The upcoming update to Moodle, version 3.3, may offer an interesting new welcome page, courtesy of the Moodle Users Association. Voted by members of the Moodle Users Association as the project of choice for the 2016-I Development Cycle, “My Course Overview” aims to offer timely information about active courses as soon as students log into Moodle.
The project has been in steady development since July 30th of last year, and finally we can test-drive it on Moodle’s quality control site, at prototype.moodle.net. To access the testing ground, enter the username-password pair s1 – s1 to view from a student’s standpoint, or t1 – t1 from the teacher’s.
On the version visited at the time of writing, we find the Overview right under a user profile banner. It also includes “Timeline” and “Courses” tabs.
“Timeline” is the default tab and it includes a list of activities, which can be sorted by date (the default) or by courses. Sorted by date, we find a segment with “Recently overdue” items, followed by “Next 7 days” and “Future” segments. Each item includes a link to the activity and the name of the course it belongs, the due date, and a direct submission link if available.
Clicking on “Sort by courses” creates larger “Course” frames, with smaller versions of the activity lists. Each frame has a large heading for the course name under a completion bubble with a percent-complete number, and start and end dates. The course frames are sorted alphabetically, with every finished course seemingly on the list.
The “Courses” tab includes tiles that include the name, completion progress circle, and the start/end dates for each course.
In summary, “My Course Overview” shows maturity and promise. While there is room for improvement and fine-tuning, it seems this update will be ready by May, the expected release date for Moodle 3.3.
Test-drive “My Course Overview” on the Moodle Prototypes page.
Read some technical specifications on docs.moodle.org.
Check out the original development Issue and the “Epic Issue” at tracker.moodle.org.
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