Use this when you want to pull enrolments (student and teacher) from another course into your course.

NB: You must be a 'teacher' or higher level in both courses to set this up.

Instructions:

1. Go to the course you would like to pull the enrolments into
2. (Administration block) Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods
3. At the bottom of the list of existing enrolment methods there is a drop down menu "Add method". Select "Course meta link" from the menu.
4. Find the course you would like to pull the enrolments from in the drop down menu, or search the course name, then and click "Add method"

Done! Now all students from the other course will also be enrolled in yours. When they are unenrolled from the other course, they will also be unenrolled from yours.

Guest access allows people who are not enrolled in your course, or even people who don't have Moodle accounts at all, to access your course page. This is not a way of enrolling students or teachers into your course.

Guests cannot participate in the course in any way (forums, assignments, etc) but they can view anything that an enrolled student can view.

Courses with guest access enabled are required to have a password set, with the possible exception of some programme or pathway "homepages". If you believe your programme or pathway requires a homepage with open access, you must get permission from Te Puna Ako and measures must be put in place to ensure sensitive data for students and staff are not made available to visitors from outside Unitec.

NB: enabling guest access (but without a password) gives Google access to your course. If you have sensitive or copyrighted material in your course, do not enable guest access. If you do want to enable guest access, make sure you have set a guest password.

The instructions below are for historical purposes.

Or choose "Guest access" from the "Add method" drop down menu if it isn't there already:

2. Click the edit icon to set a guest password:

3. Click "Save changes"

Removing staff or students from your course works exactly the same.

You can remove staff and students who have been manually enrolled or self-enrolled.

You cannot remove students who have been enrolled by "external database" (PeopleSoft).

Staff or students enrolled by "course meta link" must be unenrolled from the source course to be unenrolled from yours.

Staff (or sometimes students) who are enrolled by "category enrolment" cannot be removed by you, as they have been assigned to their role at the category level to all courses in that category. If you feel that there are staff there by mistake, please contact your programme administrator or elearn@unitec.ac.nz to clarify.

Instructions for removing manually or self-enrolled students:

1. Course administration > Users > Enrolled users
2. Find the user you wish to unenrol and click the X to the very far right by their enrolment method information
3. Confirm that you wish to unenrol the user

Done!

Instructions for removing meta course enrolled users

1. Course administration > Users > Enrolled users
2. Check which course the users are being enrolled from
3. Go to that course and follow the instructions above for removing manually or self-enrolled users

You can find your profile by clicking on your user picture in the top right.

This is what other users on the site see when they click on your name. You can add more details and a description, and upload a user picture.

1. From the drop-down menu at the top-right corner, click on 'Profile':

2. Click on the link 'Edit profile':

3. Click the ? next to some fields to see what these settings do

4. Upload a user picture from your computer

5. Click the "Update profile" button at the very bottom

The grader report is the grid view that teachers see. Students see the user report, as they can only see their own grades.

There can be quite a bit of sideways scroll on this page, so be prepared to scroll to the bottom, then scroll to the right.

Do not alter assignment grades through the grader report! Use the assignment grading page.

Only manual grade items should be altered through the grader report.

Back to grades

If you are a teacher or manager in a course, you will have the ability to edit.

Either:

Administration block > Course administration > Turn editing on

Or:

Clicking will turn editing on.

Clicking will turn editing off.

When you turn editing on in a course, you will see a range of icons:

Edit the title of the resource on the page

Move to the right (or left for a left arrow) resources

Move things by clicking and dragging this icon

Edit / Update / Configure - takes you to settings

Duplicate makes a clone/copy of the resource or activity

Delete removes the resource, activity or block from the course

Hide/show lets you make resources or activities visible/invisible to students

Group options - No groups

Group options - Separate groups

Group options - Visible groups

Assign roles lets you assign special privileges (like teacher rights) to a specific activity within the course

Choose "Feedback" from the "Add an activity or resource" menu.

Give your feedback activity a name.

Write a brief description (maybe why you are gathering this feedback).

Display description on course page - If enabled, the description above will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the activity or resource.

You can leave these disabled.

Otherwise, choose a date range where students can submit feedback.

Record user names

• Anonymous - you cannot see who has submitted the feedback
• User's name will be logged and shown with answers - explains itself

Allow multiple submissions - If enabled for anonymous surveys, users can submit feedback an unlimited number of times.

Enable notification of submissions - If enabled, teachers will receive notification of feedback submissions.

Auto number questions - Enables or disables automated numbers for each question.

Show analysis page - Allows the students to see an analysis page after they've submitted feedback.

Completion message - You can enter a message, maybe a quick thank you, which is displayed after a student submits feedback.

Link to next activity - After submitting the feedback, a continue button is displayed, which links to the course page. Alternatively, it may link to the next activity if the URL of the activity is entered here.

Using the tabs along the top of the activity, choose "Edit questions"

There will be no questions there yet.

Choose a question type:

• Add a page break
• Captcha - A test to make sure a real person is filling in the form and not an automatic spamming program of some sort. Asks a person to write out some distorted text which is displayed on screen. You normally won't need this unless you find you are getting spammed a lot.
• Information - This allows you to choose to display one of three types of information: the time of responding; the course and/ or the category where the feedback is located.
• Label - Like a standard Moodle label, this allows you to add abritrary text between questions allowing for extra explanation or to divide the Feedback into sections.
• Longer text answer - This option is for creating a text box (you specify how big it will appear in rows and columns) which people can write a long answer into.
• Multiple choice - This will give you a series of radio buttons, which starts on 'Not selected' and then has your options afterwards. Only one can be chosen and 'Not selected' is a valid answer if the question is not set to 'required'.
• Multiple choice (rated) -

  This is similar to the other multiple choice options, except that each option has a numerical value associated with it. You have the choice of using radio buttons or a drop-down list to display the answers.

