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Moodle 2.0 release notes: Difference between revisions

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* Files are no longer just "uploaded to the course".  Files are connected to the particular bit of Moodle content that uses them. (For example, a file may belong to a file resource, a forum post or a wiki page). Access to these files is then controlled by the same rules as as that bit of Moodle, increasing security.
* Files are no longer just "uploaded to the course".  Files are connected to the particular bit of Moodle content that uses them. (For example, a file may belong to a file resource, a forum post or a wiki page). Access to these files is then controlled by the same rules as as that bit of Moodle, increasing security.


===[[Development:Filters_2.0|Filters]]===
===[[Filters 2.0]]===


* In the past, you had to use the same filters everywhere in your Moodle site, and this could only be changed by admins.
* In the past, you had to use the same filters everywhere in your Moodle site, and this could only be changed by admins.

Revision as of 07:34, 31 October 2010

Note: This article is a work in progress. Please use the page comments or an appropriate moodle.org forum for any recommendations/suggestions for improvement.


Expected final release date: Early November, 2010 (if testing goes well)

Interim releases for testing:

Moodle 2.0 contains a lot of large new features, some completely rewritten features, and hundreds of bug fixes. For full details (more than you probably want!), see the full list of fixed issues in 2.0.

This page is a summary of the major things to look for (links and screenshots will be added over time).


Major new features

Community hubs

  • Anybody can set up a Community hub, which is a directory of courses for public use or for private communities. The code is implemented as separate GPL plugin for Moodle.
  • Sites can register to any Community hub (instead of just moodle.org)
  • Teachers on registered sites can publish their full courses to Community hubs, for download
  • Teachers on registered sites can also advertise their courses on Community hubs, for people to join
  • Teachers on any site can search all public Community hubs and download courses as templates for their own courses
  • Users on any Moodle site can also search Community hubs for courses (and communities of practice) to participate in. Initially we are encouraging 'communities of teaching practice' but any sort of course can be listed.

Repository support

  • Moodle now supports integration with external repositories of content, making it really simple to bring documents and media into Moodle via an AJAX interface that looks like a standard Open dialogue in desktop applications.
  • Initial plugins in 2.0 include: Alfresco, Amazon S3, Box.net, File system on Server, Flickr, Google Docs, Mahara, MERLOT, Picasa, Recent Files, Remote Moodle sites, WebDAV servers, Wikimedia, Youtube. These are simple to develop, so many more are expected.
  • You can also import files from your desktop or by specifying a URL.

Portfolio support

  • Modules can now export their data to external systems, particularly useful for portfolios where snapshots of forums, assignments and other things in Moodle are useful to record in a journal or a portfolio of evidence
  • Different formats are supported (currently LEAP2A, HTML, Images and Text, but others like PDF can be added)
  • Initial plugins in 2.0 include: Box.net, Flickr, Google Docs, Mahara and Picasa.

Completion

  • Teachers can now specify conditions that define when any activity is seen as completed by a student. For example, when a certain number of posts have been made, or a grade has been reached, or a choice has been made.
  • Teachers can now specify conditions that define with any course is seen as completed by a student. Conditions include activity completion, but could also be by grade, date or a number of other criteria.
  • Teachers and students can see reports that show the progress of any user within a course, or through a series of courses.

Conditional activities

  • Access to activities can be restricted based on certain criteria, such as dates, grade obtained, or the completion of another activity.
  • These can be chained together to enable progressive disclosure of the course content, if that is desired.

Cohorts

  • Also known as "Site-wide groups", these are site-wide collections of users that can be enrolled into courses in one action, either manually or synchronised automatically

Web services support

  • Support for standards-based web services across the entire Moodle code base, allowing the admin to expose particular functions of Moodle for use by:
    • Administrative systems such as HR or SIS applications
    • Mobile clients
  • Framework contains a very high-level of security with a detailed token system and complete control over the range of functions exposed
  • All defined functions are automatically available via:
    • XML-RPC
    • AMF (Flash)
    • REST
    • SOAP (PHP)

IMS Common Cartridge

  • Moodle can now import courses in IMS Common Cartridge format (commonly used by publishers)

New blocks

Plagiarism prevention

  • Moodle supports integration with plagiarism prevention tools such as Turnitin

Major improvements to existing core features

Backup and restore

  • Completely rewritten Backup/Restore framework, no longer bound by memory (can work with any size course).
  • Completely new backup format.
  • Improved interface.
  • Backup can be made of whole courses, but also specific sections or activities.

