Moodle Enhancements

Features to explore

With each new Moodle server we try to accommodate feature requests from faculty. Below you will find the list of plugins we have installed to add functionality to address faculty and student needs. 

(An item with an * indicates that the plugin has not been updated for Moodle version 4 or caused errors and will not be available until it is updated.)

Activity 

• 360º feedback: A simple 360° feedback activity plugin for Moodle.
  
• Attendance: A plugin that allows an attendance log to be kept; includes an optional block for easy access to relevant functions.
• Canvas game: A Moodle activity for making html5 canvas sketches.
• Checklist: A checklist can be created by a teacher (or generated from the activities in a course) and then the students or teachers can check-off each item as they are completed.
• Checkmark: This module allows teachers to obtain information about the assignments completed by the students prior to a lesson. 
• H5P: Create and add rich content inside your LMS for free such as Interactive Video, Quizzes, Collage and Timeline. 
• Journal: This module allows a teacher to ask students to reflect on a particular topic. The students can edit and refine their answer over time.
• Questionnaire: Custom Survey Creation
  
• Scheduler: An appointment scheduler for planning face-to-face meetings between teachers and students. Teachers can set up time slots, and students can choose one of these on Moodle.
• Simple lesson: A simplified approach to a lesson module. Allows multiple pages, addition of questions by picking from the question bank, simplified reporting for teachers and students and implements GDPR requirements.
  
• Student folder: With the module student folder (mod/publication) students can upload documents which can be made visible by teachers. 
• StudentQuiz: Enables students to collaboratively create their own question pools within Moodle. Students can filter these questions into quizzes, and they can rate and comment on questions while working through the quizzes. StudentQuiz computes each student’s contribution and learning progress and compares this with the community. The created questions become part of the Moodle question bank and can be reused in other Moodle quizzes.
• Subcourse: Behaves as a graded activity. The grade for each student is automatically fetched from a final grade in another course. This allows course designers to organize the learning content into separate units.
  

Assignment/Feedback 

• Solution sheet: Allows teachers to upload files with solutions to their assignment, which can be released to students manually or at a scheduled time.

Quiz/Report 

• Manual grading by student: A quiz ‘report’ add-on for Moodle, like the normal manual grading report, but which lets you grade one student at a time, rather than one question at a time. 

Blocks 

• Analytics Graphs: Block that generates graphs intended to facilitate pedagogical decisions. The graphs have zoom capabilities and allow fast communication with students through email.
  
• Configurable Reports: This block is a Moodle custom reports builder. You can create custom reports without SQL knowledge. It's a tool suitable for admins or teachers.
  
• Filtered course list: The Filtered Course List block displays a configurable list of courses. It is intended as a replacement for the My Courses block, although both may be used. It is maintained by the Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP).
• Grade Me: Shows a teacher all of the assignments and manual quiz questions (essays and file responses) that have been submitted, but not graded.
• Heatmap: The Heatmap block overlays a heatmap onto a course to highlight activities with more or less activity to help teachers improve their courses. 
• Microsoft block: This block provides a user-facing menu to access various Office 365 integration features, resources, and settings.
• Quickmail: * A block that provides selective, bulk emailing within courses. *
  
• Sharing cart: The Sharing Cart is a block that enables sharing of Moodle content (resources, activities) between multiple courses on your site.

Question types 

• Combined: A Moodle question type which allows questions to be built up from parts that are other simpler question types (requires you to have these question types installed)
  
• Drag-and-Drop Matching:* Question type similar to the matching question type but with a drag and drop interface for the students during attempt. *
  
• Music Theory: Question type supporting several exercises for music theory instruction. 
  
• Ordering: Ordering question type for Moodle 2.x and Moodle 3.x
  
• OU multiple response: The main difference from the standard Moodle multiple choice question type is in the way that grading works. When creating the question, the teacher just indicates which choices are correct. If there are n correct choices, then the student scores 1/n for each correct choice. If they select too many choices, then incorrect choices outweigh correct ones.
  
• Pattern match: Allows a short response of one or a few sentences that is graded by comparing against various model answers, which are described using the OU's pattern match syntax.
  