  For example:

  How much do you enjoy being in class?
  I love it
  I like it
  It's OK
  I don't like it
  I hate it

  It's not possible to (easily) get out an "average" score - particularly if you're asking the same question before and after an event or course. If the Drop-down List (rated) option is used, then numerical values are associated with each option, allowing an average or other measurements of any responses.

  The above question might look like:

  How much do you enjoy being in class?
  [5] I love it
  [4] I like it
  [3] Its OK
  [2] I don't like it
  [1] I hate it

  Which might allow for an average (e.g. "4.5 this term, up from 3.9 last term") to be calculated.

• Numeric answer - Here, you ask a question which must have a number as an answer and specify the acceptable range e.g. "How many arms would you like, if more than 2 were possible? (please specify 0-10)" with a range of 0-10 set in the options. It helps if you specify the acceptable range in the question text.
• Short text answer - This option lets you specify a single line answer, with an input box which is a set number of characters long (you choose). You also specify the maximum number of characters you will accept, so that the answer is not too long and/or does not run over the length of the box on screen.

As you add questions you will see them appear in the preview section below.

As a teacher you cannot answer the questions in the feedback form.

For more detailed information on building your feedback form, please see the MoodleDocs.

You may wish to change the topic headings in your course from "Topic 1", "Topic 2" etc to something more informative.

Make sure you have editing turned on.

Under each topic heading section you'll see this icon:

It will say "Edit summary" when you hover over it. Click it.

Untick "Use default section name" (this is "Topic 1", "Topic 2" etc) and then you can type in your own section name.

Click "Save changes"

There are various sites that provide free images. Some give you the tools to create the images yourself, and some provide royalty free or creative commons images for you to use.

We have bolded the ones we recommend for quality of images and ease of use.

NB: If photos have people on them, there may be a model-release involved. Please check for these.

Image creators

• Canva - free to create an account
• OpenBadges.me - enter an email address and create free badges from a range of shapes and templates
• Piktochart - create your own infographics or graphics, option for collaboration, easy to use templates
• Powtoon - create free animated videos and presentations, everything you need is provided

Royalty free or creative commons images ready to use

• Pixabay - free to use images, no attribution required
• CGTextures - textures and backgrounds, requires login to download, free account creation
• Historical Stock Photos - free historical photographs, big American focus
• Gratisography - free high resolution artistic photos, no strings
• ImageBase - free high resolution photographs, organised by category, no strings
• Kave Wall Stock - abstract photographs, backgrounds, textures, free to use (attribution required)
• OpenPhoto.net- easy to search and navigate, photo attribution easy to copy, full resolution images free to download
• NASA ArtSpace - royalty free images from NASA
• PhotoGen - amateur high resolution photos, free, no strings
• Pixel Perfect Digital - free high resolution professional photos, extra options such as colours sometimes available, attribution information shows when downloading
• StockPholio - nice photos, easily searchable, copy and paste the credit, downloadable in a range of formats
• RGBStock - completely free photos, good quality, need registration to download
• Public Domain Photos - photos of mixed quality, click to get full resolution, no strings
• Freepik - nice graphic designs, icons, careful of clicking to premium sites, files in Adobe Illustrator format (only for people with graphic design experience)
• 4freephotos - free photographs, diverse range, a lot of ads, can be difficult to browse
• Bigfoto - good photographs, lots of ads, can be difficult to browse
• Free Photos Bank - good photographs, difficult to navigate and find the free ones
• Freepixels - absolutely free images, limited range of images, cluttered site
• Freerange Stock - amateur photos for free, quite cluttered site, must be registered to download, free registration

Image editors - resize, crop, apply effects to your own images

• Autodesk Pixlr - browser-based image editor, lots of features, also Mac and Windows native apps available

Other useful resources

• Digital NZ
• 7 ways to find creative commons images
• Library guide to copyright and Library guide to creative commons
• Collections Online - Te Papa

You can attribute images in several ways, and the important thing is that they are attributed correctly.

Always check whether you are allowed to use images. Images that you find on Google Search are not all just free for use. Always go to the source of the image and check whether the person who posted it is happy for you to use it! Then make sure you mention the actual source (Google Images is not a source!).

Ways to attribute images:

• When you upload the image to Moodle, it asks for Author and Licence. Make sure you change these to reflect the actual owner and licence of the image. Also make sure you repeat this information in the image description. If you have done both of these steps, that is all that is needed.
• You can put a note at the bottom of your page, or in a block, stating where you got the images (the original source, remember not Google Images), and what sort of licence the image is under.
• You can put this information in a caption under your image.

-------

For example, this image here says "No attribution required". This means you don't have to attribute the original source, however, you should still state under which licence this image is used so that people know that it is public domain, no attribution.

Image licence: CC0 Public Domain, no attribution required.

We have put the licence information in the image description, though the hover text (also called alt text) doesn't seem to work in a glossary. If you find that is the case where you have placed your image, it is best to also put the information in a caption (as above), or a side-block.

-------

Put licence in image description like this:

HOVER TEXT - Add the image, go to the "advanced" tab and put the hover text required in the "title" field

Adjusting all email notifications from Moodle

1. Log into Moodle
2. Hover your cursor over your name in the top right
3. Preferences> Message

Then you will see a long list of events that Moodle can send email notifications for. Choose which of them you wish (or don't wish) to receive by email, by using the check boxes.

When you are done, click "Save"

About email notifications from Moodle

Moodle is not an email platform. If you wish to email your students, please email them! Moodle does sometimes send email notifications of events that happen on Moodle such as:

• a Moodle message has been received while the user is offline
• a forum post to a subscribed forum (such as a news forum)
• an upcoming event

These notifications sometimes fail, so they are not a reliable way of emailing your students. To email your students, send them an actual email.

