-hand Blocks column is now collapsible, allowing you and your students to toggle between just viewing course content, and viewing the blocks. 

Icons and text:

Activities and resources added to your Moodle course will include both the icon and a text label describing that activity which appears above the name you assign the activity. 

Edit Mode:

Toggling editing mode on and off is now in the top right of the course page.

Edit Settings:

The Edit button has been replaced with a 3 vertical dot icon. 

Course images:

Course images now show on course cards on the My Courses page. They no longer appear at the top of your Moodle course page. Images can be added to the general section of a course.

Manual removal of External Tool links: 

If you copy over a course from a previous semester, you will need to remove any External tool (LTI) links from the course, such as Zoom or Echo360, and readd them to establish new connections with the platforms you want to use. 

 

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What's Improved

Gradebook improvements:
The Single view in the Gradebook has been updated to include searching by group and has a clearer user interface. The Gradebook User Report now allows you to collapse grade categories for easy viewing and navigation. A Gradebook Summary Report is now available to see all graded activities in a course and their average grade. 

Inline editing of Question Titles:
The Quiz question bank now allows for inline editing of question titles. Note: this does not include editing the question or response text.

For an overview of Moodle 4.1, please see MoodleDocs New Features in Modle 4.1

 

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We are here to help!

To help instructors through this transition we will be offering several workshops throughout the Summer 2023 session to walk through the upcoming changes. Register for one of our What’s New in Moodle 4.1 webinars on IDEAS Webinars and Events page. 

If you have questions about the upgrade or need help setting up Moodle courses, you can contact the Instructional Media Lab at instruct@umass.edu.