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The Moodle Accessibility Tool is back!
By Kerry, on 12 June 2025
The Moodle Accessibility Tool has been restored to UCL Moodle. We were aware that some people missed it and were not comfortable with using free browser extensions, so decided to revisit it for our latest version of Moodle.
To access the tool, simply go to your Moodle profile and choose “Accessibility Tool” from the drop-down menu.
You will then be given options to personalise your colour scheme, font style, text size and readability of UCL Moodle. The readability features also include the option to add more space between lines. Your preferences are saved to your Moodle profile so you don’t have to reset these every time you log in.
Screenshot of Moodle accessibility tool options accessed from your Moodle profile.
To access more information on the Moodle accessibility tool, please access the tool and read the guidance below.
The advantage of using free browser extensions instead of the Moodle accessiblity tool is that your settings will be available across your whole browsing experience and not just for Moodle so it is worth considering these in general. For more advice on browser and other free inbuilt accessibility tools, please see our accessibility statement.
Moodle course rollover 2025/26
By Pauline Harding, on 29 May 2025
Course administrators and tutors can now roll over Moodle courses for the 2025/26 academic year.
For information on carrying out Moodle course rollover please see the relevant guides:
Lecture recordings
As you may be aware Lecturecast shall be replaced with Panopto in September 2025.
Panopto is a world leading educational recording and video management system. You cannot yet use or link to Panopto. In the meantime, you can record in-room sessions using Microsoft Teams or Zoom. See the wiki guidance for information on recording via MS Teams or Zoom, and the Lecturecast wiki guidance provides information on adding existing Lecturecast recordings to your Moodle course, if required. Prior Lecturecast activity links will not be copied to the new course.
Legacy files
Legacy files are no longer included in course rollover. This means that if you have been experiencing issues with Anthology Ally including legacy files in accessibility reports/scores for your Moodle courses, this will be resolved with the 2025/26 course rollover.
To summarise, the issue with Anthology Ally including legacy files in its reports has been resolved. Legacy files are files that were once added to the Moodle course page but then removed. Deleting them from the course page would not completely remove them as the file would remain in the course repository. Unfortunately, Ally would still pick up these files in its reports. Moodle course rollover will not copy these types of files over any more, which has resolved the issue. Anthology Ally are currently working on a roadmap to improve the tool in general. We will update you on their progress later this year
If you need assistance with rolling over a Moodle course for the 2025/26 academic year please contact Digital Education Support via MyServices form request.
Moodle Role for Library Staff
By Tom Walters, on 14 May 2025
Following a request for a dedicated Library Staff role in Moodle, the Digital Education Support team have created this role at course and category level with customised permissions for the needs of library staff. These permissions include posting to Forums and adding the Library Resources and Library Search blocks, as well as resources and activities such as Books, Files and Reading Lists.
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For library staff needing basic Moodle guidance, we recommend the Getting Started with Moodle course. However, as the role’s permissions do not include grading or enrolling other users, this removes the requirement to complete the more advanced Administering your Moodle training for category level enrolment. At category level the role still needs to be requested by a Head of Department or with their written authorisation, using this MyServices form for category enrolments.
If you have any questions about the new role, please contact us using our Staff Query Form.
Moodle Exam Guard Update
By Kerry, on 9 May 2025
Following feedback from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, the DLE team have implemented an enhancement to Moodle Exam Guard which allows a quiz close time to be extended in exceptional circumstances for a whole group when a cohort is currently sitting an exam and exam guard is in place.
As a reminder, Exam Guard was introduced last year to prevent staff from editing a course while an exam is underway due to its risk to Moodle performance. In the past, this caused some exams to be disrupted, particularly for larger cohorts. It works by preventing staff from editing their course or indeed the quiz itself from 10 minutes before the Moodle quiz opens until 10 minutes after the quiz has closed.
However, we were alerted to a use case where editing the duration of a quiz might be necessary – for instance, if a fire alarm were to go off and the assessment needed to be extended for everyone currently sitting it. Therefore, it is now possible to add more time to an exam which is in progress when Exam Guard is in place.
Editing tutors on the Moodle course in question or site admin roles can now see an “Extend time” button in the quiz when the exam is in progress should such a scenario occur and they can then add the extension time duration in minutes.
Screen shot of “extend time” button for exam in progress.
Shot of screen showing how to add extension time in minutes.
Please note: if other users or groups are taking the same quiz at a different time (e.g. in the case there are different sittings or for students with SoRAs), it will not affect the close time for their quiz as it will only extend the time for those who are currently in the process of undertaking the assessment.
For further details, please refer to our wiki guide.
Feedback tracker update: new staff view
By Eliot Hoving, on 29 April 2025
The Digital Learning Environments team is thrilled to introduce the new staff view of the Feedback tracker. This feature allows staff to view an overview of assessments from all their Moodle courses on a single page.
Assessments are displayed by academic year, term and assessment type. Each assessment includes a count of submissions, applied extensions or overrides for Moodle assignments and quizzes, and a marking progress indicator.
To access the Feedback tracker, simply log on to Moodle, click your profile image in the top right and select Feedback tracker.
The new staff view follows on from the launch of the staff marking block and student view. You can read the Feedback tracker wiki guide to learn more.
Next, the team will be working on an institutional report.
If you have any questions or suggestions about the Feedback tracker, please contact the Digital Education team via My Services.
By Katy O Foster, on 1 April 2025
Term 3 workshops and training courses
Develop your digital skills with a training course or workshop from Digital Education.
Our term 3 schedule of courses is now live.
The courses on offer cover a range of topics including:
- Accessibility and assistive technology
- Data analysis and visualisation
- Interaction and collaboration
- Mastering Excel
- Multimedia content: creating and editing
- Programming
- Software for success
- Teaching and assessment
- Written content: creating, presenting and referencing
Discover LinkedIn Learning
This term the team will also run a webinar to take users through the key features of LinkedIn Learning – a learning platform with a vast array of video tutorials which is free for all UCL staff and students to use.
Discover LinkedIn Learning – free online learning for everyone at UCL|Thursday 15th May|12:00-13:00|Online
Digital skills support: Office hours
Office hours support will continue next term. Meet one to one with a digital skills trainer to discuss a specific issue: Book your appointment here
Join the mailing list
To receive updates on digital skills training, join our mailing list.
Contact us
For any questions on Digital Skills Development at UCL, email isd-digiskills@ucl.ac.uk