Adjusting forum email digest settings

1. Log into Moodle
2. Click on your name "You are logged in as Firstname Lastname" in the top right
3. Administration block > My profile settings > Edit profile
4. Email digest type:
   • No digest (single email per forum post) - you will be emailed a separate email notification for every single forum post to a forum you are subscribed to. This can spam your email if you are subscribed to a busy forum, or many forums.
   • Complete (daily email with full posts) - you will receive one email per day with all that day's forum posts compiled on it, in full.
   • Subjects (daily email with subjects only) - you will receive one email per day with all that day's forum posts compiled on it in list format, showing only the subject lines. Click the subject lines to go to that forum post to read it (you may be required to log into Moodle to see the forum).
5. Click "Update profile" at the bottom.

A Moodle page is a separate web page which can be filled with text, media and links.

Adding a new page to your course:

• From the "Add an activity or resource" menu, choose Page.
• In the "Adding a new page" screen that follows, give your page a name and an optional description.
• Add your content to the Page content section using the web editor.

A HTML block is basically a 'free' block. This means you can add any text, links or media to it with the HTML editor.

Add a HTML block

• Select 'HTML block' from the 'Add a block' menu.
• Edit the settings of the new block.
• Provide a title for the block.
• Add the content to the Content window. You can add text, media and links to websites or documents.
• Select 'Save changes'.

In an HTML block you can create links to external URLs, Moodle activities and resources or documents you have uploaded to Moodle

• Type the word or sentence that will be the link (make sure this is a word/sentence that conveys meaning to the learner)
• Highlight this word/sentence
• Select the chain icon in the text editor
• 
• In the Link URL box of the dialog window, you can add the following:
  • a URL of an external website (e.g. www.google.com)
  • a URL of a Moodle activity/resource (go to the required activity and copy the url that appears on top e.g. http://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/mod/page/view.php?id=235530)
  • a link to a document (see below)
• Select Insert
• Select Save changes.

To link to a document:

• Select the browse icon next to the Link URL field.

• Select Upload a file from the left menu to add a new file from your computer. Browse and select the file you need
• Select Server files to search for a file you have already uploaded in the course
• Select Insert.

To add a new event to a calendar, navigate to the month required in the calendar block.

• Click the name of the month
• An expanded window opens
• Select the button 'New event'
• On the New Event page select the type of event
  • A User Event will only be visible by the user currently logged in (i.e. the one creating the event)
  • A Group Event will be visible to a particular Group on the course (chosen from a drop-down list)
  • A Course Event will be visible to participants on the course in question. Only users with the capability to manage calendar entries at the course level can add course events.
  • A Site Event is a "global" event - visible in every course and on the calendar on the home page. Only users with the capability to manage calendar entries at the system level can add site events.
• Set the event properties
• Click Save changes

This is for teachers only.

If the course you are teaching is not already on Moodle you can use the "Request a Course" button that is visible at the bottom of any category in Moodle.

You can get to "Request a course" in 2 ways:

You can then fill out the form.

If you are using Mac

• just hold the vowel and you will see a list of options.
• You can copy/paste it from: http://maori.typeit.org/
• You can using the Māori keyboard: https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~kimihia/musingaori-keyboard

If you are using Windows

• make sure you have the Maori keyboard installed (Unitec Managed builds will have this - talk to IMS)
• in your task bar click the little keyboard icon and switch to Maori keyboard mode
• type ` (usually to the left of the 1 on your keyboard) followed directly by the vowel and it will become one with a macron
• when you are done make sure to return to US keyboard mode

It is possible to make a beautiful horizontal rule in Moodle.

Here is an example which you can add to your own course by clicking the < > button and pasting the following code.

<hr style="height:8px; color:##800000; background-color:#800000;" width="75%">

The horizontal rule is a great way to separate resources and activities into manageable chunks, display subtopics in sections.

Here is a list of Unitec programmes with their ID codes and school codes that provide these programmes:

Sometimes you will want to add a link to a file or other Moodle resource inside a Moodle page - like your Assessments page or your Welcome page.

Instructions:

1. Go to the resource on your Moodle course page
2. Right click it and choose "Copy link"
3. Go to the page you want to edit (add the link to)
4. Edit the page (often by clicking "Edit settings" in the administration menu)
5. Type a sentence that the link will be attached to (like "Click here for this file")
6. Highlight it
7. Click the link button on the Moodle toolbar (it looks like a chain)
8. Paste in the link you've copied into the URL field (you can use control+v (windows) or command+v (mac) to paste)
9. Click Insert
10. Save!

Google Chrome

1. On the web browser menu click on "Customize and control Google Chrome" and select "Settings".
2. In the "Settings" section click on "Show advanced settings..."
3. Under "Privacy" click on "Content settings..."
4. When the dialog window opens, look for the "JavaScript" section and select "Allow all sites to run JavaScript (recommended)".
5. Click on the "OK" button to close it.
6. Close the "Settings" tab.
7. Click on the "Reload this page" button of the web browser to refresh the page.

Internet Explorer

1. On web browser menu click the "Tools" icon and select "Internet Options".
2. In the "Internet Options" window select the "Security" tab.
3. In the "Security" tab click on the "Custom level..." button.
4. When the "Security Settings - Internet Zone" dialog window opens, look for the "Scripting" section.
5. In the "Active Scripting" item select "Enable".
6. When the "Warning!" window pops out asking "Are you sure you want to change the settings for this zone?" select "Yes".
7. In the "Internet Options" window click on the "OK" button to close it.
8. Click on the "Refresh" button of the web browser to refresh the page.

Mozilla Firefox

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press Enter.
2. Click "I'll be careful, I promise" if a warning message appears.
3. In the search box, search for javascript.enabled
4. Toggle the "javascript.enabled" preference (right-click and select "Toggle" or double-click the preference) to change the value from "false" to "true".
5. Click on the "Reload current page" button of the web browser to refresh the page.

