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Moodle Summer Upgrade 2019

By Jason R Norton, on 6 August 2019

Overview of the Moodle 2019 Upgrade

UCL Moodle has now been upgraded to Moodle version 3.7. This upgrade brings several important feature enhancements as well as multiple minor changes across the platform. The most important of which are detailed below. More general information can also be found on the Moodle Resource Centre wiki page.

Due to the scale of changes moving from version 3.4 to 3.7 Digital Education will be continuing  to update our documentation on the Moodle Resource Centre throughout the summer period, however all features are fully documented on moodle.org at Moodle 3.7 Official Documentation if you require immediate guidance on a specific feature that is not detailed on the UCL Moodle wiki.

We are also aware that there are still a few outstanding issues with the Moodle theme (look and feel) that we have not complete before the release of the new version on 26th July and these known issues are listed on the wiki at the known issues web page and will be resolved in the next two to three weeks during our weekly Tuesday maintenance window. This wiki page will be updated as the issues are resolved and workarounds provided.

Please report any issues that are not listed in on our Known Issues page to digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk. The Moodle teams will continue to work on the platform adding features and fixing bugs and upgrading the platform as part of business as usual activities through the 19/20 academic year.

Supporting Accessibility

A significant amount of work has gone into enhancing Moodle’s accessibility of its activities and plugins. The majority of these changes will not be apparent unless you use accessibility tools to navigate Moodle, as these changes are done within the underpinning technologies of Moodle’s layout, design and navigation.

The Digital Education team will be adding Blackboard Ally before the start of main academic session to support the creation of accessible documents and the creation of alternate formats for students. More details on Blackboard Ally for UCL will be communicated via the Digital Education blog and via direct email over the summer, a general overview of what Blackboard Ally is can be found at the following link What is Blackboard Ally?

Two Moodles Over Summer

This year also sees the first time that we have had to maintain two live Moodle’s over the summer period to ensure the completion of Late Summer Assessments And UCL Summer Schools (LSA) within the correct cohorts and courses. When you go to moodle.ucl.ac.uk you will find yourself at our landing hub page where you choose either the LSA Moodle or the new academic year Moodle. This hub page will only be active until the end of the LSA period (October) at which point moodle.ac.uk will take you directly to the front page the 19/20 academic year Moodle.

The new Late Summer Assessment Hub is show below, click the correct button to take you to either the LSA Moodle 18-19/UCL Summer School 2019 or Moodle 19/20

Moodle Hub Page Image

For full details on the use of these two Moodles and Late Summer Assessments please see Digital Education Late Summer Assessment Blog

Next Steps: Course Resets and Getting Ready for the new Academic Year

As we have now completed our Moodle upgrade, all your work for the last academic year will be captured in the Moodle Snapshot 18-19 and will be editable up until 20th September once the Late Summer Assessment Period finishes. We would now advise you to start resetting your courses that have completed their yearly cycle or are no longer in use on the Moodle 19-20 instance. This would not apply to Modules such as postgraduate, medical and other non-standard timetabled courses.

The reset process has changed slightly with a few additional steps. Please ensure you read the following blog post on Moodle Course Resets Process 2019, to find clear instructions on how to reset your course and the changes to the course reset process.

Once you have completed your course resets, please see the New Moodle Checklist document to ensure you are ready for your new academic year.

Overview of all new Features in Moodle Versions 3.5 to 3.7

Below please find links to detail pages on the key new features within Moodle that have been added from 3.5 – 3.7

Moodle Docs, whats new in Moodle 3.7 Overview

Moodle Docs, whats new in Moodle 3.6 Overview

Moodle Docs, whats new in Moodle 3.5 Overview

Key Enhancement Focus: The New Moodle Dashboard

https://youtu.be/kSXgS0RWPXg

Link to Moodle 3.7 dashboard documentation on Moodle.org

 

If you have any questions or require pedagogic or technical support in the use of Moodle in the support your of teaching and learning activities, please contact the Digital Education team via email at digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk

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