New features
Read on for an overview of the key features and improvements in Moodle 5.2.
For role-specific improvements, see New for teachers and New for administrators.
What’s New in Moodle 5.2?
Moodle 5.2 delivers clearer course design support, stronger assessment options, and builds toward a more modern platform.
This release introduces enhancements designed to improve productivity for educators and elevate learner engagement. New modern platform capabilities are also introduced to streamline admin workflows and elevate the developer experience.
Key highlights include enhanced multiple marker workflows in Assignments, enabling a more flexible grading at scale, ideal for institutions managing high volumes of assessments.
Moodle also strengthens its position in the evolving AI landscape with the integration of Gemini AI and Amazon Bedrock in core, giving institutions more choice in how they bring AI into their learning environments.
There are improvements related to the Login experience, the default Dashboard and key Activity elements designed to present important information more clearly, allowing users to understand their context instantly and navigate more efficiently.
Enhancements to Quiz and Question Bank functionality supports richer and more effective question bank management; and enhanced Report Builder capabilities provide administrators with greater flexibility, efficiency, and control.
On the technical front, Moodle 5.2 introduces foundational upgrades including base React functionality, Moodle Design System token integration, and Composer-based installation support, paving the way for more modern interface development and simpler platform management.
Together, these improvements make Moodle 5.2 a compelling upgradeh helping institutions deliver better learning experiences and reduce operational overhead.
Main Features
Marking workflows (Phase 1) - Multiple markers for assignments
It is now possible to configure assignments to require multiple markers, as well as the method for calculating the grade from the individual marks (either calculated via various methods, or manually).
Key settings include:
Site-wide default number of markers - Educators can adjust this number while setting up individual assignments. It defaults to the setting configured in Site Administration>Plugins>Assignments>Settings.
Grade calculation method - Educators can choose the automatic grade calculation method that is applied when all markers have marked an assignment submission (or opt for it to be set manually).
Workflow management - The overall assignment workflow gets automatically updated in real-time.
More polished Activity pages
Several aesthetic improvements have been made to Activity pages, making key information more prominent and allowing for more intuitive orientation. Beyond the visual clean up which removes redundant separator lines and empty whitespace, several subtle yet impactful enhancements have been made.
Course title always visible in the course index: The course title now remains visible in the course index while scrolling down the course page. The Course title is also a hyperlink to the main course page, providing a consistent shortcut back to the course homepage from any point within the course.
Improved visibility of key activity information: The completion criteria, activity dates, and completion actions are reorganised to sit prominently at the top of the activity page. This allows learners to quickly understand what they need to do and by when, without having to search through the page.
Activity dates are now displayed in a dedicated area above the description, improving visibility and prioritisation.
Completion criteria are positioned directly below the description, creating a clearer and more intuitive flow of information.
The completion status label (e.g. “Done”) and the manual completion button are displayed in the activity header for better visibility, ensuring a consistent and easily accessible location regardless of content length.
Clearer experience for restricted content
Restricted activities and sections now have dedicated pages that show availability conditions in an expanded, readable format. This will help reduce confusion and provide convenient clarity on access conditions.
Subsections enhancements
Subsection navigation updates
Dedicated subsection pages are removed and replaced with anchor links that take users directly to the relevant content within the main section page. This reduces unnecessary clicks and makes it quicker to access content.
The visual design of subsections is simplified. Bordered boxes are removed and replaced with a header and a divider line, making the page easier to scan and the content structure clearer.
Dashboard and login experience refresh for new sites
Moodle 5.2 presents a refreshed landing experience for new sites.
A refreshed login page takes users to an updated Dashboard with quick access to key actions, providing new users a simpler, clearer and more intuitive first experience with Moodle.
Dashboard landing improvements for new installs
For new installs, the Course overview block is now added to the Dashboard by default to give a clear indication to new users who want to access and create courses. Users will no longer be required to change pages to access courses.
The Calendar block is moved from the main dashboard area into the blocks drawer. Navigation is simplified by disabling the default My Home and My Courses links, helping reduce confusion and making the Dashboard the central starting point.
Login page refresh
The Login page has been redesigned to provide a clearer and more modern look. This change provides a more welcoming and professional first impression for new users.
Multi-Factor Authentication refresh
The Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) experience is visually refreshed to provide users a consistent login experience. This includes a fresh look for authentication via Email, SMS, Security Key, and Authenticator App.
Default login settings for new installs
The default login settings are simplified for new installs:
- Force login is enabled and the Guest login button is hidden.
- Password visibility toggle is available while logging in on mobile devices.
- Email Login is enabled to allow users to enter both username and email address (if unique) for site login.