Apple Safari

1. On the web browser menu click on "Edit" and select "Preferences".
2. In the "Preferences" window select the "Security" tab.
3. In the "Security" tab section "Web content" mark the "Enable JavaScript" checkbox.
4. Click on the "Reload the current page" button of the web browser to refresh the page.

Find the Java Control Panel on Windows

Windows 8 

Use search to find the Control Panel

Press Windows logo key + W to open the Search charm to search settings
OR
Drag the Mouse pointer to the bottom-right corner of the screen, then click on the Search icon.

In the search box enter Java Control Panel

Click on the Java icon to open the Java Control Panel.

Windows XP

Click on the Start button and then click on the Control Panel option.

Double click on the Java icon to open the Java Control Panel.

Find the Java Control Panel on Mac

Launch the Java Control Panel on Mac OS X (10.7.3 and above)

Click on Apple icon on upper left of screen.

Go to System Preferences

Click on the Java icon to access the Java Control Panel.

Change Security settings:

Security tab: Allows you to configure various settings related to security such as grant permissions to content, alert users about site certificates, enable trusted publishers and blacklist revocation checks.

How to Enable Java on your browser

Firefox

1. Open the Firefox browser or restart it, if it is already running
2. From the Firefox menu, select Tools, then click the Add-ons option
3. In the Add-ons Manager window, select Plugins
4. Click Java (TM) Platform plugin (Windows) or Java Applet Plug-in (Mac OS X) to select it
5. Check that the option selected is Ask to Activate or Always Activate or on older Firefox versions, click on the Enable button (if the button says Disable, Java is already enabled)

Safari

1. Click on Safari and select Preferences
2. Choose the Security option
3. Select Allow Plug-ins, then click on Manage Website Settings
4. Click on the Java item, select an option (Ask, Allow or Allow Always) from the pull-down list When visiting other websites
5. Click Done, then close the Safari Preferences window

Not all files will benefit from compression. If it is already optimized, you may not be able to reduce the file size any more than it is.

Using Online Tools: SmallPDF (http://smallpdf.com)

This website will compress PDF files and quickly return them to you. There is no limit of the size of the file, or the number of times you can use the service.

You can drag and drop the file into the box on the website. Wait until the file is uploaded and compressed. The compression may take a few minutes, especially for larger files.

Once the compression is complete, the website will send you the new file.

Using Macintosh Preview

Click File and select export. In the options, click the Quartz Filter menu, and select "Reduce File Size."

Save the file. Select your desired location, then click Save. Your file will be saved in a much-reduced size. This may result in a noticeable drop in quality.

Using the Adobe Acrobat “Reduced Size” Command

Open the PDF file you wish to reduce in Adobe Acrobat. This is not an option in the free version of Adobe Acrobat (which is Acrobat Reader).

From the File menu hover your cursor over “Save As Other…”, which will open a new submenu. Select “Reduced Size PDF”.

Select what versions of Acrobat you want the PDF to compatible with. Choosing newer versions will result in smaller file sizes, but will render the file un-openable in older versions of Acrobat.

Using the Adobe Acrobat “PDF Optimizer” Command

PDF Optimizer provides finer control for reducing the size of PDF files. For most users, the default settings will provide the best reduction in file size. Optimizer saves space by removing embedded and duplicate fonts, compressing images, and removing items from the file that are no longer needed.

From the File menu hover your cursor over “Save As Other…”, which will open a new submenu. Select “Optimized PDF…”.

Click the “Audit space usage” button to see a breakdown of what is taking up space in your PDF file. This will allow you to see if your images are making the file too big, or if your embedded fonts are inflating the size. Each aspect of your PDF will be rated by bytes and percentage of total size.

Adjust your settings. Leave as default, or fine-tune your settings as needed. You can switch to different aspects of your PDF (Images, Font, Transparency, etc.) by using the menu on the left side of the window. You can choose to not optimize specific aspects by unchecking the boxes next to each menu item. This can be useful if you want to optimize the text but leave the images unaltered.

When optimizing images, you can change color images to grayscale, compress, downsample, and lower the quality. Compression of images can result in poor quality that is not suitable for printed materials. Always check the quality of your optimization before committing to saving the changes.

When optimizing fonts,  unembed fonts that you know all of your readers will have. For example, if you are sending the PDF to people at your school, they most likely will all be using the same system to read it, so those fonts do not need to be embedded.

Press OK. Your PDF will be converted using the new settings. You can check the new size by saving the file or by opening the PDF Optimizer again and clicking “Audit space usage” button.

Use the “Save as” in Adobe Acrobat and in Microsoft Word

This will allow a huge decrease of the size of your file (for example, it can make you file go from 200 kb to 20 kb => 10 times smaller in some situations)

1. Open your file in Adobe Acrobat
2. Save As your file as a Microsoft Word document
3. Open the word document file in Microsoft Word
4. Save As your file as a PDF

If you created a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint documents but have realized that it is too large to be shared by email; or you’re low on disk space; or even can’t upload it to Moodle, don't fret! Follow this guide to get your document file size compressed.

Use compressed graphics file formats

If you have images in graphic formats like bitmap (.bmp) in your documents, you should convert them into one of the following graphic file formats: .jpg(jpeg); .gif or .png.

Insert graphics instead of copying and pasting

People like to use copy and paste to add graphics into a document. The feature is effortless, but it’s not efficient as the pasted image is a bitmap file. The differences in file sizes can be astounding especially if you’re using a file format such as JPG as your source.

Choose E-mail (96 ppi) output

Inside your document, click one of your picture, you will see a tab “Format Picture” appears at the toolbar area. Click the “Compress” button on the “Format Picture” tab; select the “Best for sending in e-mail (96 ppi) from the “Picture Quality” dropdown menu; tick the “Remove cropped picture regions” checkbox; and select the “(Apply to) All picture in this file” radio button. Then, click “OK”. This would change all the pictures used in your document to an optimal size.

