Here’s everything you need to know about the Open LMS 3.8 Release. This is a working document, so follow this page and check back often for updates!
1. Release Schedule
Open LMS Release Date
Production Data Center Upgrade Schedule
- North America, Central America, South America (Virginia, USA datacenter): Clients will be upgraded according to their data center timezone:
- Eastern, Amazon and Newfoundland-Labrador Timezones: July 9th at 12:30 AM – 6:30 AM EDT
- Central Timezone: July 9th at 12:30 AM – 6:30 AM CDT
- Mountain and Pacific Timezones: July 9th at 12:30 AM – 6:30 AM PDT
- South America (Sao Paulo, Brazil datacenter): July 9th at 12:30 AM – 6:30 AM BRT
- EMEA (Frankfurt datacenter): July 9th at 12:30 AM – 6:30 AM CEST
- APAC excluding Australia and New Zealand (Singapore datacenter): July 9th at 12:30 AM – 6:30 AM SGT
- Australia and New Zealand (Sydney, AU datacenter): July 9th at 12:30 AM – 6:30 AM AEST
Non-Production Sites Upgrade Schedule
We will upgrade non-production (sandbox) sites on Thursday, June 11, 2020, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM ET. Non-production upgrades occur during North American business hours to improve the quality of the upgrade process and shorten the production upgrade window.
Downtime will be required for your production and non-production sites during this window.
Open LMS Mobile App Update Date
31st July 2020
Open LMS live sessions
Join the Open LMS team as they provide an update on what’s coming on our latest release of Open LMS 3.8 and share other important news.
Open LMS en vivo: release 3.8 (Español) Wednesday 17th June (03:00 P.M. GMT – 10:00 A.M. COL – 11:00 A.M. EST)
Open LMS live: 3.8 release (Australia and Asia) Wednesday 17th June (01:30 A.M. GMT – 09:00 P.M. COL – 10:00 P.M. EST – 11:30 A.M. AUS Thursday 18th)
Open LMS live: 3.8 release (Americas and Europe) Thursday 18th June (03:00 P.M. GMT – 10:00 A.M. COL – 11:00 A.M. EST)
Open LMS updates
1. Upgrade to Core 3.8.3
a. Recommended browsers:
Desktop:
- Chrome
- Firefox
- Safari
- Edge
- Internet Explorer
Mobile:
- MobileSafari
- Google Chrome
For the best experience and optimum security, we recommend that you keep your browser up to date.
Note: Legacy browsers with known compatibility issues with Moodle 3.8:
- Internet Explorer 10 and below
- Safari 7 and below
For the full releases notes from Moodle.org, please see:
b. Moodle new features
– H5P integration
Teachers are now able to monitor and configure H5P content with a new Display H5P filter and Manage H5P content page. H5P content can be created in resources such as Page, Book, and Label.
– Forum grading and experimental view
Forum posts can now be submitted by students for assessment. Teachers can grade those forum posts, export forum discussions, and have access to a new summary report.
Select and test a new experimental nested discussion view from the forum preferences page.
– Course overview page
Users can now filter courses by custom course fields on the course overview page. Admins have more options in terms of customization and settings on this page.
– Calendar filters
Users are now able to filter the calendar view by month, day, or upcoming event. New session timeout alert
– Session timeout
New session timeout alert
– Option to include files in backup settings
Admins are now able to choose to exclude course files from a backup.
2. Open LMS new features
A. New feature Spots link
Requested and voted by the Open LMS community! This new feature allows admins to add internal or external links to the Snap’s Feature spots, and by doing so compliment information that they want to share with their users on the home page of the platform.

The URLs can be added directly into the Snap’s settings page, in the Featured Spots section:

B. Collaborate plugin: new Admin and Teacher settings
We have updated our Collaborate plugin with new settings for the Admin and Teachers:
Teachers:
When creating a new Collaborate session, they are now able to determine if the participants of that session will have the capabilities to: share video feed, share audio feed, post messages, annotate on the whiteboard, or download collab recordings.
Admins:
The admins have now the possibility to choose if the Instructor settings are active or inactive on a site level:
- If active: The Instructor Setting module will appear on the Collaborate activity settings page. Teachers and content creators will see the default settings for the Collaborate session on the module and will be able to change settings for this specific activity.
