Top tips to save time in Moodle 4.1

Below are a collection of resources to help you advance your use of Moodle. The following guides cover recommended Moodle features which can save you time setting up your Moodle unit and improve the efficiency of your workflows.


Mass Actions block

Instead of copying and pasting reams of reusable teaching content, you can use the Mass actions block to perform bulk actions on multiple resources or activities within one unit. This includes: hide/show, delete, move and duplicate.

Please note: The Mass actions block is currently not your best tool for moving content between units; please instead reach out to your faculty administrators to do this task.


Moodle dates report

The Dates report provides one place to view and update all activity due dates in a unit. The new Moodle standard unit template then automatically surfaces the updated due dates of activities and resources in various locations in Moodle, including the assessment summary table, schedule tab, task tracker and timeline. This will save you time accessing each activity individually and reviewing course content where due dates are advised.

Bulk edit activity completion

Activity completion settings can be used to define the criteria or conditions that students must meet to mark activities and resources as complete in Moodle. You can then set up conditional access restrictions, allowing you to selectively and automatically release resources and activities to a defined cohort based on activity completion. The Bulk edit activity completion report also allows you to monitor the progress of large cohorts during the teaching period and provides a better overview of patterns of student engagement than individual student activity or participation reports.


Bento Boxes

Bento Boxes are pre-configured collections of activities and resources in Moodle designed to support rich asynchronous active learning for students. Each Bento offers a pedagogically designed learning sequence that will generally take a student between 1-2 hours to complete. They give you a learning activity skeleton to customise with concepts from your teaching unit. Depending on the Bento, you will need to replace existing placeholder content and instructions with those relevant to the unit.

Moodle Analytics Graphs

These reports provide a range of graphs based on data within a Moodle unit. With the Moodle Analytics Graphs block you can monitor if students have accessed specific resources or activities in the unit, scored below a threshold grade or not yet attempted an assignment or quiz. The analytics graph reports also allow you to quickly and easily send emails to students, for example to remind them to access specific activities or resources or even offer additional support.

The Forums tab

This featured tab on the new template surfaces all forums in the unit in one place. You can scan for unread posts and gauge student engagement across all forums at a glance. Use this to quickly identify where student engagement may need prioritised, specific attention.