Moodle Mentor: January 2026

Moodle Mentor says:
If you’re looking to work directly with an expert, the best first step is to contact Moodle Services. We can connect you with specialists in your area who understand both the technical setup of your Moodle platform and the learning design choices that make courses more accessible and effective.

From a tools perspective, BigBlueButton already includes several accessibility-supportive features:

• Live closed captions (always encourage learners to use the CC button).
• Multi-user whiteboards for visual explanation and modelling.
• Session recordings so learners can review at their own pace.

But tools alone aren’t the full answer. Dyslexia-friendly design comes down to thoughtful choices, such as:

• Clear structure and predictable layouts.
• Short, well-spaced chunks of text.
• Consistent headings and icons.
• Careful colour contrast and readable font choices.

This is where working with an expert really shines. Moodle Services can:

• Configure BigBlueButton to support inclusive teaching practices.
• Review your course design through an accessibility and learning-science lens.
• Coach you on using Moodle LMS confidently day to day, not just setting things up once.

That combination of practical setup plus ongoing guidance can make a meaningful difference for you and for your learners. Thanks for this thoughtful question — I love that you’re designing with your learners (not the tool) as the priority!

Moodle Mentor says:
This is such an interesting puzzle!  First, I’d want to know why you don’t want users to have a login (read on to understand why I’m generally pro-login). Asking users to create an account is not usually at odds with having an open learning platform — I’ve worked with organisations that provide free, fully open courses for millions of learners. These learners create accounts on the site and then can enrol themselves in whatever courses they’re interested in. Courses and content are open and freely available to users once they’ve logged in, and the organisation is able to analyse learner data to better understand what’s working, what needs improvement, and what type of new content they can develop to better support learning.

But, you said no login, so let’s explore that. Moodle LMS can do what you’re asking for, with the right configuration and with some important trade-offs.

Out of the box, Moodle LMS can absolutely support:

• Browsing courses openly.
• Viewing pages, files, and media without login (using Guest access).
• Downloading open resources.

However, the biggest downside of a no-login approach is data and reporting. Without user identity, you won’t be able to collect the kinds of insights you may need to:

• Demonstrate learning effectiveness and site utilisation.
• Advocate for continued or expanded funding (or whatever it is that keeps your learning free and open for all).
• Improve learning activities based on learner performance and engagement.

Many of Moodle LMS’s most powerful learning features — quizzes, progress tracking, saved attempts, certificates — depend on knowing who the learner is (in other words, the learner having an account on the site). Without login, Moodle LMS has no way to:

• Remember learner progress.
• Store quiz attempts.
• Track completion or engagement over time.

A common middle-ground approach is to keep learning open, but require lightweight authentication:

• Enable email-based self-registration, so learners can create their own accounts.
• Make all courses and content open (enable course self-enrolment) and accessible (provide a list of all available courses on the Dashboard, for example) once logged in.
• Use the resulting data (Course reports and Site-wide reports) to understand engagement, improve design, and report on impact.

This gives you the spirit of open learning without giving up the ability to learn from your learners.

If you really, really, really do want to push openness further, it is possible to modify Guest role or create a new custom role based on Guest to allow additional permissions (such as attempting Quizzes). Just know that modifying or creating roles can be tricky and time consuming, and will require lots of testing.

So yes — Moodle LMS can support a completely open platform, but fully open and fully interactive will require intentional design and architecture, not a single setting change. And, when it comes to data? Well, we’re not making dinosaurs over here at Moodle HQ, but I’m still going to leave you with this wisdom from Jurassic Park:

Moodle Mentor says:
Moodle Workplace is designed specifically for complex organisations — including government — and is available through Moodle or our Premium Certified Partners, depending on region.

For an organisation of your size, the process typically includes:

• A discovery conversation to understand scale, structure, compliance needs, and hosting requirements.
• Professional services for setup, integrations, and governance.
• Ongoing support and updates.

Because requirements, data residency, and procurement rules vary by country and public sector context, the best next step is a direct conversation with your regional Premium Certified Partner. They can provide accurate guidance on feasibility, costs, and timelines for Costa Rica specifically. Start that conversation today and write back soon to tell us about your site!