Blocks

  • Blocks are now consistently implemented on every page in Moodle
  • No longer any limit to the block regions (in addition to left and right, put them at the top, center or bottom of pages)
  • Any block can be made sticky (appears in all the contexts below, eg throughout a course).
  • Blocks can be "docked" on the side of the screen (if the theme supports it)

Blogs

  • Support for comments on each blog entry
  • Removal of group-level and course-level blogs (these are converted into forums on upgrade)
  • Support for external blog feeds (synchronised to Moodle blog)

Comments

  • User comments (Glossaries, Databases, Blogs, etc) are now all consistently handled and displayed throughout Moodle, using AJAX if available
  • User activity reports will include all the comments made by that user

Enrolment plugins

  • Major improvements in the handling of guests and guest accounts
  • Support for multiple forms of enrolment at the same time
  • More detailed control over enrolment in courses

File handling

  • Full support for Unicode file names on all operating systems.
  • Metadata about each file (author, date, license, etc) and what the file is used for are stored in the database.
  • Duplicate files (for example, a large video file use in two different courses) are only stored once, saving disk space.
  • Files are no longer just "uploaded to the course". Files are connected to the particular bit of Moodle content that uses them. (For example, a file may belong to a file resource, a forum post or a wiki page). Access to these files is then controlled by the same rules as as that bit of Moodle, increasing security.

Filters 2.0

  • In the past, you had to use the same filters everywhere in your Moodle site, and this could only be changed by admins.
  • Now, you can have different filters in different courses, activities or categories.
  • For example, you could turn on the LaTeX filter just for courses in the Maths and Physics categories.
  • Or you could turn off glossary linking in the end of course exam.

HTML editor

  • New editor based on TinyMCE
  • Works on more browsers
  • Resizable editing area
  • Cleaner XHTML output
  • Full integration with configured external repositories to import and embed media into text

Messaging

  • All email sent by Moodle is now treated as a message
  • A message overview panel allows users to control how messages are sent to them
  • Initial message output plugins in Moodle 2.0 include: Email, Jabber and Popups

My Moodle page

  • More customisable My Moodle page with new blocks for showing relevant information
  • Admin can design (and optionally force) site-wide layouts for My Moodle
  • My Moodle page given more prominence as the main "home page" for users

Navigation

  • Standard "Navigation" block on every page showing contextual links, while allowing you to jump elsewhere quickly
  • Standard "Settings" blocks on every page shows contextual settings as well as settings for anything else you have permissions for

Ratings

  • User ratings (Glossaries, Databases, Forums, etc) are now all consistently handled and displayed throughout Moodle, using AJAX if available
  • Aggregation of using ratings into activity grades is now standardised in all activities

Roles and permissions

  • Improved and simplified AJAX interfaces for defining and assigning roles
  • Improved and simplified interfaces for tweaking permissions in any given context
  • New "Archetypes" concept replacing the "Legacy roles" concept.
  • New archetype "manager" to define the role of most people with system-wide editing rights, separate from "admin" role.

RSS feeds

  • All RSS feeds are now secured using a random per-user token in the URL
  • Tokens can be updated by the user at any time (if they suspect a feed URL has been compromised)
  • RSS feeds are now more accurate (eg they support forums with separate groups), and are generated efficiently whenever required

Themes

  • Many new themes in the core distribution
  • All HTML and JS ouput is now far more efficient (server-side caching) and consistent (tableless layout, new CSS, YUI Framework)
  • Themes can change the HTML of the page if they wish
  • Core support for custom menus in all themes (for example at the top of the page)

Translation system

User profile pages

  • Site-wide user profile page can be customised by users with blocks, news, feeds and so on
  • Course-specific user profile pages show course blocks and standard profile information, plus information for teachers of that course

Major improvements to activity modules

Lesson

  • Refactored internal code
  • Forms are now standard Moodle forms

Quiz module and question bank

Resource

  • All the resource types have been refactored into real modules, and cleaned up
    • File - for displaying a file, possibly with supporting files (like a HTML mini-site)
    • Folder - for displaying a collection of documents
    • URL - for displaying a page with a given URL
    • Page - for a single page, edited online using the HTML editor
    • IMS - for showing a regular IMS content package
  • Better XHTML-compliant support for frames, iframes and embedding in all these modules

SCORM

  • New SCORM module settings - display attempt status, display course structure, force completed, force new attempt, lock after final attempt - allowing the behaviour dictated to the SCORM object by the authoring package to be changed MDL-11501
  • New reporting interface including sortable/collapsible table with group select box and ability to download in Excel, ODS and text format MDL-21555
  • New SCORM player UI with better navigation, improved performance and better handling of stage size MDL-22951

Wiki

  • Completely re-written from scratch, based on NWIki from UPC
  • Support for Mediawiki-style syntax, as well as Creole
  • Interface improvements

Workshop

  • Completely rewritten from scratch
  • Vastly improved interface for managing stages and users

System requirements

Since Moodle 2.0 is such a major release, we are allowing ourselves some increases in the requirements.

  • PHP must be 5.2.8 or later (it was released 08-Dec-2008)
  • Databases should be one of the following:
    • MySQL 5.0.25 or later (InnoDB storage engine highly recommended)
    • PostgreSQL 8.3 or later
    • Oracle 10.2 or later
    • MS SQL 2005 or later
  • Any standards-supporting browser from the past few years, for example:

Upgrading

When upgrading to Moodle 2.0, you must have Moodle 1.9 or later. if you are using an earlier version of Moodle (eg 1.8.x) then you need to upgrade to Moodle 1.9.x first. We advise that you test the upgrade first on a COPY of your production site, to make sure it works as you expect.

For further information, see Upgrading to Moodle 2.0.

For developers: API changes

See Development:Migrating_contrib_code_to_2.0

See also