Author: Michael G

Hi Everyone,

We are delighted to announce the arrival of Moodle LMS 4.2, a product of our collective dedication and hard work!

This latest release builds upon the refined user experience of Moodle LMS 4.1 with new and improved features that create efficiencies for educators, trainers and systems administrators. This update brings enhancements to course creation, reporting,  and activities, making it quicker and easier to create engaging learning experiences, measure learner progress and improve learner outcomes.

Thank you to our community

We thank our community for your contributions to Moodle LMS 4.2.  With over 328 commits from 76 developers in over 15  countries, you’re integral to this release!

In addition to code contributions, you have helped us by running QA tests, providing translations and writing documentation. Many of you continue to take part in research for Moodle LMS 4 releases, through user testing and providing feedback on our designs.

As an open source project we thrive on your involvement, which benefits not only the Moodle community, but Moodle users across the world!

Key improvements in Moodle LMS 4.2 follow:

Bulk editing in courses

Moodle LMS 4.2, in partnership with Moodle Users Association, brings a new bulk actions feature that allows you to bulk duplicate, delete, move, or change the availability of activities or course sections. This feature will enable you to streamline course creation and editing, saving you valuable time in administrative tasks.

Gradebook improvements

Moodle LMS 4.2 provides streamlined visibility of learner progress and performance through Gradebook improvements.  A search option in the Grader report allows you to search learners using their identifiers, such as names or emails. Additional improvements include introducing a Grader report records per page selector, collapsible columns in Grader report, and collapsible grade categories in the Gradebook setup.

Additionally, ‌learner feedback is now displayed directly in the Gradebook, allowing easy access without changing interfaces.

Enhanced Course page design and features

‌Course page improvements in Moodle LMS 4.2 make creating and editing courses more efficient and deliver an intuitive navigation experience for learners. You can now duplicate sections and add an activity anywhere in a section. Activity types are only shown to teachers (not learners) when editing mode is on, saving valuable space in the learning interface.  Permalink URLs allow educators and trainers to share specific locations in courses and indentation has been restored, displaying both in the course index and the main page. These enhancements have made it easier for both educators and learners to navigate and comprehend page content, without feeling overwhelmed.

Insights from improved Report builder

Improvements in Report builder give educators and trainers better insights into learner behaviour and progress.  This includes new sources, such as comments and user badges, to generate detailed reports. For custom reports on course completion, new options like time enrolled, time started, and reaggregated are available. Before, last, current and next hour filters can be viewed directly from within custom reports.  These improvements provide actionable insights to improve learner outcomes.

Group visibility changes to support data privacy

Moodle LMS 4.2 gives site administrators or educators the ability to control the visibility of members in certain groups when creating new ones. Moodle is committed to protecting the privacy of its users and making sure that their data remains secure. This is an important improvement in Moodle’s ability to support GDPR data privacy and security.

Export Moodle content to MoodleNet

For the first time, educators and trainers can export content from their Moodle course to MoodleNet. MoodleNet is Moodle’s platform to find, share and curate open educational resources and this new feature provides an easy way to share activities in courses with others.  It also provides a way to access, import and re-use those activities in other courses or contexts.

Other improvements include:

• BigBlueButton, the open source virtual classroom integrated with Moodle as a standard feature, now provides the option to restrict specific recording formats viewable for everyone. An admin setting also allows displaying of participants’ profile pictures during live sessions.
• Benefit from the popular, accessible and supported TinyMCE text editor, which is now the default in Moodle LMS 4.2. making it easier to develop rich text content.
• By popular demand, educators will now be able to customise question numbers and reopen quiz attempts that were never submitted. 
• A new Assignment messaging option feature has been added to allow you to message learners from the assignment submissions page easily.

Find out more about Moodle LMS 4.2 and watch our short videos on Course page improvements,  Bulk editing, Gradebook and Report builder enhancements. Read our Moodle LMS 4.2 new features documentation for an overview of the key features and improvements.

Enjoy!

Matt Porritt
Platform Manager, Moodle LMS