4 March 2025
Moodle 4.5: What’s new and why upgrade?
This article explores the new features within Moodle 4.5 and provides insight into what it looks like in action.
What improved features and functionality can you expect from Moodle 4.5, and why should you upgrade? Level up your LMS as we discover the new features that can help you deliver your best learning experiences yet.
What’s new in Moodle 4.5? Explore new features in Moodle 4.5
The main features of Moodle 4.5 include its new AI subsystem, which marks the first step toward integrating AI tools for teachers and learners, and the introduction of course subsections, a long-requested enhancement that Moodle has now implemented.
These features, along with several other exciting updates, are outlined in more detail below:
✅ Harness the power of AI in learning
Ever wished you had a little Moodle AI magic to help you build engaging courses, faster? Moodle 4.5 introduces an AI subsystem to generate text, create images and even summarise content for you.
You don’t need to be an AI expert or spend time on technical aspects; it comes equipped with a user-friendly interface and backend integration with multiple AI providers.
What are the benefits for you? Less time spent on content creation thanks to simple, streamlined processes. And for your learners? They get their most personalised learning experience yet, catering to diverse learner needs.
✅ Simplify navigation with streamlined course organisation
Managing extensive course content can be daunting. The new subsections feature enables you to create sections within sections, giving your content a hierarchical structure for better organisation. This helps learners see different content sections at a glance, reducing overwhelm and improving navigation – so there’s less scrolling and more learning.
Need to rearrange your course structure? No problem. Simply drag and drop sections and activities to restructure your courses in seconds.
✅ A simpler way to manage assignments
The revamped assignment interface in Moodle 4.5 puts all your key actions at the top of the screen without the need to scroll down and hunt to see what’s been submitted and what hasn’t. A sticky footer with bulk actions enables you to grade and manage submissions in a fraction of the time it took before. You can also set grades and scales you commonly use as default.
A new auto-resubmission feature enables learners to continuously improve through iterative submissions. It’s now possible to grant attempts automatically without having to go through the Submissions or Grader page.
Knowing they can reattempt answers motivates learners to persist through their biggest learning challenges.
✅ Built-in screen recording for richer media content
Learner engagement is always a challenge, which means your content needs to be as varied and media-rich as it is informative. Can you say it better with a short explainer video?
Well, now you can with Moodle 4.5. With the new screen recording option in the TinyMCE text editor, users can create short screen recordings directly within Moodle. This is perfect for adding screencasts to forum posts or other content areas, enriching your learning materials and giving your learners clear, visual instructions or explanations.
Our customer Girls Go Circular implemented Moodle 4.5’s update.
✅ Proactive notifications to keep learners on track
No one likes the stress of discovering a last-minute deadline. Minimise missed deadlines and keep your learners on track – Moodle 4.5 introduces notifications for upcoming and overdue assignments, as well as alerts for quizzes about to open. These timely reminders help learners better manage their schedules so they can stay engaged, on top of their deadlines and better organised.
✅ Your quizzes, made quicker
If you rely on quizzes to test knowledge retention, you’ll love the upgrades introduced in Moodle 4.5. You can now regrade selected questions to ensure fair, accurate assessments. Take advantage of the improved question bank category management too, allowing you to drag, drop and edit categories in a matter of clicks.
Don’t want your new questions to automatically save the settings you’ve made in the previous one? You can now disable ‘sticky’ defaults and start afresh when you need to.
By upgrading to Moodle 4.5, you’re not just adopting new features; you’re embracing a more efficient, engaging and user-friendly approach to professional development.
✅ Data-driven insights at your fingertips
Understanding learner progress and engagement is key to improving outcomes. The custom reports feature now includes over 20 new report sources, making it easier than ever to track what’s working (and what needs improvement). This allows you to generate more precise, actionable insights into course activity, completion rates and learner performance.
Moodle 4.5 also offers a more intuitive interface for generating reports, so all your critical learning data is right there at your fingertips. This helps you identify trends, optimise course structures and provide targeted support where it’s needed.
It’s learning impact you can prove.
✅ Additional enhancements
But that’s not all. Beyond these major updates, Moodle 4.5 introduces a variety of improvements to enhance usability and flexibility:
- Badge improvements – Improvements to badges include smoother workflows and the ability to have duplicate badges in a course.
- Cohorts deletion – Don’t spend all day sorting your cohorts – you can now select and delete bulk cohorts to save you time.
Want to see Moodle 4.5 in action?
Book a meeting to learn more about the new features in Moodle 4.5 and how they can support your organisation’s L&D goals.