Together, these changes create a more engaging entry point into Moodle LMS that supports productivity and saves time by offering a more consistent first-time experience for new users.
Please note that if you have modified these settings in your site, your existing settings will remain as-is after the upgrade.
Quiz and question bank usability
These feature updates are intended to improve the usability and consistency of the Question Bank category interface.
Users can now collapse and expand question bank categories - similar to the course categories - and edit category names directly within the interface. In addition, the question bank layout now displays question counts for each category and supports moving entire categories, including their subcategories and questions within.
Overall, these updates continue broader improvements to usability and consistency across quiz and question bank pages.
Collapse/expand, drag & drop, and move question bank categories
Users can now collapse or expand question bank categories, drag & drop them, and move them with ease. This makes it simpler to organise, rearrange, and manage category layouts.
In-place editing for question bank categories
Question bank categories under a course can now be edited directly in-place using editable text fields, with changes saved instantly. This reduces time and effort by removing the need to navigate between multiple pages while making updates.
Display questions count for question banks
Get the total number of questions listed in a question bank by referring to the number ‘badge’ against every question bank. This provides instant visibility into question counts to quickly review and manage question banks.
Move complete question bank categories to a different question bank
Managing a large question bank is now much more convenient. Move an entire category, along with its questions, from one question bank to another without recreating anything. Reorganising question banks quickly and keeping content structured has never been easier.
In Moodle, tertiary navigation appeared in different styles across the platform. Tertiary navigation in the Question Bank has been redesigned to align to the experience provided in other areas. The order in which tertiary navigation is displayed now matches the same look and fee, making shifts between different areas of Moodle more intuitive.
Report Builder Enhancements
Find information faster with more powerful filters, clearly understand the status of scheduled reports, and rely on consistent behaviour across custom reports—ultimately reducing manual effort and improving confidence in reporting workflows.
Enhanced Report Builder with new filtering and usability improvements.
The Task Logs report is extended with database read/write count filtering, while the user list filters now support wildcards for more flexible searches.
In addition, report administration is improved with:
- Clearer schedule status feedback
- More consistent handling of course-module custom reports
- Toast notifications to inform users when a report schedule is enabled or disabled
Reporting behaviour for course-module–related custom reports is also standardised to ensure consistency across the platform.
React foundations added to Moodle core
Moodle 5.2 introduces the foundational infrastructure required to support React in core. This includes build integration, auto-initialisation and template helpers, import maps support, and the ability to use external bundles.
While this is not a single end-user feature, it is a strategically important platform capability that lays the groundwork for future UX improvements and frontend modernisation.
The capability is supported by:
- Integrating and optimising React build code, React mustache template helper and auto initialisation into the core.
- Adding React library and Design system as an external bundle.
- Adding Import maps and other require code to interact with the react build system.
Moodle Design System package integration
The Moodle Design System NPM package can now be integrated with Moodle LMS. This change will make it easier for developers to build and maintain UI features using shared design components and enables alignment between design-system components and core development.
Over time, this new functionality will help ensure the creation of a more consistent user interface across the platform.
Support for Moodle installation using Composer
Moodle can now be installed using Composer, providing improved ease of long-term maintenance and support.
This change adds full support for installing Moodle via Composer, including the management of third-party libraries through Composer and testing tools adjustments for a smoother performance even when Moodle is installed in different directory structures.
While this is primarily a developer and DevOps feature, it represents an important platform improvement with long-term maintenance benefits. For more details refer to the 5.2 release notes.
Several supporting features are also included in this improvement:
- Shifting from individually specified testing dependencies to `moodle/moodle-testing` composer dependency
- Updating PHPUnit Configuration to support an optional directory prefix
- Updating environment.xml tests to understand that composer may be installed in the parent directory
Other Improvements
AI in Moodle LMS
AI provider plugins integrated into core
Moodle’s inbuilt AI integration now includes Google’s Gemini AI and Amazon Bedrock as available AI providers.
The Gemini AI integration enables the seamless use of Google’s AI capabilities within Moodle and is compatible with all of Moodle’s current AI actions including text generation, summarisation, explanation and image creation. The setup also supports strong security for organisations who use Google more broadly, with all data remaining isolated within an organisation’s own Google account.
Moodle’s AI integration with Amazon Bedrock enables the seamless use of Amazon’s AI platform within Moodle. The benefits include:
- Data stays within the organisation’s configured AWS region — supports data sovereignty and compliance requirements
- Access multiple foundation models: Claude (Anthropic), Titan (Amazon), Llama (Meta), and more
- Ideal for AWS-invested institutions — integrates with existing IAM credentials
Administrators can configure AI providers and select models through a unified interface, allowing easy switching and flexibility.
