IT Center Changes

RWTHmoodle has been upgraded to version 4.3. This upgrade includes the following new functions and improvements:

Functions

Course Page (managers):

• “Bulk actions” to select several activities, materials or entire sections at the same time
• duplicate sections with their content

Grader Report (managers):

• new search function allows targeted searches for individual students
• new context menu (three-dot menu) enables various actions

Assignment Activity (managers):

• under “submissions” you can send a message to several students at once, for example to remind them of a missing submission

Quiz Activity (managers):

• Under “results”, you can now reset the quiz attemps of students with the status “never submitted” to “In progress” and thus reopen them

Improvements

Activity Cards:

• the activity cards take up less space on the course page
• reduced size of the icons and inner spacing

Course Page:

• activities that can be manually marked as completed (default condition) will retain the clickable field “Mark as completed”
• other completion conditions are moved to a drop-down menu “To do”
• several completion conditions are combined which saves space and ensures a more uniform page layout
• managers will see a “Completion” drop-down menu that displays the completion conditions
• access restrictions for an activity are now highlighted more clearly
• default: only one restriction is displayed, several restrictions can be expanded via the “Show more” drop-down menu
• managers can adjust the access restrictions directly on the Course page
• managers: activities and materials can now be inserted directly into a section at any point
• managers: you can hide activities and materials via the three-dot menu as before. The entry has been renamed “Availability”
• managers: the status of hidden activities can also be changed directly on the Course Page via the “Hidden from students” label

Course Index:

• icon and title of an activity so that the elements are easier to find
• lists text and media areas
• all sections can be expanded or collapsed
• managers will find a new field “Title in course index” in the settings of a text and media area

new text editor:

• TinyMCE replaces the previous editor “Atto”

Grader Report (managers):

• the button for saving changes is now always visible and scrolls along
• you can collapse and expand grade categories that are not required using the arrow icons
• the icons in the new “Status” column indicate whether a grade itom or a grade category is hidden or locked
• text lables show the aggregation type and other current settings that have been made for the respective grade
• new context menu (three-dot menu) for enabling various actions
• grade categories and grade items can be added or edited without leaving the page

Question Bank (managers):

• improved filter function allows you to search for and filter specific questions
• the new layout has been aligned with other areas in Moodle to provide a more consistend user experience

Changes based on feedback:

• smaller icons and activity cards so that the course page shows more information at a glance and requires less scrolling
• “My courses” page is now the landing page (instead of “Dashboard”) after logging into the system to get more quickly to the courses
• information on “New activities” and access to EvaSys are now only available on the dashboard
• improvement of the performance

In line with the life cylce of course rooms with connection to RWTHonline, the summer semester 2021 course rooms were deleted on May 2, 2024.

Improvements: 

• Paella Player 7 as default player
• several bugfixes
• all Release Notes

In line with the life cylce of course rooms with connection to RWTHonline, the winter semester 2020/21 course rooms were deleted on November 13, 2023.

Improvements:

• security issue was closed
• Paella player version 6.5.6 as the default player
• all Release Notes

• Migration from MySQL to PostgresSQL

In line with the life cylce of course rooms with connection to RWTHonline, the summer semester 2020 course rooms were deleted on May 2, 2023.

RWTHmoodle was launched in the summer semester 2019 with Moodle version 3.6.3, replacing L²P which had been used until then. A lot has happened regarding RTHmoodle since 2019, with regular updates to newer versions, as well as new functions and changes. The biggest changes and a redesign came with the upgrade to version 4.1 in March 2023.

Functions

Course index:

• left sidebar listing all sections, activities and materials
• students: color hightlights indicates the completion of an activity
• standard topics format: collapsing and expanding of sections
• right block drawer: collapsable
• managers: edit mode via switch at the top right corner

Improvement

Redesigned start page:

• reducing the amount of information
• focus on login
• clearer distinction between login via RWTH Single Sign-On and login for local accounts

Dashboard:

• landing page after login
• important blocks: „Timeline“, „Recent Badges“, „News“ und „Helpful Links“

My Courses:

• list of course rooms

Course index:

• activity block (previously on the left sidebar) can be added by the managers in the block drawer

Horizontal menu bar:

• centrally located
• managers: course settings, participant administration, grade administration, and reports. Other elements, e. g. course import, are grouped under “More”

Question bank (managers):

• expanding of question management
• questions can now be saved as drafts
• versioning of questions
• comment on questions for necessary revision steps as part of a review process
• Facility index and discriminative efficiency of a question are displayed directly in the overview
• flagging of questions if a review is necessary

Other improvements (managers):

• “Label” resource is now “Text and media area”
• In the editor, creating links has been simplified
• participent administration: dropdown menu to get easier access to the group section and other options for managing participants

In line with the life cylce of course rooms with connection to RWTHonline, the winter semester 2019/20 course rooms were deleted on November 2, 2022.

In line with the life cylce of course rooms with connection to RWTHonline, the summer semester 2019 course rooms were deleted on May 2, 2022.