Moodle Mentor says:
With a grading question — especially one that involves human intervention (we won’t call this “error,” but rather, human… differences) — I’d need to actually look at the gradebook and activity to diagnose the issue and offer you a treatment plan. There are several factors involved in grade calculation in Moodle LMS, and each can impact troubleshooting, but I’ll do my best with the information provided.

Typically, once the maximum grade for an activity has been configured, it’s best not to change it (and, sometimes, depending on what the activity is — for a manual grade item in the gradebook, for example — you actually can’t change it once grades have been entered). Because the original activity was set for a maximum grade of 100, I recommend only changing grades for the students who were graded out of 20.

For those students, multiply the grade they were given by 5 (so, if their grade is 14 out of a possible 20 points, then 14 x 5 = 70… that student’s new grade, out of a possible 100 points, is 70), and input this adjusted score. This should not trigger a recalculation of grades, or impact students who were correctly graded with a max grade of 100 (but, again, it depends on what kind of activity we’re dealing with here).

You can input these revised grades in the activity itself, or, if you need to move more quickly, do a grade override in the gradebook.

If that’s not going to work for you, or if things have just gotten too messy, for whatever reason, here’s what I’d do:

1. Hide the original activity with the messy grades — when you hide an activity, those grades no longer appear or aggregate in the gradebook.
2. Create a manual grade item with a similar name to the original activity, so students will know what this grade is for when they check the gradebook.
3. Set this new manual grade item to a max grade of 100.
4. Input grades for all students, using this new manual grade item, and multiply all those graded out of 20 points by 5, so that all grades are now based on a max grade of 100.

Pro tip: If you often have multiple graders, advanced grading methods (rubrics or marking guides) can help. They reduce ambiguity and keep grading consistent across humans.

Moodle Mentor says:
This sounds soooo cool, and I’m so excited to learn more! We love hearing these stories — especially when they focus on process, decision-making, and lessons learned.

Great places to share include:

• MIX, Moodle’s annual global conference (previously known as MoodleMoot Global).
• Regional MoodleMoots where local Moodlers gather to learn from each other.
• Made with Moodle — maybe you’ll be featured in The Learning Curve newsletter or an upcoming case study.

If your story includes thoughtful use of AI in learning design or platform development, it’s especially timely. I’d love to see your presentation at MIX 2026, so keep an eye out for the call for proposals!

This is such a great follow-up question, Gregg! This question actually came in via a LinkedIn post comment, and I replied to that comment, but thought others might want to check this one out.

Here are some strategies I’ve used when working with faculty on Quizzes/the Question Bank:

1. Start with the Question Bank, not the Quiz. I’ve found that a lot of teachers don’t really understand what the Question Bank is, or even that it exists. I show teachers around the Question Bank and encourage them to think of it as a shared library for their Quiz questions. Helping teachers create clear Question categories (by topic, outcome, difficulty, or unit) upfront makes everything downstream easier.
2. Use courses as shared Question Bank repositories. Having a departmental course that’s just there to house a shared Question Bank can help clean things up in a teacher’s actual course. Read more about the new question sharing options introduced in Moodle LMS 5.0+.
3. Use naming conventions that actually help. Simple, consistent naming like Topic – Concept – Difficulty or Week – Skill – Version makes questions searchable and reusable. This is especially helpful months later, when memory fails but filters still work.
4. But sometimes, you really do need to just start over. If things have gotten too slow, too messy, too overwhelming, or just plain unwieldy, it might be time for a reset. When I help someone do this, we usually export quizzes one by one and recreate them (import questions) in a fresh course. That process creates space to take stock of what’s truly needed, let go of old questions that have been lingering in the background, and do the important work of renaming and organising the Question Bank.

And yes — if you’re asking someone to do this kind of deep cleanup, buy them lunch. It can be a slow and sometimes frustrating process, but, like a good basement or closet clean-out, it’s worth it. When it’s done, things run smoother, future updates feel easier, and you’ll almost always feel lighter.

We love seeing your creativity, curiosity, and commitment to making Moodle solutions work for you. Keep sending your Moodle mysteries, “how do I…” moments, and teaching triumphs — they make this column possible.