New for administrators
This page lists new features and improvements for administrators. For the full list of new features and improvements, see the Moodle 5.3 release notes.
Classic theme removed
Sites that used the Classic theme switch to Boost on upgrade. You can find the former Navigation block pages, such as Site participants, Site content bank and Site badges, in Site administration and on the user profile.
See Moving from the Classic theme in Boost theme.
Dark mode
You can turn on Dark mode in Site administration > Appearance > Themes > Boost > Experimental settings. Users can then switch between Light, Dark and System modes from the navigation bar.
See Setting Dark mode in Boost theme.
Previous and Next buttons are on by default in the Custom sections and Weekly sections formats. You can turn them off for each course format in Site administration > Plugins > Course formats.
See Turning off linear navigation in Course linear navigation.
Security and accounts
New login notifications
New login notifications are on by default for new installs, and a security check warns you if they are disabled or an output is not forced on. On upgraded sites, you can turn them on in Site administration > General > Messaging > Notification settings.
See New login notifications in Notifications.
Role risks
The role list shows colour-coded risk icons, ordered by severity, and the number of users assigned to each role. You can select a risk icon to see only the capabilities in that role with that risk.
See Role risk visibility in Managing roles.
Moodle app deep link auto-login
You can let users log in automatically from Moodle app deep links by enabling Deep link auto-login in Site administration > Mobile app > Mobile authentication.
See Deep link auto-login in Moodle app guide for admins.
Web services: OAuth 2 clients and personal access tokens
Moodle's new REST API has its own tokens. You can register apps, such as a mobile app, as OAuth 2 clients in Site administration > Server > OAuth 2 clients, and users can create their own personal access tokens from their preferences. OAuth 2 clients need the site's Composer dependencies installed.
See the new REST API tokens page.
Reports
Environment check
You can run the Environment check from Site administration > Reports > Performance overview.
See Environment check in Performance overview.
Status, Performance and Security reports
The System status, Performance overview and Security checks reports show each result as soon as its check finishes, so you can start reading them sooner.
See System status report.
Report builder
You can aggregate timestamp columns by week, month or year, filter the badges report by criteria, and see each task's full class name in task filters.
See Column aggregation in Custom reports.
Courses and tasks
Delete courses in the background
You can turn on Delete courses asynchronously in Site administration > Courses > Delete course, so that courses are deleted in the background without timeouts. Courses waiting to be deleted show a "Queued for deletion" badge in the course category listing.
See Delete courses asynchronously in Adding a new course.
Run scheduled tasks ASAP
You can select Run ASAP for a scheduled task to queue it to run in the background the next time cron runs, with no risk of a browser timeout.
See Run ASAP in Scheduled tasks.
Quiz statistics recalculation delay
Set how long Moodle waits before recalculating quiz statistics, to reduce server load on busy sites or keep statistics more up to date. You can also trigger an immediate recalculation when needed.
See Statistics delay in Quiz statistics report.
Limits for required and optional markers
You can set the maximum number of required and optional markers, and the defaults for new assignments, in Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Assignment > Assignment settings.
See Marker limits in Assignment settings.
Plugins and integrations
Anthropic Claude AI provider
Use Anthropic's Claude models to power Moodle's AI features, such as generating, summarising and explaining text.
See the new Anthropic Claude API provider page.
BigBlueButton
BigBlueButton is on by default for new installs and is ready to use once you enter your server URL and shared secret. You can set safe recording formats as tags, and logged-in users who are not enrolled in the course can join through a guest link.
See BigBlueButton.
TinyMCE Premium Markdown
With a TinyMCE Premium subscription, you can enable the Markdown plugin so users can paste Markdown and have it formatted automatically. You can limit it to specific roles with the tiny/premium:usemarkdown capability.
See Markdown plugin in TinyMCE editor.
