The final version of the 3.0 generation of Moodle™, the most widely used Learning Management System, Open Source or else, comes with a couple of welcome enhancements that, while still valuable on their own, have a more significant role as gateways to Moodle™ 4.0, the highly anticipated new release, expected by the end of the year.
The new features
Better student cues, accessibility and more improvements come with the help of the Moodle™ Users Association and Brickfield Labs.
Student Activity Completion (“Mark as Done”)
Next to each activity, students will now see two things:
- A button to “Mark as Complete.” It toggles, meaning they can un-mark the activity as complete.
- A “What you need to do” floating note next to activities.
Built-in Accessibility Checker
A “Starter” version of the solutions provided by Brickfield, it gives you quick tips on common technical issues such as alt text or aria labels. A heatmap view allows pinpoint the issues on the rendered page.
Other accessibility enhancements include “Improve accessibility of profile images” and “Make it possible to style toast notifications.”
Support for Open Badges 2.1
The Open Badges Specification, Version 2.1 by the IMS Global Consortium is the latest version of the most widely accepted badges or credentialing standard. Supported by all major LMS and badge managers such as Credly, Open Badges standardizes the process of digital item generation tied to educational accomplishment, collection of evidence and display across platforms online.
Quiz enhancements
Moodle™’s most dependable activity continues to pack new features:
- Minimum and maximum word counts on Essay type questions.
- Plagiarism checker. With a plagiarism plugin or solution enabled in Moodle™, essay questions will get a score underneath after submitted.
- Playback speed of embedded video or audio players can be changed.
Built-in H5P improvements
The parallel roadmap of built-in H5P vs the H5p plugin continues.
Now you are able to disable specific H5P interactivity types.
Security and integrations
- Enhancements to the OAuth 2.0 architecture, which sets the integration with NextCloud, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and dozen other authentication and services providers.
- Web services provide search and filtering functionality.
- Debugging for “switch session lock” available.
- Dynamic Registration lets tool update to LTI Advantage.
- Debugging options for plugins.
- Secure data admin setting type.
Road to 4.0, and should I wait to upgrade?
Early adopters, accessibliity buffs and user engagement experimenters are welcome to try out Moodle™ 3.11 right away.
Large organizations with large databases or extensive integrations deployed might want to wait, and then don’t miss out the grand 4.0 release, coming later in the year.
Moodle™ engineers and veteran admins agree that upgrading to every major or “first point” release is not necessary nor recommended.
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