In this article, students and teachers will find important information about upcoming Moodle events and details. This information will prepare you, our Moodle community, for successful experiences with Clarkson’s learning management system this Summer and into the coming 2025/26 academic year. We’ve detailed key updates and actions below:
- Moodle Service Outage Scheduled
- Teachers: Two Steps to Take Before May 12, 2025
- New Features Highlighted
1. Moodle Outage Scheduled
Students and teachers engaged in Spring Quarter and Summer term courses, along with all other open courses such as non catalog courses, are encouraged to note the following scheduled event.
Prepare now for Moodle to be unavailable during this twenty-four hour scheduled outage:
- Start: Monday, May 12, 2025 at 5:00 PM EST
- End: Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM EST
During this time, Moodle will be unavailable as administrators will update Moodle to version 4.5.
2. Teachers: Take these Two Steps before May 12, 2025
- Step 1: Save your work: please save a backup copy of your course syllabi to your network or local drive. When courses update to Moodle 4.5, the Syllabus tab will go away (see example below). Files uploaded to this area become permanently unavailable. When you save a local copy of course syllabi, you can be sure of its convenient availability for the next term. Steps for accessing the Course Syllabus area inside your Moodle 4.0 course.
- Step 2: Turnitin in Assignments update. The Turnitin Assignment 2 activity will be deprecated in Moodle 4.5, which means older assignments using the plugin must be recreated in the Moodle Assignment activity with the Turnitin option turned on (see settings image below). Turnitin, including Grademark, will continue to be available in 4.5.
Look for these Turnitin Assignment 2 activities in your current courses.
Replace with Moodle Assignments, and activate Turnitin in the settings of Moodle Assignment, as seen below:
3. What’s Coming?
Note these latest updates in Moodle 4.5:
Now Available! Get a sneak peak with previews of Moodle 4.5. Simply self enroll in our Preview Courses then tour around to learn more. Follow instructions to complete activities or simply browse the layouts and test options. Course tours will guide you through the key features. Choose one or both. Click to self enroll:
- As a student in the Student Preview Course Moodle 4.5
- As a teacher in the Teacher Preview Course Moodle 4.5
Your Dashboard in Moodle: Updates to the overall navigation on your Dashboard: You’ll note more white space with fewer menus. This aims to offer quick, convenient access to the courses you are enrolled in.
Look for Course Overview: Access current courses you are enrolled in. In general before a semester starts and after it ends, courses are hidden from student view. Note course start and end dates.
More about Dashboard and the Course Overview block in our user guide documentation.
Navigate in your course with success: Several new features to note inside your new courses
- Expand / Collapse Topics: A majority of students surveyed told us they preferred the option to expand/collapse topics in their Moodle course for better navigation. Courses now feature this option in Topics, along with right and left menus.
- For a birdseye view of the course and quicker access, a clickable course index is available in the left menu.
- Teachers should look for menu items such as Settings, Participants and Grades in a row at the top of the course. Look for a Course Administration block in the right hand menu.
Tours: Look for helpful tips in the pop up windows called Tours. Moodle 4.5 will use Tours to help introduce new features and offer guidance. Check them out.
Tune in to Moodle Update Information: A Moodle Project intranet page is home to information for faculty, students and staff to learn more about project plans including timelines, progress and background information. More information will be added as the project progresses.
Join Moodle Volunteer Community: CU OIT welcomes teachers who are interested in trialing features in the coming version of Moodle. This can be a great opportunity to let us know what is/not working and what you’d like to see in Moodle. This is an open call and we welcome new members to join at any time. Commitment is flexible and sign up is easy. Sign up to get started.
Questions/Comments:
Office of Information Technology HelpDesk 315-268-HELP (x4357) or helpdesk@clarkson.edu