If you are using the latest version of Word or PowerPoint, you can simply go to File > Reduce File Size…

Insert a hyperlink instead of inserting an object

When you insert an image or a media file, you have the option to insert it either as an embedded object or as a linked file. Insert > Photo/Audio/Movie > Photo/Audio/Movie from File.. > Select the file you want to insert; tick the “Link to File” checkbox. 

By inserting it as a linked file means it will not become a part of the final document file. But you should always make sure that the linked file is with you and in the computer where you will open the document. Otherwise, the hyperlink won’t work.

Turn off Preview Picture

The preview picture is the thumbnail of the document’s first page. This thumbnail shows in the Details section of Windows Explorer when you highlight the file. Usually, this isn’t an issue unless your first page displays a graphic.

To turn off Preview Picture in Microsoft document, go to File > Properties, Select the “Summary” tab, then deselect the check box for ‘Save preview picture with this document’, click OK.

Save your document a second time

Open your document, go to File > Save As… and give it another name. Then click “Save”.

Doing this you will have a second document that often is smaller than the original copy. This is because Microsoft Document usually stores lots of redundant information such as earlier drafts and previous used images. Once you save it as another file, the unnecessary redundant information would be purged.

Sometimes you get a message that you need to change an image size when trying to upload a picture. You may need to resize images to make them smaller without affecting the quality. 

Free tools for reducing image size:

The best and easiest from Google: https://squoosh.app/

• Resize .jpeg file only:
  http://www.jpegmini.com/main/shrink_photo 

• Resize .jpeg; .jpg & .jpe files
  http://www.photoshop.com/tools?wf=editor

• Resize .png & .jpg files:
  https://tinypng.com/ 

• Resize .bmp; .gif; .jpg; .jpeg and .png files
  http://picresize.com/

• Resize images
  http://picresize.com/

A block that teachers can add to courses so as to quickly find ungraded assessments.

Turn editing on > Add a block > Grade Me

Resetting your course can be useful between lots of students to purge out old user data so that the course is fresh. Of course there are times when you wish to keep old user data (like previous forum posts for students to build on) so be careful using this feature.

• In your course go to the Administration block
• Click Reset

You'll be taken to a settings page where you can choose what you wish to reset in the course.

If you're using weekly format (rather than topics format) this can be a good place to change the course start date so that the weeks display properly for the new semester. Be careful deleting anything else in this section unless you're really sure.

Then, depending on which activities you have in your course, you may see some other settings areas:

These allow you to delete the data from any of these activities. Your activities themselves remain, ready to be used by the next lot of students.

Note that you will still need to go through assignments and other items that have due dates set to make sure that the due dates are updated for the new lot of students!

Why I didn't receive any email from Moodle?

Unfortunately, there's no easy way for you to ensure your emails don't hit the Promotions tab. It's also unclear how Gmail decides whether an email is "promotional" or not.

Below is how to "teach" a gmail account to treat your emails as primary. 


This can be done by clicking on the email (without opening it) & dragging it to the "primary tab". You will then see a message that says:


 "The conversation has been moved to "primary".  Undo
Do this for future messages from "email address x"?Yes"


If you click yes, all future emails from that address will go to the primary tab.


This will certainly work for each individual who does it, I.e.. Each person who does it, their gmail account will always send your emails to the primary tab.

Your internet browser's cache stores certain information (snapshots) of webpages you visit on your computer or mobile device so that they'll load more quickly upon future visits and while navigating through websites that use the same images on multiple pages so that you do not download the same image multiple times.

Occasionally, however your cache can prevent you from seeing updated content, or cause functional problems when stored content conflicts with live content.

You can fix many browser problems simply by clearing your cache.

An easy way to reload a page and bypass the cache (force-reload page) involves using keyboard shortcuts. Generally, the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl] + [F5] will work. But ultimately, this depends on what browser you are using.

• Mozilla Firefox
  
  • reload page and bypass cache:
    [Ctrl] + [F5]
    or [Ctrl] + [SHIFT] + [R]
    or [Shift] + browser Reload button
  • clear cache:
    [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Del]

• Google Chrome
  
  • reload page:
    [Ctrl] + [F5]
    or [Shift] + [F5]
    or [Ctrl] + browser Reload button
  • reload page and bypass cache:
    [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [R]
    or perform above page reload twice in a row
  • clear cache:
    [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Del]

• Internet Explorer 9
  
  • reload page and bypass cache:
    [Ctrl] + [F5]
    or [Ctrl] + browser Refresh button
  • clear cache:
    [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Del]

Marking workflow allows for results of assignment type activities to sit in a number of different states prior to being released to students. This is only available for assignment type activities not quiz.

On a basic level this allows results to be hidden from students until you're ready, but also allows for assessors to keep track of the state of individual student's assignment through a mark->review->release workflow.

Enable marking workflow

Edit the settings for the assignment activity:

Under the Grade area of the Edit settings page, set Use marking workflow to Yes

Save your changes, you have now enabled marking workflow for this assignment.

Using marking workflow

When you are ready to grade an assignment click on the assignment and then View/grade all submissions as normal

In the grading page is where you can start to see marking workflow options appear, the default marking workflow state is Not marked, you can see this under the status column of the assignment grading page.

When grading an individual assessment there is now an option to set marking workflow state, any state other than "Released" will hide the current grade from the student.

Changing the marking workflow state of multiple submissions

It is also possible to change the marking workflow state for multiple or all students who have participated in an assignment.

Go to the assignment grading page and use the check boxes down the left hand side to select multiple or all participants in the list.

Now down the bottom you have an option to act on the selected participants

Click Go and you will be taken to a Set marking workflow state for (multiple) users page, scroll to the bottom of the page and select the new marking workflow state and then click Save changes.

