On August 19, 2015 Learn@Illinois will undergo an upgrade to Moodle 2.8. The upgrade includes security fixes, bug fixes, and a number of enhancements to functionality. Improvements include:
Moving to Moodle 2.8
You’ll notice many upgrades and enhancements in Moodle 2.8, including:
- A new text editor that will automatically save text as one types
- The option for instructors to add “Like” ratings to forums
- Improved Single View grade report
- The ability to embed YouTube videos with start time or playlist info
- The option to ignore users that are already in groups when auto-creating groups, and the ability to auto-create groups from existing an group or grouping membership
- The option to subscribe to get email copies of individual discussions in forums
- The capability to reply to forum posts received by email, and even include attachments
- A new function that allows linking to pages inside a lesson
- Users having the option to add files to their private files area by emailing them as attachments
- And much, much more!
For a full list of updates, see Moodle 2.7 and Moodle 2.8
Additions and Improvements
- Turnitin plagiarism detector is installed and ready for instructor use
- Kaltura (video hosting service) is now linked in Moodle, providing a space for students and instructors to upload media content
- Cengage integration has been added
- It is now possible to add a “Comments” block to the center column of most pages
- Increased functionality has been added to overall Moodle navigation, as well as the “MyMoodle” homepage
- “UI Text Export” (formally “UI Grade Export”) has been updated and simplified for easy export of grades, including the ability to export more student data than previously allowed
- The “Add a block” block is now able to be docked while in editing mode
- The “UI Shift Dates” function has been reformatted for increased speed
- “UI Activity Grader” can now be paired with the Glossary tool
Module Updates
The following modules will be updated to a new, improved version!
- Attendance
- Collapsed Topics
- Configurable Reports
- Dates Report
- Group Choice
- i>Clicker Integration
- Journal
- Mass Action Block
- OU Blog
- OU Wiki
- Questionnaire
Bug Fixes
- “UI External Links” report has been improved to better detect broken external links, including YouTube links
- The “Quick Quiz” editor is no longer throwing deceptive errors, and now recognizes answers that include parenthesis
- A number of fixes to the theme have been implemented, including the correction of overlapping text and misalignment of icons
- An unwieldy gradebook scroll has been modified for better gradebook viewing
- “UI Activity Grader” has been modified so that instructors can better view relevant post and reply data