Moodle 4.5 Upgrade
News & Resources

The current version of Moodle, 4.1, will no longer be supported as of December 2025 by Moodle US.  Upgrading to 4.5 is necessary to maintain essential support and security for Nazareth’s Moodle LMS environment.  Like the current version, Moodle 4.5 is known as a Long-Term Supported (LTS) version. These occur less frequently and are supported for a longer period. Currently, Moodle's typical long-term support cycle is about two years. Our last upgrade took place in May 2023. 

TLT has scheduled the upgrade to take place on Wednesday May 14th, 2025. This is the day after all Spring 2025 final grades are due by the Registrar and five days prior to the start of the Summer A 2025 session on May 19th.  Although the current version is technically supported until the end of December 2025, we want to ensure that this upgrade takes place well in advance of this deadline and prior to the start of a new academic cycle in Fall 2025. 

Here are some of the upgrade highlights you should expect to see.  You can also check out TLT's  video overview on what's new in Moodle 4.5.  

✔️Your Main Moodle Course Page

• Option to create subsections on the main course page to further customize content 

• Ability to create permalinks to specific sections of content located on the main course page

• Ability to bulk edit content; delete, move, duplicate, hide and change visibility of your activities and resources

• Activity icons have a cleaner, simpler look

✔️Assignment Settings

• Ability to grant students automatic permission to submit additional assignment submissions;  approval by instructor is no longer needed, unless preferred

✔️Quizzes

• Ability to regrade selected questions within in Quiz  

• Quizzes now come with an "Ordering" question type, which includes the ability to reorder images 

• Students now have a  "Last Saved" display for their responses during a quiz attempt

✔️Grades

• Instructors can view their feedback directly in the Grader Report view

✔️Student Notifications, Activity Completion, and Restrictions

• Students have more notification options for upcoming and overdue assignments

• Activity Completion and Restrictions organized under a "To Do" dropdown

Please Note:  As part of our transition to the new version, TLT tests these new features on a dedicated testing site to ensure things are running smoothly before the upgrade takes place on the 'live' or production site that you use for courses.  It is through testing that TLT determines what, if any, features may not yet be ready for primetime. As is often the case with new releases,  there may be certain bugs or issues that are still being worked out and may cause more disruption than convenience. Because of this, certain feature enhancements may not be enabled right away, but provided in a future rollout.  If you have questions on any of these or other features, please email TLT at teachingtech@naz.edu. 

Any content, activities, or resources you set up between now and the upgrade that is scheduled for May 14th will still be in your Summer Moodle courses.   The upgrade is primarily adding certain feature enhancements and functionality. You should expect to see some minor changes in certain tool menus but the overall navigation, look and feel, and tool options are predominantly the same as before.  However, we do recommend you check your courses once Moodle is back up and running.  If you have any questions or concerns, TLT is here to support you as you continue to set up  your courses.  For more details on what has changed check out  What Are Some of the Changes I Can Expect? or the Moodle Resources section on this page. If you have any specific questions or concerns, please reach out to Teaching and Learning Technologies at teachingtech@naz.edu for more information. 

You should expect that Moodle will be unavailable for the better part of Wednesday, May 14th and that access will resume the following day, Thursday, May 15th. You should be able to continue with any course preparation you may have already started for the summer session at this time. 

Yes! TLT plans to offer demonstrations and support in several ways during  April and May. We will have more information in the coming weeks regarding:

• Departmental Outreach, providing group-based training for interested faculty and staff in the same academic departments and offices

• Virtual demonstrations for any faculty and staff who wish to attend and that will also be recorded.

• Video Tutorial "walkthroughs" for both faculty and student users, which review the primary changes they can expect with Moodle 4.5. 

Faculty and staff may also reach out to TLT at any time with additional questions or requests for training/demonstrations at teachingtech@naz.edu.