Level Up Plugin: Moodle Course Gamification App
Used on 27,000+ sites and with 9+ million learners around the world, the Level Up XP Gamification plugin is known for providing a more engaging learning environment, contributing to student success.
Often referred to simply as Level Up, the plugin offers features such as points, leaderboards and badges, depending on whether you are using a free or paid version of the plugin. The core benefits include:
Enhanced Learner Engagement & Motivation – Learners earn experience points (XP) for completing activities, see their progress visually, and are motivated by ‘levelling up’. The leaderboard adds friendly competition and motivation, and notifications celebrate milestones, which boosts engagement and retention.
Improved Course Completion Rates – Gamification elements help maintain learner interest throughout the course, encouraging greater completion rates.
Customisable Progression System – Instructors can tailor the number of levels, point thresholds, appearance, and XP values per action – either per course or site-wide.
Clear Visual Feedback – The plugin displays a learner’s current level and their progress toward the next level via an on-screen block, making progress transparent and actionable.
Above: Leveraging gamification with the Level Up Plugin at Kaplan Business School – presentation by Cameron Hallowell at MoodleMoot Australia 2024
Instructor Insights & Control – Teachers get access to reports showing learner levels and progress. They can configure XP rules and unlock course content based on student levels.
Privacy Compliance – The plugin is GDPR compliant, making it suitable for institutions with stringent data protection standards.
“Level Up tool enables Kaplan Business School (KBS) to implement key elements of gamification, such as points, badges, and leaderboards (PBLs), in a user-friendly way,” says Cameron Hallowell, Content and Learning Systems Manager at KBS.
If you attended Cameron’s presentation – Leveraging gamification with the Level Up Plugin at KBS – at MoodleMoot Australia 2024, you would have learned about further, less obvious benefits of the Plugin, such as improving student insights.
“The ability to create a gamified structure once, then easily backup and restore it across multiple courses, has streamlined our setup and maintenance processes,” says Cameron.
“After analysing data from two trimesters of implementation, we discovered that the plugin also provides valuable insights into student progress, allowing us to predict final grades early in the trimester.”
“These insights have enabled academic teams to identify “at-risk” students more efficiently, resulting in earlier intervention and more effective support, all with minimal effort compared to previous methods.”
The results speak for themselves:
- “Two thirds of students who participated in more than 80% of activities received a high distinction or distinction as a result.”
- “No student who participated in more than 80% of activities failed.”
- “Of the students who failed, 70% had a participation rate of less than 40%.”
This summary was based on 662 students from across 11 different subjects.
Cameron presented further data to showcase the effectiveness of Level Up among their students – you can view the presentation slides here.
In Summary:
By turning learning into a more dynamic, game-like experience, Level Up XP encourages consistent participation, supports personalised learning paths, and helps educators identify and support learners effectively.
Whether you’re teaching in schools, universities, or corporate training, these benefits can make your Moodle courses more engaging and effective.
Catalyst IT Australia are excited to bring you MoodleMoot Australia 2025.
Whether you are using or considering Moodle as your LMS, we invite you to join us, connect with the Moodle community in the APAC region, discover new possibilities of the Moodle products, and set the stage for your organisation’s future edtech innovations.
References and further reading:
Moodle Plugins Directory – https://moodle.org/plugins/block_xp
How incorporating gamification can transform your LMS, moodle.com – https://moodle.com/news/how-incorporating-gamification-can-transform-your-lms/
LevelUp Plus – https://www.levelup.plus/#about
GitHub – https://github.com/FMCorz/moodle-block_xp?
University of Warwick – https://warwick.ac.uk/services/digitallearning/support/guides/moodle-guides/mdl-124/