Open Source Moodle 2.6 LMS Adds Grading Tools, Improved Editing of Course Materials -- THE Journal

Learning Management Systems

Open Source Moodle 2.6 LMS Adds Grading Tools, Improved Editing of Course Materials

By David Nagel
11/18/13

Moodle's developers have released a major update to the open source learning management system following six months of development.

Moodle 2.6, released just on the heels of Moodle 2.5.3, includes hundreds of new features, improvements and fixes. Among the new features are:

Additional grading tools, including support for inline annotation of PDF documents via the browser;
New tools for editing course materials across all devices from a single location;
Improved bulk course and course category management;
The ability to back up and restore large courses;
UI improvements, including the TinyMCE editor;
Improved file management and Microsoft SkyDrive support;
The ability to add name fields;
Import and export of role definitions via XML; and
Several performance improvements.

Moodle is a free and open source learning management system in use at about 87,000 sites worldwide, including hundreds of K-12 schools, trade schools, colleges, and universities. Moodle used by about 1.3 million teachers and more than 78 million students participating in some 7.8 million courses as of this writing. (Updated statistics can be found on the Moodle Stats portal at Moodle HQ.)

An overview of the new features with screen shots is available on the Moodle HQ site.

Moodle 2.6 is available now from moodle.org or Git.

Moodle's developers also recently released updates to the 2.5, 2.4 and 2.3 Moodle branches. The 2.5.3 update includes improvements to the course page that make them more accessible and fixes to problems with drag-and-drop features and PDF behavior. Other changes include the option to sort by last name in quiz grading reports and the ability to submit an assignment past a cut-off date. Some unspecified security issues were also resolved. Complete details can be found on the Moodle 2.5.3 release notes page. Versions 2.3.10 and 2.4.7 were also released. Versions 2.3.10 only received security updates. Version 2.4.7 included many of the same fixes and improvements that were made to the 2.5 branch. Complete details can be found on the Moodle 2.4.7 release notes page.

About the Author

David Nagel is the former editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal, STEAM Universe, and Spaces4Learning. A 30-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art, marketing, media, and business publications.

He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnagel/ .

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