March 2015 Moodle Updates and Course Requests

Summer & Fall 2015 Moodle Course Requests Open

Primary instructors can now request courses in SPIRE for Fall and Summer 2015 classes.

It’s easy to copy a course from a previous semester into your new empty course. Any changes you make in a course before the upgrade, will not be affected by the upgrade in July.

For more, see Request Your Moodle Course – Overview.

What’s Coming in Moodle 2.8?

In July we will upgrade from Moodle 2.5 (our current version) to the latest version, Moodle 2.8. On Tuesday, May 5 and Wednesday, May 6, IT Faculty Support Staff will host preview sessions to demonstrate new features, and answer questions.

TO REGISTER: https://etna.oit.umass.edu/public/workshops

After clicking the above link, you will go to the Instructional Technology Workshops page. When you get to this page, click on “Spring 2015” above the calendar. (see image below)

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(If you are asked to create an account, remember to register for the workshop after that!)

If you can’t make it to a preview session, you are welcome to call for an appointment in the Instructional Media Lab for an overview of new features.

Grading in Moodle

If you would like to meet with a Moodle Gradebook expert to review your gradebook before the end of the semester please contact the Instructional Media Lab at 413-545-2823, or instruct@umass.edu.

Reminder, for those of you who upload grades into a manually created grade item column in the gradebook you may find these pages helpful:

  • Importing OpScan Results
    For trouble-free importing of Opscan scores into Moodle, see Import Opscan Test Results to the Moodle Gradebook.
  • Uploading Letter Grades 
    Instructors who wish to grade by entering or uploading letter grades can create manual grade items that are designated as “Letter grades,” and enter or upload actual letters, rather than scores. (Until this semester, you only had the option to enter numeric scores which could be displayed as letters.) You can then import the grades into your SPIRE grade rosters during the grade-entry period. For instructions, see Letter Grades in Moodle.

March 2015 Moodle Updates

In March we made a minor update to the Turnitin module in Moodle. No change in user experience resulted from the update.


As always, don’t hesitate to contact the Instructional Media Lab with your questions about Moodle:

413-545-2823, or instruct@umass.edu.

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