All the selected participants activities are now set to this new marking workflow state

An inactive Turnitin activity (link) is problematic for you because if anyone clicks on the Turnitin activity, it will incorrectly enrol all the previous years students into your current Moodle course, user list and gradebook. If you want to keep your students work from this Turnitin activity, you can download their submissions (with your grades) to your computer by following these easy steps below:

1. In your Moodle course, go to your Turnitin assignment page and change the list option from "Show 10" to "Show All" (See the screen shot below).

2. Select the check box beside "Student" to select all students' assignments.

3. Click "Download".

4. Select "Selected GradeMark Files". It may take a long time to  download. Please be patient.

5. Click on "Turnitin Messages Inbox" to check if students' assignments have been downloaded. If so click on "bulk download" to save it onto your computer. Then delete the online copy by clicking on the red recycle bin icon beside it.

That's all.

6. You can then delete this Turnitin assignment from your Moodle course.

How to access a course as “Guest”

Step 1:

Follow the course link which your tutor gave to you, i.e:
moodle.unitec.ac.nz/course/view.php?id=12345

Step 2:

Click on the button: “Log in as a guest”

Step 3:

Enter the password which your tutor gave to you.

Step 4:

Click on the button: “Submit”

Tip:
It will be convenient if you bookmark this page.

Note:
Don’t let others know the password.

Click detailed instructions for step by step guidance, or follow the infographic below.

If there are manually enrolled students in your Moodle course, you will need to manually unenrol them. If not, these students will still receive email notifications through Moodle.

1. Get the Peoplesoft ID from your Academic Administrator
2. Ensure the Peoplesoft ID is entered into your Moodle course

1. Click “Edit Settings” under the administration block
2. Enter your Peoplesoft ID into the Peoplesoft ID field
3. Scroll down and click on the “Save and Display” button

Option 1:  (Copy) says Create Duplicates, New Turnitin Class....
This one looks at the current course to find which Turntin class it links to and creates a new class in Turnitin to link to, then for each Moodle Direct activity, creates a new version of each Turnitin assignment in the newly created class with the exact same assignment options. (This is generally the one most folks will choose). It is not destructive and will keep copies of the previous class and assignments containing submissions in Turnitin but will create new activities linked to brand new empty replicas of the Turnitin assignments

Option 2:  (Replace) Replace Assignment Parts, Reuse Turnitin Class
This one is similar to the above but instead of creating a brand new class it will reuse the previously linked class and create brand new replicas of the assignments in it rather than use a new class. Downside to this method is you keep the previous Turnitin cohort of students. This option is pretty specific to certain use cases and is generally not used very often.

Option 3: Untouched
As you say, leaves the class and assignment linkage the same and basically does nothing to the Moodle Direct activities.

We cannot recommend moodle for submissions of files of this size, file submission data is stored in the moodle database which is both very expensive and limited. This is in addition to potentially causing problems for the server when uploading and downloading files of this size. 

Our recommendation is that students share their files with you using OneDrive, this is a Microsoft service provided for students by Unitec, unlike moodle it is intended for file storage and sharing.

1. Go to myportal.unitec.ac.nz in your browser.
   
2. Sign in with your Unitec login and password details, students should use smithj07@myunitec.ac.nz format for their login.
   
3. Click the blue and white “grid” icon in the top left (also known as the “waffle”).
   
4. Once OneDrive loads in a new tab, you can drag files into the area where it says “Drag files here to upload”.
   
5. Once uploaded right click on the file and select Share.
   
6. Here you have a number of options about how to share your file, the easiest (but least secure) is to click “Copy Link” and paste that into an email to your lecturer.
   
   
   Alternatively click on the drop down and untick the box that says allow editing, then Apply, then “Copy Link”.
   
   
   
   There are also options for sharing for specific people, which is recommended for more security. But I will let you explore those options once you gain familiarity with sharing using the above steps.

• How to create and attach a rubric to Turnitin.
  
• How to check similarity report and give feedback to students.
  
• How to grade using the rubric.
  

1. Click Turn editing on at the top right of your course page:

2. Click Edit settings to the right of the activity you want to restrict access to:

or

 Click Edit topic to the right of the section you want to restrict access to:

3. Under the Restrict access heading, click Add restriction.

4. Then click on the Group button.

5. Select the group that you want to restrict from accessing the assignment/section from the drop down menu.

6. You can shut off the eye if you want other students who are not in this group to see the warning: "Not available unless..."

7. Save changes.

1. open your Turnitin assignment link,
   
2. then click on the QM icon which is a tick symbol, near top right corner of your screen
   
3. select the QM set you want to share
   
4. click on the arrow near top right corner
   
5. choose export. (it will download as a .qms file). Don’t open it
   
6. go to your email and compose an email to the person you want to share it with
   
7. go to your downloads so you can attach the .qms file to your email
   
8. send your email and then the recipient needs to import it (using the import arrow inside Turnitin)
   

Yes, If you changed a question in the Question Bank, it will change in all the quizzes it appears in.

Questions really live in the Question Bank. When you add a question to the quiz, you are just making a link from the quiz to the question in the Question Bank.

So, you can add one question to many quizzes, and then if you edit it, it will change in all quizzes.

If you want to change any question, you have to:

1. Duplicate the question in the Question Bank
   
2. Edit the duplicated question in the Question Bank
   
3. In Quiz, add the modified question from the Question Bank and remove the old question.
   
4. The old question will stay in the Question Bank untouched and may exist in some other existing Quizzes, so you can leave it there if there’s nothing wrong with it. 
   
5. If you do want to remove the old question from the Question Bank, you can. But it will only be removed from the list - actually, it will stay forever in the system under the checkbox ‘Also show old questions’.
   

What happens if you change the correct answer, but the Quiz has closed and the students have already been graded?

