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.

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.

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.

The Digital Learning Environments team are delighted to announce the release of the Forum activity block on UCL Moodle. The new feature will go live on UCL Moodle on the 20th March 2025.

The Forum activity block gives you an overview of what people are talking about across your courses, along with the most popular discussion from the last 7 days.  

The block will only show standard Moodle forums and will not include posts from alternative forum plugins such as Advanced forums.  

Students and staff can see the block on the home page of Moodle when they log in. 

If you have any feedback or questions about the Forum activity block, please contact the Digital Education team via My Services. 

We are writing to inform you about an important update to our Moodle default settings. These changes are being made to align Moodle more consistently with UCL practices.

What is changing?

Users with Non-Editing Tutor roles will now be able to manage grades in Moodle assignments. This will allow them to set the marking workflow state on a Moodle assignment submission to Not marked, In marking, Marking completed, In review, Ready for release, and Released.

Previously they could only set the marking workflow state to Not marked, In marking, Marking completed.

Note. Non-Editing Tutors will now be able to release grades and feedback if they select the “Released” status.

Why are we making these changes?

Based on feedback from our users.

When will this take effect?

13th March 2025.

How will this benefit you?

Greater flexibility for marking teams.

Need help?

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Digital Education team via My Services.

The UCL Moodle team are delighted to announce a new Marking block for staff on the Moodle dashboard.

Previously, the My Feedback block on the Moodle dashboard was only accessible to students, providing them with a summary of up to five recent assessments with available feedback.

The latest update introduces a staff Marking block, allowing staff to see up to five summative assessments across Moodle that require marking. This new feature aims to streamline the marking process by making it easier for staff to access and manage their pending marking.

The Marking block includes Turnitin assignments, Moodle assignments, and Quiz assessments that are categorised as summative on Moodle. These assessments are from courses that have started and not yet ended, with an additional three-month extension to accommodate late summer assessments.

Assessments are organized by their due dates, ensuring that the most relevant marking is prominently displayed. To keep the information current, only assessments with due dates within the past two months or the upcoming month will be shown.

This update is part of the ongoing digital assessment workstream of the UCL Moodle team. It follows on from our recent Feedback tracker feature. If you have questions or would like to feedback on early UCL Moodle prototypes please contact the UCL Moodle team via the MyServices portal.