• Record audio: A manually graded Moodle question type, where the student records a short audio response to answer the question asked.
• Variable numeric: A calculated numeric question type with variable and expression evaluation. Random values are generated for each student attempting the quiz.
  
• Variable numeric set: A calculated numeric question type with variable and expression evaluation. All values are precalculated although a question can have several variants with different variable values for each variant.
  

Question import/export 

• Microsoft Word File Import/Export (Question Format): Export questions (including images) in a question bank into a Word file, and also import questions from structured tables in a Word (.docx format) file. 

Text filter 

• Ally: The Ally filter provides accessibility scores and tools for files uploaded to Moodle by teachers. It also provides alternative download types to enhance accessibility - e.g. audio, braille, etc
  
• IPA: The Moodle IPA Filter displays X-SAMPA as Unicode IPA. The intent is to offer an easy and fast way to display the International Phonetic Alphabet in Moodle.
• Oembed filter: A filter that will swap hyperlinks pointing towards supported websites with an embedded version using code retrieved from the site using the oEmbed protocol. An option for "Lazy" loading of some sites is also available.
  

Atto HTML editor/Atto plugin 

• Teams Meeting: Microsoft Teams Meetings App for Learning Management Systems (LMS) integration into Moodle as the Atto plugin. This plugin allows to create the meeting and automatically insert the meeting link into the editor content. 

Authentication method 

• OpenID Connect: The OpenID Connect plugin provides single-sign-on functionality using configurable identity providers. 

Availability restrictions

• Restriction by section completion: Restrict resources, activities and sections based on other sections being completed.
  

Course formats

• Buttons format: Buttons is a course format that creates a menu with buttons to access the sections, one by one.
• Collapsed topics: An interchangeable topic or week based format that solves the issue of the 'Scroll of Death' when a course has many topics.
• Edwiser course formats: Choose from unique course formats like Card and List.
  
• Multitopic format: Shows multiple topics per page, with tabbed navigation between pages. Topics are collapsible and can optionally be timed. 
• Onetopic format: Format to course that allows showing each topic in a tab, keeping the current tab between calls to resources, in such a way that when it returns from a module as the blog or the glossary it returns to tab from where you started.
• Tiles format: A course format which displays course topics as "Tiles", in a grid rather than as a list. When clicked, tile content is displayed under the tile with an animated transition. The layout adapts to different screen sizes and orientations. Within each tile, activities can also be set to display as "sub-tiles". For each tile, the teacher can pick an icon from a predefined set, or upload a background photo.
  
• Weekly format reversed: Weekly format listed in reverse format so first week at bottom and current week at the top
  

Reports 

• Accessibility report: The Ally reporting tool (report_allylti) provides a site wide accessibility report which can be broken down by course.
  
• Overview statistics: Produces various site and course report charts. The code has been designed in a way that makes adding more reports easy.

Gradebook reports 

• Grade distribution: The grader report grade list module allows for viewing the distribution of student grades for a course regarding the current grade letter boundaries as well as changing these to shift the distribution. 
• Quiz Analytics: This plugin provides users with the most important part of an exam/quiz, i.e, analytics. Every attempt each user make on a quiz is scrutinized and relevant data are portrayed via visually appealing graphs.
  

Advanced grading methods 

• Learning Analytics Enriched Rubric: * The Learning Analytics Enriched Rubric (LA e-Rubric) is an advanced grading method used for criteria-based assessment. *
  

Repositories

• Microsoft 365 Repository: This plugin provides access to Office 365 as a repository. Specifically, includes OneDrive for Business, Office Video, Office Delve as well as SharePoint Document Libraries and Group Files associated with Moodle courses.

Themes 

• Moove: Moove it’s a modern theme, simple and focused on the main content. You can minimize both side columns to enjoy the maximum of space in your environment. 

Local plugins 

• Liberal Arts Edition: The LAE includes bug fixes, enhancements, and a suite of plugins which our member schools find useful. CLAMP has maintained the distribution since Moodle 1.9.5. 
• Microsoft Office 365 Integration: This plugin provides libraries and services that power other Office 365 plugins.