How to Complement Moodle and ILIAS with Interactive Learning at Universities

Moodle and ILIAS remain the central course infrastructure

Moodle and ILIAS are particularly suitable for structuring and organising digital teaching. Their typical functions include:

• providing lecture slides, scripts and additional materials
• managing courses and participants
• facilitating communication between lecturers and students
• organising assignments and submissions
• delivering tests and learning assessments
• representing formal course and semester structures

An additional learning application does not need to replace these functions. Instead, existing content can be made available for further learning situations.

While Moodle and ILIAS provide the organisational framework, Learn Battle can help students engage with course content actively and regularly.

Why providing materials is often not enough

Many courses provide students with extensive learning resources. Students must nevertheless decide when, how frequently and through which method they engage with them.

During a busy semester, this often means that course content is reviewed intensively only shortly before an exam. Students reread scripts, prepare summaries and try to process large amounts of information within a limited period.

Sustainable learning, however, benefits from active engagement, repeated retrieval and immediate feedback. Short knowledge questions can help students retrieve information from memory instead of relying exclusively on rereading.

An additional learning platform can therefore support:

• continuous learning throughout the semester
• active retrieval instead of exclusively passive reading
• immediate feedback on answers
• visible learning progress
• early identification of difficult topics
• accessible mobile learning activities
• broader participation during classes

LMS and interactive learning platform: different responsibilities

A learning management system and an interactive learning platform do not need to compete. They can fulfil different responsibilities within the same learning environment.

Moodle or ILIAS

• Course organisation
• Provision of learning materials
• Assignments and submissions
• Formal course structure
• Tests and assessments
• General usage and test results

Learn Battle

• Short, interactive learning activities
• Active and regular review
• Gamified learning and training modes
• Mobile learning routines throughout the semester
• Live Battles during classes
• Insights into knowledge levels and difficult questions

The exact division depends on the course and the university’s requirements. Materials, submissions and organisational information can remain in the existing LMS. Learn Battle can be added for engagement, practice and formative knowledge checks.

Reusing existing questions from Moodle or ILIAS

The workload for lecturers is an important consideration when introducing an additional learning tool. Questions that have already been created should not have to be entered manually for a second time.

Moodle allows questions to be exported from quizzes and question banks in several formats, including Moodle XML, GIFT, Aiken and XHTML. Further details are available in the official Moodle documentation on exporting questions.

Questions and question pools can also be exported from ILIAS. The content and question types that can be reused depend on the selected export format and the configuration of the institution’s ILIAS installation.

A potential workflow with Learn Battle may look like this:

1. Existing questions are exported from Moodle or ILIAS.
2. The exported content is transferred into a format supported by Learn Battle.
3. The questions are imported into Learn Battle.
4. Lecturers review questions, answers and classifications.
5. The content is organised into learning packs or courses.
6. It is then made available for Live Battles and individual practice.

This allows universities to reuse existing content instead of building a completely separate question collection for every platform.

Creating additional questions from scripts and slides

Existing test questions are not the only potential source of learning content. Lecture slides, scripts and other texts can also be used to create additional questions, which lecturers can subsequently review.

Learn Battle supports lecturers in creating and structuring this content. Questions may, for example, address the following learning objectives:

• reviewing central terms and definitions
• understanding subject-specific relationships
• preparing for an upcoming class
• assessing knowledge during the semester
• preparing systematically for an exam
• engaging large groups of students

AI-supported features can accelerate the creation process. Academic and educational review should nevertheless remain the responsibility of the lecturer.

Example: Combining Moodle or ILIAS with Learn Battle in one course

The two systems can be combined without changing the entire existing course structure.

Before the semester

The lecturer creates the course in Moodle or ILIAS as usual. Materials, schedules, organisational information and assignments remain in the LMS.

Existing test questions are exported, reviewed and imported into Learn Battle. They are then organised according to topics or weeks of the semester.

During class

At the beginning of a session, the lecturer launches a short Live Battle with three to five questions about the previous class.

All students can participate and receive immediate feedback. The lecturer can see which questions the group answers confidently and which topics remain unclear.

Difficult concepts can be addressed immediately before the class moves on to new material.

Between classes

Students can review the same content independently in Learn Battle. This creates a connection between shared activities during class and individual learning outside the classroom.

Before the exam

Instead of reviewing all content for the first time immediately before an exam, students can return to learning packs they have already used. They can identify the topics they have mastered and the questions that still require further practice.

Learning analytics as an addition to course organisation

Activity data can indicate whether students access a platform or complete an assignment. Lecturers may also want to understand which content has already been understood and which questions repeatedly produce incorrect answers.

Learn Battle can provide insights into:

• questions that are frequently answered incorrectly
• topics that cause particular difficulties
• the use of available learning activities
• the development of knowledge during the semester
• learning packs that are used most frequently
• content that may require additional explanation or review

These insights are not intended to provide an automatic assessment of individual students. Their primary function is formative: lecturers receive indications of which content should be revisited during a class, tutorial or additional learning activity.

At an institutional level, aggregated analytics can also help universities evaluate the adoption and impact of digital learning activities across multiple courses.

Which courses can benefit from this approach?

Combining a learning management system with an interactive learning platform can support courses across different academic disciplines. It may be particularly valuable for:

• introductory courses with large student groups
• modules involving extensive factual or conceptual knowledge
• courses with regular knowledge checks
• tutorials and practical sessions
• modules with high failure rates
• exam preparation courses
• introductory and onboarding programmes
• interdisciplinary qualification programmes

Universities can also begin with a limited implementation. An institute may pilot Learn Battle in a single course, evaluate the experience and subsequently expand it to other modules or degree programmes.

Do not replace Moodle or ILIAS—extend them where needed

Universities do not have to replace their established learning infrastructure to introduce new learning formats.

Moodle and ILIAS can remain the central environment for course organisation, materials and formal processes. Learn Battle complements this infrastructure where active review, gamified learning, live interaction and more detailed learning analytics are needed.

The key advantage lies in combining both approaches:

Existing structures remain in place, available content can be reused and students receive additional opportunities to learn actively and continuously.

Pilot Learn Battle as an addition to your institution’s LMS

Institutes can initially test Learn Battle in a selected course or module. The pilot can evaluate which content can be transferred from Moodle or ILIAS and how Live Battles, self-study activities and learning analytics fit into existing teaching practices.

This creates a clearly defined test environment before the institution decides whether to expand the platform to further courses, departments or degree programmes.