The Moodle-News blog is closing down.In the future, we will report Moodle news of the University of Helsinki directly on the news channel found in Moodle.You can find the new Moodle News channel in the block on the Moodle home page or in the Moodle News link in the middle.
Subscribe to the new Moodle News channel, and you will continue to receive Moodle News in your e-mail in the way you have defined in Moodle.Log in to Moodle, go to the Moodle-News channel and press “Subscribe to forum”.You can check your notification settings in your profile information.
Moodle will be updated to Moodle 4.1 on June 28th, 2023, from 8 AM to 5 PM. During this time, it is not possible to log into Moodle or create new Moodle areas on the course pages. The update may not take the whole day, but the time is reserved as a precaution to prepare for potential update issues and fixes.
The Dashboard and My courses replace the old Dashboard.Moodle’s start page is the Dashboard, but you can change it in your settings.On these tabs you can see what courses you have, the calendar, etc. You can also add blocks to the Dashboard.
Editing and managing the Moodle area has been made easier in the new user interface.In the future, the functions that were behind the function menu can be found in the tabs immediately below the course name.The Grades and Participants tabs, which were previously in the table of contents (formerly the navigation menu), have also been moved to tabs.In the future, the table of contents will show not only the names of the topics, but also the activities and resources found within the topics, thus making it easier to navigate the area.The table of contents can still be turned on and off from the “hamburger menu” in the upper left corner.
The biggest usability improvements can be found in the new location of the Edit Mode button.In the future, the editing mode, i.e. the editing button, can be found in the upper right corner, and it is constantly available to the teacher.This makes editing smoother and easier.In addition, in the future, activities and sections can also be moved to another place in the course within the table of contents.
Blocks in Moodle areas will not automatically be visible to students in the future.They can still be found on the right side, but they are behind a drawer.
The tabs in the gradebook view will be replaced by a dropdown menu with the upcoming version update. Under the dropdown menu, you will find all the same contents that were previously displayed as tabs. Editing individual assessments for students will be streamlined as you can make individual edits directly in the grader report by enabling the editing mode.
In the question bank, learning analytics will be introduced in the form of new data columns. With this new information, teachers will be able to analyze the questions posed: assessing their effectiveness and difficulty. Additionally, question-specific editing will be made easier within the question bank view.
The database activity has several improvements: It has a new start page where you can choose a template for the database, or load the structure of an old database. The database now has four different templates: an image gallery, a research or reflection diary, a proposal or research project template, and a resource template that can be used to create, for example, a book review or link collection. In addition, it is now easier to track and manage the approval of database records.
In activity completion, there is a new option “require a passing grade”. Previously, the only option was “receive a grade”.
A time limit can now be set for assignments. During the assignment, a counter is displayed, showing how much time is left.
Language selection can now be enforced for individual activities, whereas previously this was only possible at the course level.
Training and support
Moodle training in the autumn 2023 can be found in Suffeli
UH Moodle will be updated to a new version on June 28. Moodle’s global developer community has renewed Moodle’s appearance and navigation. The four final Digipeda Café introductions of the academic year will shed light to the changes the new version brings.
Themes and dates
20 April 2023: Dashboard and My courses
4 May 2023: Course layout and editing
1 June 2023: Question bank and Grader report
15 June 2023: Other activities etc.
The introductions are held in Finnish. They are recorded and will be captioned in English. You don’t have to register for the sessions, but you can request calendar invitations from opetusteknologia@helsinki.fi. All introductions start at 9 AM.
Moodle 4: Dashboard and My courses
In the first Moodle 4 introduction, we go through the layout of the new version and the most important changes in some user-specific settings. We will be introducing the new versions of Desktop and My Courses tabs. Course area-specific changes will be explored in more detail in later introductions.
After the service break, you will have access to a new real-time word counter in the Atto editor. The word count will be displayed at the bottom of the editor window. The older hashtag icon will be removed from the selection.
More information
Support requests, questions and feedback: moodle @ helsinki.fi
Moodle will be updated on June 29th, 2022, from 8 AM to 5 PM. During this time, Moodle is closed and cannot be logged into. The update may not take the whole day, but the time is reserved as a precaution to prepare for potential update issues and fixes.
New question types to the quiz
In the summer update, two new question types will be added to the quiz activity: All or nothing and Gapfill. Moodle users have requested both question types.
All or nothing
All or nothing question type is a multiple choice question in which the respondent must select all the correct options to get a full score. If the respondent chooses one of the wrong options or don’t choose all correct answers, the score is 0. It is not possible to give minus points in all or nothing questions.
The Gapfill question type allows creating embedded questions (both writing, drop-down, and drag-and-drop) where you can put one or more correct words per gap. For example, in the sentence “Cats and dogs are typical pets.” you also get full points by writing “ Dogs and cats are typical pets.” In the other embedded question types, this is not possible. In addition to the Gapfill, Moodle still has other types of embedded question types (cloze).
With the “Review options” in the quiz activity, the teacher decides what students see after the quiz, e.g. if the student sees the correct answers to the multiple-choice questions immediately after the quiz is returned or only after the quiz is completed.
The default settings for “Review Options” will change during the summer update. After the update, nothing will be displayed for students who have taken the quiz. The new settings only affect the new quiz activities, the settings made before the update remain unchanged.
For example, the teacher can show the score after checking the entire quiz. If the quiz is a self-study quiz where the student should receive immediate feedback on their learning, the teacher can add the necessary alternatives to “Immediately after the attempt” and “Later, while the quiz is still open” before the quiz begins.
Notifications: Notification for teachers of students’ quiz submissions
The teacher can choose in the notification settings to receive a message when students have returned their quiz submission. This can be good, for example, for essay questions, when students can take the quiz at any time throughout the year. By default, notification preference is such that teachers do not receive these notifications.
The default maximum grade for activities
After the upgrade, the default maximum grade for some activities will be five. This applies to the following activities: Assignment, Lesson, Attendance, and External tool. Other activities or existing implementations of the above are not affected by this setting.
Per-group grade export to Sisu now possible
After the update, it is possible to export grades from Moodle to Sisu one group at a time. The group selection dropdown menu is only visible, if a group mode has been selected from the course settings. After exporting the grades of a single group, in Sisu one can adjust the assessment properties for the whole group using the bulk edit functionality.
Preliminary information: Moodle 4.0 in the summer 2023
Moodle gets a new look! Moodle 4.0 brings a modern interface, an intuitive tabbed navigation, and it will be easier for teachers to edit courses. At the University of Helsinki, we will be launching the new Moodle in the summer 2023. You can already get a taste of the new user interface in the video.
University of Helsinki