- If deactivated: Administrators will define which settings Collaborate sessions will have on a site level. Teachers and other content creators will not be able to change those settings within the Instructor Settings module.
Important note: This setting changes capabilities at site-level but will only apply to new Collaborate sessions created after the setting change. By default, the Instructor’s settings are enabled and active.


C. PLD: New course end date event
Another enhancement requested by the community! PLD has a new event, the “Course end date”. With this new event, rule creators can define an action based on a number of days prior to or after the course end date.
An example of this could be a teacher scheduling an email reminding their students that the course is ending in 10 days, so they send the final assignment or participate in the forum discussion.


D. PLD: Backup dates
When a course is restored and it contains PLD rules with specific date and time events, the rule used to save the previous course’s specific dates as default. Now, teachers and admins are able to backup and restore a course and choose if the PLD rules, with the specific date and time events, should restore relative to the new course start date.
An example for this could be: A course starts on January 1st, and a PLD rule is set to trigger on January 12. If the course is restored and the new course start date is February 1st, then you can choose if the PLD rule should change and be triggered on February 12, respectively.

E. Conduit: Process improvement
Conduit file consumption was converted into ad-hoc tasks, which allow parallel execution of the file consumption. Before this development, files uploaded into the STPF Conduit folder could only be processed one at the time. Now, with this increase in Conduit’s queued capacity, up to 20 files can be processed every 5 minutes.
– Files are identified and queued every time the site cron runs, it was established a default of 20 files.
F. Conduit: Queue Management
With this new feature for Conduit, Admins are able to see all files that have been uploaded to the SFTP Conduit Folder and prioritize.
In the Files queued tab, Admins can find all files categorized in lists depending on the type of the file, there are up to seven different categories. Within those lists, Admins are now able to prioritize files they want to process next, by clicking the arrows and moving the file up or down the list.
In the Files in progress tab, Admins are able to view which files are currently being processed. Here files can no longer be moved.




G. Open reports redesign (Experimental) – CURRENTLY DISABLED (Date: 20Aug 2020)
A new technology, based on Angular and web components, has been implemented to redesign our Open Reports, with better aesthetics, user experience, technical functionalities, and of course, no Flash dependencies exist. For this 3.8 release, we have migrated 4 of our reports to this new technology: Recent activity, Quiz Submissions, Assign Submissions, and Forum Posts. The experimental Open LMS reports can be accessed through the Course administration menu, as a new link.



H. Centralized Content Management (Experimental)
We are happy to announce that with this new 3.8 production release, you have now available the Centralized Content Management tool!
Also requested by the community, this new Open LMS plugin wants to make the work for content creators easier, by offering them a centralized content repository, where they will be able to create Master Activities and resources and replicate those into course sections. Edit the Master Activity in its settings or contents and propagate those changes into all its replicated activities with just one click.

Current functionality
This is a new experimental feature, an as such we are very eager to receive your feedback on your experience using it.
We currently have the following functionalities with the Centralized Content Management tool:
- Access the CCM:
Right now, only site Administrators or site level Managers can access and try the Centralized Content Management tool. You can find it in the Administration menu, under Front Page Settings or, within a course, in the Course Settings. - Masters tab:
Find here all Master resources and activities that you have created. Select a Master resource or activity to view all related Replicas.
You can edit or delete any Master by clicking the corresponding icon. You can also delete a Replica here, which will unlink that item from the Master but not delete it from the course. - Create a new Master:
In the second tab, you will be able to create a new Master resource, by copying an existing resource or activity. On the search box, please find the course that contains the existing activity and then select it by clicking on the plus (+) icon. This will copy the activity and create a new Master Activity from it, that you will now see listed in the Master tab. - Create replicas:
After creating your Master Activity, you are now able to create its replicas. Enter the third tab, select the Master Activity that you want to replicate and search for a course that you would like to add the replica. Select the course and the section of the course. You can add more that one course for this process by clicking on the Add a course link. - Propagate changes to replicas:
You can edit or update a Master activity and propagate the changes to all or some of its replica activities. On the Master tab, please edit your Master activity. After saving the chances, select the replicas that you would like to update with the new changes. Click on the propagate changes to finish the process. Please note that this can take up to five (5) minutes.
