Moodle Enhancements
Contributed by Lynda S. LaRoche, Assistant Director of Instructional & Learning Services (I.L.S.) and Moodle Support Coordinator
This past spring FITS researched the possibilities for a Moodle upgrade and presented the options to the Academic Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC) for their recommendation on behalf of the Faculty. After studying these possibilities, ATAC formally endorsed an upgrade to Moodle 1.9.5 to be effective for the 2009/2010 academic year. This article highlights several feature enhancements plus behind-the-scenes improvements that refine the performance of Moodle.
| Feature Enhancements | |
|---|---|
| “Save and display” button | When you are setting up activities and resources, this option will immediately show you what you have created. |
| Glossary | This tool has been expanded, so you can setup main and secondary glossaries as well as FAQs. |
| Question banks | These can be shared site-wide, semester-wide, within a single course or kept private to a single quiz. |
| Gradebook | Its informative mouse-over tooltip displays the student’s name and grade item when the gradebook items exceed the width or height of the screen. |
| Grade categories and associated grade items are combined on one form that enables easier editing as well as the potential to add textual notes. | |
| It has enhanced reports, importing and exporting. | |
Behind-the-Scenes Improvements:
- Major performance improvements with forums
- Server-side optimization that improves scalability and performance
- Security enhancements
- Updated default settings based on faculty feedback
Researching and implementing Moodle upgrades are ways FITS partners with faculty members to offer the most appropriate instructional tools for university teaching and students’ learning. We encourage you to share your suggestions and concerns with us because your experiences can help us improve our resources. Please ask us for help in discovering new uses for Moodle technologies!