Moodle 3.5 is out! The latest version of the most widely used Learning Management System (LMS) in terms of worldwide users and registered sites is ready for your download.
Moodle 3.5 continues its focus on usability, and it is considered the second release in the current period of ‘User-First Development‘ at Moodle HQ. Moodle 3.5 also brings critical new features, most importantly for European users the ‘Privacy API‘ and tools that will help admins ensure GDPR compliance. The recently launched Data Privacy and Policies plugins are now built into Moodle 3.5.
Moodle is GDPR Compliant
Sites liable to the upcoming GDPR legislation are encouraged to upgrade before May 25, the implementation date. New user permissions in Moodle 3.5 now also allow sites to add a ‘Data Protection Officer‘ role who can ensure GDPR compliance and be responsible for user data management. These improvements now make Moodle capable of managing user data requests and their history of agreements to site policies on each of their previous version.
Check out the details of every GDPR-related feature here. Not all of Moodle 3.5’s goodies are about boring legal compliance. You will find increased capabilities in tagging, rich text editing, search, badges, and more! Thanks to the efforts of the Moodle Users Association, in Moodle 3.5 it is possible to tag Question Bank elements and then build Moodle Quizzes at random.
Every detail of Moodle 3.5’s Expanded Question Bank Tagging and Management is here. The Atto text editor, one of the built-in options, will let users record audio and video directly-no plugin needed, starting on Moodle 3.5. Search is made simpler on Moodle 3.5 as well. ‘Simple global search’ does not need to set up an external engine to find Moodle users, courses, and activities.
By popular demand, Moodle 3.5 brings more features of Badges, including the ability to award ‘Super Badges‘ where previous badges earned, are now criteria. Another example of the several new criteria available to award Badges in Moodle 3.5 is cohorts. Cohorts, by the way, can have independent themes in Moodle 3.5, to better deliver on personalization
Training Platform User-Interface Improvements
Moodle 3.5’s visual layout has also been enhanced with the upgrade to the Bootstrap 4 framework. Superpowers are coming for Moodle designers! The Bootstrap 4 framework now available in Moodle 3.5 expands the tools for unique designs of themes and interfaces. The default theme of Moodle 3.5 comes with features found in some of the most popular themes, like profile images or color patterns for courses.
Fonts have received some attention in Moodle 3.5. New fonts, some expanding the current emoji set, are now easy to choose across the site. Find all new UX improvements in Moodle 3.5 here. Smaller features coming in Moodle 3.5 that a few will love to involve LTI, messaging, bulk user editing, SCORM, Choice, Feedback Activity, and more.
The LTI Advantage protocol version 1.1, now in Moodle 3.5, unifies the many LTI specifications for convergence towards LTI 1.3 Read more here. Messaging in Moodle 3.5 is set to be snappier thanks to some back-end database magic. Read all the technical details here. Moodle 3.5 also comes with several security enhancements which will be detailed at a later date.
Due to the addition of the new Privacy API and other core APIs, plugin developers must test for Moodle 3.5 compatibility with the new ways data safely travel across applications. Download Moodle 3.5 now at download.moodle.org. Check out install or upgrade requirements, especially your PHP version and Database.
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