Special Considerations for this new feature:
- Please note that the creation of replicas or the propagation of changes to replicas can take up to 5 minutes.
- Right now, the Centralized Content Management tool supports only the resource type “Label”.
- Supported course formats:
- Topics (Snap)
- Weeks (Snap)
- Collapsed Topics
- Grid
- Outcome/competencies setting can only be replicated on courses that have the same competencies or that are on the same Learning path with the expected competencies.
3. User interface, User Experience, and Accessibility improvements
Reason | Fix made | UI Before | UI After |
Feedback available link on Lesson activity in Snap is misleading – The link takes users to the course “user report” grade page. However, the feedback that is listed here is not the feedback added to the “essay comments” section during grading. Causing confusion as to why feedback isn’t displaying. | The link has hidden to avoid confusion and coherency with other Moodle themes, such as Boost | ![]() | ![]() |
Nothing is displayed when a section is being deleted | The footer shows now the alert that a section is being deleted | ![]() | ![]() |
Accessibility review and VPAT
Within our roadmap, each quarter, we have a devoted project and scope to improve accessibility issues within our platform. To identify AX issues, we focus on three main sources:
- Issues found by the internal team, when reviewing a new Moodle version or general functionalities.
- Issues found by customers or final users that are particularly interested in improving the platform’s accessibility.
- Issues found in the VPAT. For two consecutive years, we have done the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, which allows us to identify AX issues in both the Boost and Snap theme.
Our new VPAT for 2020 is out, both for the Snap and Boost theme:
We are committed to improve our accessibility and make Snap the most accessible Moodle theme. That is why we cover each case and propose a corresponding solution for the issue:
- If it’s a Moodle core structure issue
- We identify the issue.
- We propose a core patch and implement the patch so that it is no longer an issue within Open LMS (In Boost and Snap if possible).
- We send the core patch to Moodle so that they can implement the improvement to the community.
- If it’s an issue of the theme or an Open LMS feature
- We identify the issue.
- We propose and implement a solution that gets shipped on the next release.
We want to further improve our capability to identify AX issues early on, so we reviewed some of the most used accessibility tools, to help our developers when creating new features and functionalities. We have successfully integrated the chosen tool: Axe-core, that is an accessibility testing engine for websites and other HTML-based user interfaces. It’s fast, secure, lightweight, and was built to seamlessly integrate with any existing test environment to automate accessibility testing alongside out regular functional testing.
4. Updated plugins
a. Community Plugins
Plug-in Name | Plug-in Components |
All-or-Nothing Multiple Choice | /question/type/multichoiceset |
Attendance | /mod/attendance |
Big Blue Button | /mod/bigbluebuttonbn |
Checklist | /mod/checklist /blocks/checklist /grade/export/checklist |
Collapsed Topic course format | /course/format/topcoll |
Question types Drag-and-Drop Matching | /qtype_ddmatch |
Group choice | /mod/choicegroup |
Hotpot | /mod/hotpot |
Interactive Content – H5P | /mod/hvp |
Journal | /mod/journal |
Level up block | /blocks/xp |
Luminis Message Broker (LMB) | /enrol/lmb |
Questionnaire | /mod/questionnaire |
Sharing Cart | /blocks/sharing_cart |
b. Open LMS Maintained Plugins
Plug-in Name | Plug-in Components |
Ellucian ILP Integration | /blocks/intelligent_learning |
EQUELLA | /mod/equella |
Intelliboard | /local/intelliboard |
Intellicart | blocks/products_catalog enrol/intellicart local/intellicart user/profile/field/vendor |
Microsoft Office 365 | /auth/oidc /blocks/onenote /filter/oembed /local/microsoftservices /local/msaccount /local/o365 /local/office365 /local/onenote /mod/assign/feedback/onenote /mod/assign/submission/onenote /repository/office365 /repository/onenote /user/profile/field/0365 /user/profile/field/oidc |
Respondus 4.0 Web Services | /mod/respondusws |
Respondus Lockdown Browser | /blocks/lockdownbrowser |
