Tag: KEATS Upgrade

Moodle 4, News and Events, Technologies

KEATS Upgrade: 22 July 2025

Sue Harrison

KEATS will be upgraded to Moodle 4.5.5 on Tuesday 22 July 2025. As part of this upgrade KEATS will be placed into Maintenance Mode and unavailable to staff and students between 06:00-14:00 (UK Time).

This upgrade introduces enhanced search options, visual improvements and new assessment functionality for staff and students.

An image of the KEATS Dashboard displayed on a laptop and mobile device.
An image of the KEATS Dashboard displayed on a laptop and mobile device.

Enhancements include:

  • The introduction of a personalised search function enabling you to search for content within courses you are enrolled in.
  • An improved navigation via the introduction of a consistent top menu.
  • A cleaner and streamlined KEATS Dashboard, providing a task focussed view of courses and alerts for students.
  • Better visual design and usability for users accessing KEATS via mobile devices.
  • An improved assignment interface, introducing sticky headers and footers, improved filters and bulk actions.
  • Automated notifications to students for deadlines for upcoming assignments and quiz submissions.
  • Quicker access to ‘starred’ courses directly from your top menu.
  • The maintenance of a secure and accessible platform compliant with modern standards.

Please note, faculties and departments use KEATS in different ways and may have different templates and approaches for you to be aware of. If you are in the middle of teaching during this upgrade and are experiencing unexpected changes, please do contact your Programme Team in the first instance and log any issues via 88888@kcl.ac.uk.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused during this important upgrade.

Moodle 4, News and Events, Pedagogy, Technologies

New look KEATS coming in July 2023

Sue Harrison

KEATS will be upgraded to Moodle 4 on 18 July 2023 (see KEATS Upgrade to Moodle 4 Blog post for further information).

As part of this upgrade the look-and-feel of KEATS will be updated to bring it in line with emerging King’s Digital Brand Guidelines, improving consistency for staff and students across our digital platforms.

The new theme for KEATS will be primarily available for layouts which display modules and courses in a Topics or Grid formats. All course pages will be presented with a left-hand navigation and a right hand-panel for module/programme specific information as required, both of which can be expanded/collapsed as required.

KEATS Course Grid Format

KEATS new-look grid format
KEATS New Look Grid Format

KEATS Course Topics Format

GIF of a new look KEATS Course Topics Format
New Look KEATS Topics Format

 

Screenshots

Click on the screenshots below to view larger images of the new look-and- feel for KEATS coming in July 2023.

Moodle 4, News and Events, Technologies

KEATS Upgrade to Moodle 4

Sultan Wadud

KEATS will be upgraded to Moodle 4 in Summer 2023, this will bring a variety of improvements to the student and staff user experience. The existing functionality of KEATS will still be core to your teaching and learning, but the user experience has been redesigned with a new, modern look and feel that makes it more intuitive and user-friendly. The provisional date for the upgrade is 18 July 2023, and we expect KEATS to be unavailable to all staff and students for the majority of the upgrade day.

Improvements for Students

For students, these KEATS improvements will include:

  • Oversight of their course deadlines on the dashboard (the KEATS landing page). Deadlines can be filtered by due date, courses, and by activities that are overdue. The list of deadlines is also searchable using the activity type (e.g., assignments) or activity name.
  • A more streamlined interface for viewing activities and resources and any activity completion requirements for these, including new colour-coded icons.
  • Improved navigation for modules, including a course index on the left of the module page, which acts as a table of contents for activities and resources and allows the students to click on an activity and navigate directly to it.
  • Activity completion is indicated on the course index, allowing students to easily see what they still need to complete.
  • A new collapsible ‘block drawer’ that includes any blocks that have been added to the module. The course index block is also collapsible, allowing students to view only their course content in the middle of the page when needed.

Improvements for Staff

For staff, the new design will bring the following benefits:

  • More intuitive features, such as easier access to module settings at the top of the module page, which were previously found in the ‘Administration’ menu.
  • Activities and resources can be moved within a section, or to another section, by dragging and dropping them with the main course content or within the course index.
  • Clicking on an activity will navigate staff directly to that activity, where they can easily access the activity settings at the top of the page.
  • When changing an activity’s settings, staff have the option of selecting “Send content change notification” which will notify students that a change has taken place.

The video below shows what these improvements look like in Moodle 4. Please note that the Moodle 4 site shown in the video does not yet include King’s branding, this will be added in due course when Kings’ new branding guidelines have been finalised.

Moodle 4.0 Upgrade Video

Written by Fariha Choi

Fariha Choi is a Learning Technologist at the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning and has been with CTEL since June 2021. She has a particular interest in educational multimedia and has worked as a Learning Technologist, eLearning Developer and Learning and Development Manager for the past 11 years.