Moodle 1.9.5 Gets Gradebook Enhancements, Security Improvements
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Moodle has released an update to its open source learning management system. Moodle 1.9.5 adds a number of gradebook improvements, new administration features, and several security enhancements. Moodle has also released an update to the 1.8 branch, version 1.8.9, which includes several fixes and security improvements.
Moodle is one of the most popular learning management systems, if not the single most popular system. The open-source LMS has more than 32.2 million users participating in nearly 3 million courses at 56,220 registered sites, according to Moodle's published statistics. These include 482 sites with more than 10,000 users each.
According to Moodle, both of the new releases address several important security issues, including a TeX filter problem, a customized PhpMyAdmin problem (now upgraded to PhpMyAdmin 2.11.9.5), a SQL injection issue that arose when importing outcomes, problems with verification of submitted ratings, and problems with symbolic links when unzipping files.
In terms of new features, version 1.9.5 adds several gradebook improvements. These include:
- Tabbed navigation;
- New grader report settings, including tool tips and the ability to enable a static students column for scrolling grades using a horizontal scroll bar; and
- New user interface improvements for user reports.
Other new features include:
- Course defaults for interactive course creation (which, as Moodle pointed out, is a subset of a broader suite of tools in this area coming out in version 2.0);
- A new spam cleaner report;
- A help pop-up link for switching languages; and
- A new user policy for allowing users to switch roles without the needing the ability to assign roles.
Moodle 1.9.5 and 1.8.9 are available now. Further information can be found here.