Respondus StudyMate Campus | /blocks/studymatecampus |
Turnitin LLC | /plagiarism/turnitin |
URKUND | /plagiarism/urkund |
5. Bug Fixes and Minor Enhancements
Description |
Fixed deferred reports error pop up |
Snap – Fixed missing numeration in section titles when deleting a section |
Updated npm dependencies in Snap |
SI-04405625 – On the open reports, the activity grades report does not update with the correct grades according with the Moodle course grader |
SI-04490481 – Fixed an error when using an hyphen (-) to search for a course while enroling a student |
Updated npm dependencies for Ally |
Added a deferred reports ETA indicator |
SI-04484704 – Fixed new SafeAssign content cannot synchronize if primary SafeAssign instructor unenrolled from course |
SI-04494283 – Ally – Fixed role assignments loading can timeout if there are many |
SI-04492655 – Fixed not being able to change year field in PLD recurring event with Snap |
Fixed a notice being thrown in SAML2 auth workflow |
SI-04485068 – Fixed RecordRTC Content Does Not Playback in iOS |
SI-04554975 – Fixed External tool custom icon is not displayed in Snap activity chooser |
SI-04540156 – Snap theme – Word ‘course’ is translated incorrectly in Turkish language pack |
SISA-00018477 – Updated description of Open LMS DB Backups |
Updated a label in SafeAssign assignment settings to more accurately reflect functionality |
SI-04254197: Fixed file lost during conversion of assignment submissions |
Fixed an error preventing sites update when using PostgreSQL |
SISA-00018819 – Fixed quiz completion settings may be lost during edit (INT-15785) |
Add switch role functionality to the Admin menu |
Snap, Dropdown login – Help icon is not redirecting to the correct page |
SI-04594019 – Conduit repeatedly processes failing feed files |
In Snap, adjust line spacing for new ‘Select All’/’Deselect All’ buttons in Data Base and Choice Activity |
SI-04488714 – Cannot access subscription options in Forum activity with Snap |
SI-04588807 – Slow query to retrieve Collaborate recent activity |
SI-04568070 – Improve efficiency of Remove unused random questions with configurable batch size scheduled task |
Escaped character in Collab description |
New Forum ‘Grade users’ Modal does not work In snap theme |
Snap, blocks addition – Additional text is displayed next to edition gear icon |
Snap, ‘Log out’ link appears twice in Personal menu quick links |
In Snap, ‘.’ character is preceding all section titles |
Upgrade step error for competency cleanup |
SI-04510480 – Course mapped Outcomes (New outcomes) are not being retained through backup/restore process |
Snap, Feature spots – Any character is accepted as a link |
SISA-00017539 – In Snap, the Ally Indicator is displaying in the wrong area of an image added to a Page resource when the image is right justified |
SI-04523294 – Snap hiding Admin (gear) when some site level role/permissions are given to users |
SI-04492365 – Ally and Glossary filters cause course cache rebuild to take several minutes |
6. Bug Fixes and Minor Enhancements included as hot-fixes
Description |
Fixed iAssign deprecation for advanced grading |
Ally – Fixed a bug in information sent to Ally possibly related to Snap |
Messages alert not present in Snap |
Ally – Fixed invalid module id thrown for folder module |
Backport Moodle 3.7.6 Security fixes |
Fixed Conduit scheduled tasks reporting finding 1 of each type of file when really 0 |
Ally – Fixed a bug when user fields are empty |
SISA-00018997 – Updated Conduit Multiple files support description to reflect changes in file consumption |
SI-04570708 – Fixed a bug in which Conduit cron may be able to run at the same time as a Conduit ad-hoc task |
Ally – Fixed a bug when mapping content when no content items are found |
SI-04304143 – Ally – Fixed Book content not being annotated |
Ally – Course sections service reportedly returns current time instead of section modified time |
SI-04584853 – restoring questionnaire activity causes data corruption |
Sharing cart setting name is being overridden by for loop |
7. Open LMS Mobile app updates
New features and improvements
- H5P integration including the option to view H5P content offline
- Dark mode option
- Native MathJax support
- Comments can be added or deleted in blogs and activities
- Forum user interface enhancements
- Forum posts can be edited and deleted
- Calendar events can be filtered by type