• The changes will show in the Question Bank.
  
• The past quiz result will remain untouched, even though the correct answer has been changed.
  
• The ongoing quiz will be marked with the new correct answer.
  
• You can also duplicate the question in the Question Bank, change the answer and add the new one in. This way, you leave everything in the past quiz as it was.

To submit a paper to Turnitin, your paper must meet our requirements.  

Turnitin will currently accept the following file types to generate Originality Reports: 

• Microsoft Word® (.doc / .docx)¹
  
• OpenOffice Text (.odt)²
  
• Google Docs via Google Drive™ (.gdoc files are NOT acceptable)³
  
• WordPerfect®  (.wpd)
  
• PostScript (.ps/.eps)
  
• Adobe® PDF⁴
  
• Microsoft PowerPoint® (.pptx, .ppt, .ppsx, and .pps)⁵
  
• Microsoft Excel® (.xls and .xlsx)⁶
  
• HTML 
  
• Rich text format (.rtf) 
  
• Plain text (.txt)
  
• Hangul Word Processor file (.hwp)

The paper being submitted must contain more than 20 words, must be under 20MB (or approximately one million characters), must not exceed 200 pages in length, and must not contain spaces in between every letter (l i k e  t h i s). 

Please note that we do not support:

• Microsoft® Works (.wps) file types.
  
• Apple Pages file types.
  
• Spreadsheets created outside of Microsoft Excel (i.e. .ods).
  
• GDOC files (.gdoc) which are just links to online Google Document files, but don't actually contain text or the document's content. Google Drive must be used to upload Google Docs.
  
• Prezi Presentations
  
• M-Files (.m format)

Therefore, if an unsupported word processor is being used, you may need to save the file as a TXT or RTF file in order to upload to Turnitin.

If a file format issue is occurring, please re-open the file in a word processor, and save the file again using the "save as" function and choosing a different format from the file type pull down menu (try RTF or TXT as they are the most "safe"). Occasionally content in document headers and footers can prevent a file from being accepted by the Turnitin service. If you encounter issues uploading a document that contains headers and footers, editing or removing the content may resolve the issue.

Footnotes: 

1. Microsoft Word: We do not accept Microsoft Word 2007 macros-enabled (.docm) files (we do accept the standard .docx files). Whatever macro is encoded in the file is stripped away when submitted to Turnitin. For example, when using a "letter replacement macro," we strip the macro from the Wordfile, and whatever characters the student originally had in the file will appear (i.e. "a~"). Also, we do NOT accept password protected files.
   
2. Open Office Text: Turnitin will not accept .odt files created and downloaded from Google Docs online. Turnitin will not accept ".doc" files created using OpenOffice since OpenOffice ".doc" files are not 100% Microsoft Word equivalent.
   
3. Google Docs: GDOC files (*.gdoc) which are just links to online Google Document files, but don't actually contain text or the document's content are not supported. Google Drive must be used to upload Google Docs.
   
4. Adobe® PDF: Turnitin will not accept PDF image files, forms, or portfolios. PDF files which do not contain highlightable text (e.g., a "scanned" file, which is often simply a picture of text) are unacceptable. PDF portfolio documents containing multiple files are not supported. 
   
5. Microsoft PowerPoint: It is possible to submit PowerPoint files. Turnitin converts the PowerPoint slide deck into a static PDF, leaving all text and images in their original format but leaving out features such as presenter notes, embedded video, and animations. Text with visual effects is not supported, and it is recommended that any visual effects such as shadows and 3-D be removed prior to submitting to Turnitin. 
6. Microsoft Excel: The version of the file that can be viewed in the Document Viewer will look the same as it would if the Excel file had been saved as a PDF and submitted to Turnitin. We highly recommend that users pay attention to the image preview provided in the single file submission to verify that the file is presented in an acceptable manner.  Users can adjust the way the file looks by editing the page setup and print area settings for the file prior to saving it and submitting it to Turnitin.  

If you don't want other students in Moodle to see your email address, you can hide it:

1. Click on your profile photo at the top-right corner, then, click the "Profile" option from the drop-down menu.  

2. Click the "Edit profile" link.

3. Select the "Hide my email address from non-privileged users" option from the "Email display" drop-down menu. (non-privileged users means students, guests, visitors. Privileged users, such as teachers and managers, will always be able to see your email address.)

4. Save your changes by scrolling down the page and clicking the "Update profile" button.

It is important to note that student submissions/responses/results will disappear from Moodle 16 days after the enrolment end date.

You should ensure you have downloaded and saved them before that deadline.

If you should need to retrieve a student's data, you can manually re-enrol the student into the Moodle course. Please remember to un-enrol this student when you have downloaded what you need. If you need to download for the whole class, you will need to manually re-enrol every student in the cohort. And then, click the "Regrade all" button.

2. Tick the ‘Show the’ options, then click the ‘Show report’ button: 

3. From the ‘Download table data as’ dropdown menu, select ‘Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)’, then click the ‘Download’ button and save the file.

It is important to note that student assignments will disappear from Moodle 16 days after the enrolment end date.
You should ensure you have downloaded and saved all marked assignments before that deadline.

If you should need to retrieve a student's data, you can manually re-enrol the student into the Moodle course and download their assignment(s). Please remember to un-enrol this student when you have downloaded what you need. If you need assignments from a whole class, you will need to manually re-enrol every student in the cohort.

To download the original student submissions and grades, include teachers' annotated PDFs, feedback files and feedback comments:

1. Find the "Assignment submission report" under the "Report" dropdown menu in the Course administration block: 

2. Click on the "Download" button to download a zip file and save it to your computer.

It is important to note that student submissions/responses/results/grades will disappear from Moodle 16 days after the enrolment end date.

You should ensure you have downloaded and saved them before that deadline.

