LMS Updates, Fall 2013

As part of our ongoing efforts to increase the usability and feature set of WolfWare, and improve performance and make the system more robust, DELTA recently made several updates to our campus learning management system (LMS) tools, specifically Moodle. Here is a summary of work performed during the fall 2013 semester.

August 2013

• Fixed margin to properly display ordered list numbers.
• Fixed the multianswer (embedded Cloze) question answer shuffling for preview quiz, attempt quiz, and preview question.
• Applied patch from MDL-37804, which prevents students from submitting/editing assignments past the assignment deadline.
• Changed all occurrences of ‘chapter pages’ in the NCSU Book to simply ‘pages’ and ‘subpages’.
• Updated the NCSU Book resource ‘More help’ link and added a period to the end of the resource description.
• Added modulename_help to the WeBWorK module.
• Updated the Moodle NCSU Book to fix printing issues.
• Updated the mobile Moodle theme (available on smartphones) to add a file button for file uploads.
• Made core Moodle updates.

September 2013

• Changed the default behavior from embed to download for PDF resources to fix errors that clients have with the embedded pdf viewer in several browser versions.

October 2013

• Added Moodle Quickmail block sorting patch.
• Added Moodle grade upload patch to simplify grade uploading.
• Fixed the Moodle grade rounding to a whole number issue for rubrics.
• Updated Moodle NCSU Book: Added 10px indention in the the TOC for the numbered option.

November 2013

• Enabled Moodle Workshop Module. This is useful for peer review; we will have an FAQ available shortly (link to appear).
• Installed Moodle Block Moving Patch to fix errors some users were getting when attempting to move blocks within a Moodle course.
• Added Moodle Quiz bank patch to give users the option of copying or excluding quiz banks when making backups to give users the choice of not including them.
• Changed Web server to allow pages to be sent compressed for reduced latency time and faster page loads

We will continue to do our best to improve the suite of online learning tools offered by DELTA. Please feel free to provide feedback to let us know how we’re doing or request new features. Both options are available under the Feedback section of wolfware.ncsu.edu. I welcome you to contact me directly as well with any input and suggestions.