- Course participants search
- The app lets you know if you are working offline
- Admins can specify a minimum version of the app required to access the site
- Auto-save text editor contents as a draft
- Recent searches displayed in all search areas
- Dark mode improvements
- Various accessibility and performance improvements
- Usability improvements in the Login page
- Performance improvements
Mobile Bugs and improvements:
Ticket | Description |
MOBILE-2853 | Log-in using OAuth Google/ Microsoft |
MOBILE-2934 | Cannot open files with special characters (ü, è, …) with latest file-opener plugin |
MOBILE-3040 | Assignment: when the teacher deletes the assignment, the user can never submit a new submission |
MOBILE-3070 | Clicking on a forum notification can take too long |
MOBILE-3133 | App closes when using back button on fullscreen video |
MOBILE-3140 | Site blocks no longer work in 3.7.1 if they don’t specify displaydata |
MOBILE-3143 | Scrolling the course page can cause the top tab bar to disappear |
MOBILE-3167 | Some blocks not visible in the web site are displayed in the app |
MOBILE-3173 | regression: dragdropmarker questions no longer working in mobile app. |
MOBILE-3174 | App doesn’t render Database fields after changing field names and templates |
MOBILE-3180 | Plugin pages freeze the app when offline, if not cached |
MOBILE-3182 | Revise quiz behaviour when quiz is disabled in the App |
MOBILE-3187 | OS keyboard briefly appearing when clicking on ‘Filter my courses’ |
MOBILE-3189 | Custom lang strings for bottom tabs not always applied |
MOBILE-3191 | CoreCourseOptions tabs flicker when scrolled if page is slightly longer than screen |
MOBILE-3201 | Logs stored in offline aren’t deleted if WS returns an error |
MOBILE-3218 | Not all course modules links are captured by the app |
MOBILE-3222 | Error accessing YouTube video from URL resource |
MOBILE-3223 | Playsinline for iOS 10+ not working in InAppBrowser |
MOBILE-3229 | Icon adaptive in Android 7.1.1 not propperly set |
MOBILE-3233 | Sections cache may cause some resources fail opening/refreshing |
MOBILE-3235 | Error on Dashboard when Activity Block is added |
MOBILE-3239 | Block site plugins are re-loaded twice when performing a PTR |
MOBILE-3245 | Grades for courses that a user is not enrolled in aren’t displayed properly |
MOBILE-3247 | Survey: Changing the time taken updates the comments textarea |
MOBILE-3253 | Accessibility – Can not use activity tracker with iOS screen reader |
MOBILE-3254 | Double click on Course/Module some time make it open multiple page |
MOBILE-3262 | Tabs height does not readjust when changing course sections |
MOBILE-3267 | Use filters when displaying sitename |
MOBILE-3274 | Dark mode invisible text drag and drop onto image |
MOBILE-3275 | Course area tabs are too short when text size increased |
MOBILE-3301 | Add aria-labels to context menu icons |
MOBILE-3314 | Error when trying to download an assignment while the course is set up to have the gradebook hidden to students |
MOBILE-3326 | Links to “..” can be broken in iframes |
MOBILE-3330 | Messaging: last message display is cut off in Moodle app |
MOBILE-3340 | Site plugins: PreSets are not updated when using a directive with samePage=true |
MOBILE-3343 | java.lang.NullPointerException in parsePathStrategy |
MOBILE-3347 | H5P: Unzip H5P files isn’t working inside pages (for app and desktop) |
MOBILE-3348 | MathJax isn’t applied in glossary entries and forum posts |
MOBILE-3349 | Cannot read property ‘value’ of undefined: displaygroupingstarred |
MOBILE-3350 | Book viewed using the app doesn’t appear in recently accessed items |
MOBILE-3356 | Number of course tabs isn’t calculated right when course is opened |
MOBILE-3373 | RTE buttons don’t work when all text is selected |
MOBILE-1501 | Allow searching participants |
MOBILE-2159 | Geolocation in the mobile app |
MOBILE-2235 | Initial H5P support |
MOBILE-2267 | Allow user to edit forum posts |
MOBILE-2877 | Support adding and deleting comments (database, glossary, blogs, etc..) |
MOBILE-3026 | Indicate when you are working offline |
MOBILE-3291 | Check “status” of sites |
MOBILE-3293 | Let Travis override providers for certain apps |
MOBILE-3313 | Simplify about section |
MOBILE-1355 | Display the SCO scores in the TOC |
MOBILE-1611 | Mobile app doesn’t show embedded math TeX or MathJax in Quizzes |