Countdown to Moodle 4: Entering the Final Stretch

Hello Moodlers! We’re back with the penultimate post before the Moodle 4.2 upgrade. While we’re diligently aligning all aspects for a smooth transition, we appreciate your patience as we’re moving closer towards finalising the upgrade date.

With the upgrade to Moodle 4 just around the corner, we want to provide some essential updates and tips to help you prepare.

Sprint Update and Progress

Our work to prepare for the upgrade continues at a brisk pace as we fine-tune and test the system.

• Student communication: Expect communication to all students soon via our central communications team, explaining the upcoming changes and including access to our Demo Preview site.
• Orientation: We designed a User Tour for students to be oriented in the new platform and this is now deployed to all users on our Demo Preview site if you would like to preview it.
• Final theme code deployed: The last theme code is out. Any further changes to the theme will take place after the upgrade.
• Preparing for load testing: Our team is on the mark for load testing, slated to commence in the upcoming sprint. We aim to ensure Moodle 4 can handle high-demand periods without a glitch in performance.
• Miniguides update: All the wiki Moodle miniguides are being tested, verified and updated. These will be updated to correspond with the new platform in time for the upgrade towards the month-end.
• Stacking up on STACK: We’re working on updating the STACK engine for STACK question types in quizzes.

Prepping for the Upgrade: Your Part

In anticipation of the upcoming transformation, there are several things you can do to ensure a smooth transition.

• Awareness: If there are colleagues who might not be aware of the upgrade, kindly spread the word.
• Familiarise: Explore the Moodle 4.2 Pre-release resources wiki page for a comprehensive understanding of the upcoming changes.
• Preview: Use our demo site to visualize how your course(s) will appear post-upgrade. If you haven’t yet done so, you can see how your UCL Moodle courses will look on our Demo Preview site and report any issues to our team.
• Learn: Engage with the self-paced training module for a grasp of the changes from Moodle version 3.11 to version 4.2.
• Connect: Discuss with your Faculty Learning Technology Lead about other available training options in your faculty or department.

Getting in Touch

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out to the Digital Education team. Stay tuned for our next update in a fortnight, where we’ll share more details on the Moodle 4 upgrade. Until then, happy Moodling!

The Digital Learning Environments Team