Latest enhancements to the core of Moodle provide improvements of streamlined navigation, useful additions to activities such as Lesson and Quiz, along with new administration settings which refine the course management process.
PERTH, Western Australia — Moodle, the world’s open source learning platform, launches the latest version release of Moodle 2.9 based on the work of the core team and contributions from the community. The popular learning management system introduces a redesign of the navigation and user interface among many other improvements, evolving the software for the ease of use for students, educators and administrators.
“Our core goal is to support and improve education by making our teachers and trainers more effective, and Moodle continues its evolution in Moodle 2.9 with enhancements for users at all levels” said Martin Dougiamas, Moodle’s founder and CEO. “Working from the navigation overhaul specification with the input of the HQ team and community over the past 12 months, the core interface has seen some solid progress in making Moodle simple and friendlier for educators and students”.
Moodle 2.9 contains a broad range of improvements and new features. Among the most significant are:
- Navigation and user interface advancements
- Introduction of conditional quiz questions and attractive print layout
- Lesson improvements, including the new completion condition for required time spent
- New activity results block
- Course editing improvements including drag and drop images into text editor and section deletion.
- Ability to post to all forums at once
- Setting a passing grade within an activity at set-up
- Course enrolment improvements (keyholder, multiple cohort and meta link enrol)
For developers of plugins and customisations, Moodle 2.9 now supports the use of Javascript Modules and jQuery and this is recommended for all new javascript. This change is a response to the discontinued development of the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) library announced in 2014 by Yahoo Engineering. jQuery offers Moodle developers a large library to seamlessly handle cross browser issues. Another new feature of interest to developers is the inclusion of the Mustache templating framework.
With over 250,000 downloads of Moodle’s previous release, it is anticipated that Moodle 2.9 will surpass these numbers, offering educators across the globe an intuitive, engaging platform optimised for multiple devices. This release is supported for 18 months and the last of the major releases for Moodle 2, with Moodle 3.0 anticipated for later this year.
Availability
Moodle 2.9 is available to download free from http://download.moodle.org/ or via Git. Alternatively, users can seek the support of certified Moodle Partners for services including hosting, installation, customisation and many more.
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About Moodle
First released in 2001 by Martin Dougiamas, Moodle has developed into a full-featured, flexible open source learning platform currently used in over 200 countries with more than 70 million users worldwide. The focus of Moodle is to provide educators with the best tools to manage and promote learning. Supported by a global network of certified Moodle Partners, Moodle HQ continues to work with developers and educators worldwide to support a fast-growing community of Moodle users. For more information, visit http://moodle.org.
Sources
Moodle 2.9 New Features http://j.mp/moodle29
Moodle 2.9 Release Notes https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_2.9_release_notes
Moodle jQuery https://docs.moodle.org/dev/jQuery
Logos https://moodle.com/news/mediaresources/
