University of Portland faculty should be aware that UP is moving to a new, upgraded Moodle environment prior to the Fall ’15 semester. Running a newer Moodle version will give our campus access to a variety of benefits – better performance, enhanced usability and responsive design for mobile devices, and an improved text editor, for example.
One key improvement for faculty is that significant upgrades have been made to the grade book. A few simple but much needed user interface tweaks, such as header and row columns that stay pinned on the screen instead of scrolling out of view, make entering grades and viewing reports much more intuitive.
Even more attention has been paid to the grade weighting system. Rather than presenting multiple complex weighting schemes, the new Moodle grade book drastically simplifies weighting. The new grade book will show you a number that represents the total weight of each grade item and category in your course. To adjust the weight a grade category or grade item, you can simply tick a box next to this number and override it with whatever weight you decide is appropriate. Most impressively, non-weighted are adjusted automatically so that your grade book still adds up to a 100% total.
For more information, please check out this video walkthrough of the new Moodle grade book, which covers creating grade categories and items and adjusting the weight to match an example syllabus
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Want to learn more and master the basics of using Moodle? Please check out our self-paced Moodle digital mini-course, as well as other professional development opportunities at the University’s online Virtual Learning Center.
The upgrade to Moodle 2.8 is scheduled for August 19th, 2015. For more information, please contact Tony Box in Academic Technology Services at box@up.edu.