Information Pack Moodle 2.9 Upgrade

Sent on behalf of Dr George Kotsana, Academic Director, Information Technology

There will be an upgrade to Moodle in the first week of December.  The Moodle 2.9 upgrade will commence at 11 PM, AEDT on Friday 4th December and complete at  8:00 AM Monday 7 December. Monash Moodle will NOT be available for use during this time.

New Moodle 2.9 features:

• Notable improvements to navigation and the interface to give Moodle a more professional and streamlined appearance.
• Support for working with large classes continues to improve in groups and groupings.
• A new capability to subscribe or unsubscribe to a single discussion in a forum.
• Quizzes are no longer limited to a single structure or behaviour and now include options such conditional questions, and internal sections that can have randomised and sequential questions in the same quiz.
• “Natural weighting” promises to make using and managing Grades much easier by using input boxes to edit weightings it calculates the percentage contributions of each assessable item in much more intuitively.

Current Moodle learning topics have been updated to reflect the additional functionality and changes. These are available on the Moodle Learning Topics page.

What should I do to prepare for the upgrade?

If you need any information or files stored in Moodle for the weekend of 4-7 December you need to have completed any downloads BEFORE 11pm on Friday, 4th December. While there is never a good time to take Moodle offline, the upgrade has been scheduled at this time to minimise disruption.

Summer students will be informed of the upgrade by email, and all students will be informed through the Portal and in Moodle. A Moodle Library Guide incorporating a Quick Start Guide for students and advice on using Moodle 2.9 has been developed and will be available for all students.

Attached to this message you will find information outlining the changes to Moodlefor staff.  There is also a short PowerPoint presentation that you may wish to distribute to your students.

For further information, please contact George Kotsanas, your Moodle Administrator.

Tel: +61-3-99058532

Email:  George.Kotsanas@monash.edu