June 2023 Moodle News

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Announcements Moodle News

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Course Requests Open in SPIRE

Summer and Fall 2023 course requests are currently available in SPIRE for Moodle, Blackboard, and Canvas.

If you haven’t done so already, you can still request your Spring 2023 Moodle course in SPIRE. Don’t forget that each semester you will need to request Moodle for the courses you are teaching.

For step by step instructions on requesting a Moodle course, see:

As part of a multi-year process the campus will be moving to a single LMS – Canvas. You can request a Canvas course instead of a Blackboard course in SPIRE. Some useful information for making this decision:

The IDEAS Team is running series of webinars to introduce Canvas and give you hands-on experience and practice.

All instructors have. access to a Canvas Sandbox course and Canvas Training and Resources Course.

Instructors can request concierge migration services of their courses from Moodle to Canvas. Requests close Friday, June 16, 2023 for Fall courses.

Moodle is Upgrading to 4.1

On Thursday, July 13, 2023 UMass will be moving Moodle to 4.1 as part of a required upgrade of our systems by our cloud hosting service. While much of Moodle will be functionally the same, there are a number of key differences:

Moodle’s user interface and overall look will change:

  • Tabbed Navigation:
    A series of tabs will appear at the top of your Moodle pages as you navigate the site.
  • Tabbed course navigation:
    While in a course, many of the features of the Course Navigation panel have moved to a tabbed course navigation menu at the top of the course page. Additional features and settings are under the More link. 
  • The Course Index (formerly Navigation tray):
    The Course Index offers navigation through the sections and content within your Moodle course. Navigating to grades and other courses has been moved to the tabbed navigation at the top of the course page. 
  • The Blocks Drawer
    The right-hand Blocks column is now collapsable, allowing you and your students to toggle between just viewing course content, and viewing the blocks. 
  • Icons and text
    Activities and resources added to your Moodle course will include both the icon and a text label describing that activity which appears above the name you assign the activity. 
  • Edit mode:
    Toggling editing mode on and off is now in the top right of the course page.
  • Edit settings:
    The Edit button has been replaced with a 3 vertical dot icon.

Many UMass-developed customizations will be dropped, including:

  • Grouping requirements for group activities.
  • The Edit dates feature enhancements
  • Duplicate, mis-ordered, or invalid grades in grade scheme prevention.

Explore the Moodle 4.1 demo site (Mount Orange School).

Moodle Tip of the Month: Blind Grading for Assignments

Did you know that there are options for Assignments in Moodle to prevent a grader from seeing the names of students until after they are graded? Blind grading in Moodle allows graders in your course to grade assignment submissions without seeing the names of students attached to the submissions. Instead, randomly generated participant numbers are displayed when grading submissions. After grading, graders reveal student names and release grades to students.

Backup Your Moodle Course

At the end of each semester, we recommend instructors take action to Back Up Their Moodle Course contents, and archive student work and grades. There are a few easy steps to give you some peace of mind.

Planned Downtimes

Moodle will be unavailable during the Moodle 4.1 upgrade on Thursday, July 13, from 7am until the upgrade is completed (expected 4pm).

Scheduled routine maintenance windows for UMass Amherst Moodle in the Cloud are Thursdays 11pm-12am (ET). Regular maintenance is a necessity for a stable, secure, and improving service. Many of these maintenance windows will not actually have the site unavailable for more than a few minutes, but it is still not advised to plan activities or set due dates during maintenance windows.

You can check the status of Moodle, Zoom, and other supported teaching technologies on the IT Services Status for Remote Teaching and Learning page.

Moodle Help and Resources for Instructors

To learn more about Moodle or to get help, you can:

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