Courses editing improvements
Workflow improvements
Course editing is now more efficient and reliable, with asynchronous reset enabling large courses to be processed without timeouts and with minimal disruption.
Additional enhancements—such as subsection duplication, direct redirection to edited activities, improved section-saving logic, and removal of the activities block—further streamline navigation and simplify course management.
Reset large courses asynchronously
Shifting course reset to an asynchronous process enables large courses to be handled efficiently without long-running requests or timeouts. This improves system reliability and delivers a smoother, uninterrupted user experience.
Other enhancements include:
“Duplicate” subsections: Under the subsections action menu, an option to “Duplicate” a subsection is included.
Activity-Level redirection: Users are redirected to the specific activity anchor (#module-...) instead of just the section creating a smoother, more efficient editing workflow, particularly in courses with big sections.
Workflow improvement for saving info in a section: The section editing workflow has been improved so that, after saving changes, users are returned to the page they came from, helping them stay oriented and continue their work more easily.
Activities block removed: With the course overview integrated into the standard course navigation, the activities block will no longer be necessary.
Site administration and integration improvements
These improvements strengthen operational efficiency and system governance for large-scale Moodle deployments.
Configurable backup naming for enterprise compliance: Large institutions often rely on structured data archiving processes, where consistent file naming is critical. This feature enables the configuration of default backup file names using Mustache templates. This supports administrators to define back up naming schemes that align seamlessly with internal policies, improving traceability and compliance across systems.
Simplified Course deletion: Course deletion is now more intuitive, supporting deletion by shortname or id number. Since these identifiers are commonly used in student information systems and integrations, this enhancement reduces the potential for errors and streamlines administrative workflows.
User experience and interface improvements
These improvements help provide a more intuitive experience and enable faster task completion for all Moodle users.
Submit buttons in sticky footer: As users scroll, the Submit buttons are now positioned in a sticky footer constrained to occupy only the space between the vertical sidebars. This ensures that key actions are always within reach, significantly improving efficiency and reducing hassles during course editing.
Refined layout of custom field management pages: The pages are redesigned to deliver a more intuitive and consistent experience. The enhancements include:
- A clearer layout structure aligned with other administrative interfaces
- Improved visual separation between component-level and shared custom fields
- Better organisation to help users quickly identify and manage field types
Forums and collaboration enhancements
Forums are now more effective for collaboration, with Q&A discussions supporting real-time visibility of responses to enable faster, more interactive engagement during live sessions.
Additionally, expanded inactivity-based locking options—ranging from a few days to several years—give educators and institutions greater flexibility to manage discussion lifecycles based on their specific needs.
View responses in real-time in Q and A forum: The Questions and Answers (Q&A) forum is now better suited for live and interactive sessions. Participant replies can be displayed immediately after posting, without waiting for the maximum editing time (typically 30 minutes) to expire.
This ensures that responses are visible to others in real time, enabling quicker reactions, more dynamic discussions, and the ability to address questions or share insights instantly during live teaching or collaboration scenarios.
Inactivity based forum locking: This enhancement introduces additional configuration options to the existing automatic locking functionality, allowing discussions to be locked after more varied periods of inactivity. New options include:
- Short-term durations (e.g. 2 days, 3 days) to support fast-paced or time-bound discussions
- Long-term durations (e.g. 2 years, 3 years, 5 years) for archival or compliance-driven use cases
This flexibility ensures that forum discussions can be managed in a way that aligns with different teaching styles, course lifecycles, and institutional policies.
LMS base font size: The default font size is set to 1rem/16px for improved readability.
Mobile App Enhancements
We've introduced enhancements to give administrators greater control over the mobile app experience. This includes the ability to add custom menu items to the user profile and utilise a secure JavaScript allowlist to extend Moodle LMS functionality.
Custom User Menu Items: Administrators can now customise the mobile app experience by adding custom user menu items, using the existing custom menu format. This allows for the addition of links and shortcuts to relevant functionality or external pages directly within the user profile.
Secure Script Allowlist: A new setting in the Mobile app features section allows administrators to define an allowlist of approved JavaScript scripts. This ensures the safe inclusion of external scripts within user-generated content (like pages or forum posts), enabling functionality that relies on third-party JavaScript
Please note that the previous features will only be available in the Moodle mobile app version 5.2 onward.
Updated App Subscription Page and Settings: The Moodle app subscription page has been redesigned for clarity. It now better highlights the site's current mobile app plan, usage statistics, limits, and provides direct links for plan upgrades or management. Furthermore, Premium-related settings have been moved to a dedicated section to clearly indicate their availability based on the site's subscription status.
