The University will be upgrading to Moodle 4.1 in the summer (w/c 31 July) but, as flagged in our pre-Christmas blog post, this year’s upgrade will deliver a version of Moodle that is slightly different to the ones that have gone before it.

Every iteration of Moodle 3 (we’re currently running 3.11) has delivered similar but enhanced versions of the one that preceded it. As such, previous upgrades have quietly provided new functionality without requiring users to re-familiarise themselves with a new upgraded environment.

In the move to Moodle 4, however, Moodle has taken the opportunity to reinvent itself – redesigning the user interface from the ground up, with the user experience (for staff and students) at the heart of these changes. All existing functionality will be retained, but changes to the user interface mean that Moodle will look rather different after the upgrade.

To help you familiarise yourself with the new interface, TEL has created a preview site (containing sample data) that you can engage with using either a Teacher or a Student persona.  This site is available on campus or through the VPN at:

http://go.bath.ac.uk/moodle-preview

Please note:  you will not be able to log in to the preview site using your usual Bath details, you will need to use either the Teacher or Student persona. You can ‘play’ with the site, create new or edit the existing resources, but remember, the site is intended for exploration purposes rather than course or content development, so it will be re-set to its original state on a nightly basis and any changes you have made will be lost.

If you are looking to make a start on developing new units for the next academic year, please contact the TEL team and we can set these up for you on the live Moodle site. These will be updated to Moodle 4.1 as part of the upgrade.