If you should need to retrieve a student's data/grades, you can manually re-enrol the student into the Moodle course. Please remember to un-enrol this student when you have downloaded what you need. If you need to download grades for the whole class, you will need to manually re-enrol every student in the cohort. After that, please go to each Quiz and click the "Regrade all" button.

2. In the ‘Export’ dropdown menu, click the ‘Excel spreadsheet’ link: 

3. Tick all options, then click the ‘Download’ button and save the file.

It is important to note that student assignments will disappear from Moodle 16 days after the enrolment end date.
You should ensure you have downloaded and saved all marked assignments before that deadline.

If you should need to retrieve a student's data, you can manually re-enrol the student into the Moodle course and download their assignment(s). Please remember to un-enrol this student when you have downloaded what you need. If you need assignments from a whole class, you will need to manually re-enrol every student in the cohort.

Reference:

Retention of Assessment Materials

Download/Backing up Quiz and grades
https://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/mod/glossary/showentry.php?eid=635

Download/Backing up Turnitin Assignment and grades
https://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/mod/glossary/showentry.php?eid=603

Download/Backing up Moodle Assignment     
https://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/mod/glossary/showentry.php?eid=636

Download/Backing up Moodle Gradebook        
https://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/mod/glossary/showentry.php?eid=637

These are the interactive parts of your course, and allow students (and teachers) to do things.

To add a new activity to your course you must first turn editing on

Note: There are now two methods for adding activities and resources to course pages, you may either use the traditional Add activity or resource link or the new Activity chooser. 

Check the Administration block to see if you have the Activity chooser turned on or off. You may turn the chooser on or off by clicking on the entry within the Administration block.

Add an activity using the Add activity or resource link

Note: To use this method the Activity chooser must be turned off

The Add an activity or resource window will appear. Select the type of activity you wish to add and click the Add button, otherwise click Cancel to return to your course page.

Add an activity using the Activity chooser

Note: To use this method the Activity chooser must be turned on

When enabled the Activity chooser replaces the Add activity or resource link described above with two drop down boxes one for resources and one for activities.

Scroll to the bottom of the section where you wish to add the activity and click the Add and activity drop down menu. Click on the activity type you wish to add from the list that appears.

This page describes the process of adding activities to your course page, however, the process of adding resources is essentially the same.

The chat activity module enables participants to have text-based, real-time synchronous discussions.

The chat may be a one-time activity or it may be repeated at the same time each day or each week. Chat sessions are saved and can be made available for everyone to view or restricted to users with the capability to view chat session logs.

Chats are especially useful when the group chatting is not able to meet face-to-face, such as

• Regular meetings of students participating in online courses to enable them to share experiences with others in the same course but in a different location
• A student temporarily unable to attend in person chatting with their teacher to catch up with work
• Students out on work experience getting together to discuss their experiences with each other and their teacher
• Younger children using chat at home in the evenings as a controlled (monitored) introduction to the world of social networking
• A question and answer session with an invited speaker in a different location
• Sessions to help students prepare for tests where the teacher, or other students, would pose sample questions

Once students have submitted assignments, you will see this information when you visit the assignment module in your course:

Click "View/grade all submissions"

You will see a grid view of all your students and their submissions.

Students who have submitted will have a green "Submitted for grading" box under "Status".

To grade, click the small pencil icon next to it, or hover over the icon in the "Edit" column for more options.

The grading view gives you an overview of the student's assignment:

From here you can download the file, or click the "+" button above the online text to view the full online text submission. If the student has added submission comments to their assignment, they will also show here where it says "Comments (0)".

Further down you can grade the assignment using the drop down menu (if you have chosen a custom grading scale) or if you have chosen a number grade then you will get a small box to type the grade into.

There is also a box for putting your feedback into.

NB - an assignment's grade MUST be filled out or changed from "No grade" before the student can see any feedback! No grade, no feedback!

If you enabled the ability to add feedback files, you will see an upload box underneath the comments section for you to upload the feedback file to the student. This can be their own assignment, sent back to them with comments all over it.

Once you are done, either click "Save changes" if this is the only student you are giving feedback to, or "Save and show next" if you are grading all of your students.

Clicking "Cancel" or "Next" will lose your grade and feedback information!

From the "Add an activity or resource" menu, choose "Assignment"

Assignment name - Give the assignment a descriptive name

Assignment description - This is a good place for the assignment information and marking criteria

Display description on course page - checking this will display the assignment description directly below the assignment name on the course page. Otherwise students will see the description when they click on the assignment name to view the assignment.

Allow submissions from - If enabled, students will not be able to submit before this date. If disabled, students will be able to start submitting right away.

Due date - This is when the assignment is due. Submissions will still be allowed after this date but any assignments submitted after this date are marked as late. To prevent submissions after a certain date - set the assignment cut off date.

Cut-off date - If set, the assignment will not accept submissions after this date without an extension.

Always show description - If disabled, the Assignment Description above will only become visible to students at the "Allow submissions from" date.

Submission types

• File submissions - If enabled, students are able to upload one or more files as their submission.
• Online text - If enabled, students are able to type rich text directly into an editor field for their submission.
• Submission comments - If enabled, students can leave comments on their own submission. This can be used to let students alert the marker about which files the master file is in cases of inter-linked files, for instance.

Maximum number of uploaded files - If file submissions are enabled, each student will be able to upload up to this number of files for their submission.

Maximum submission size - Files uploaded by students may be up to this size.

Feedback comments - If enabled, the marker can leave feedback comments for each submission.

Offline grading worksheet - If enabled, the teacher will be able to download and upload a worksheet with student grades when marking the assignments.

Feedback files - If enabled, the teacher will be able to upload files with feedback when marking the assignments. These files may be, but are not limited to marked up student submissions, documents with comments or spoken audio feedback.

Require students click submit button - If enabled, students will have to click a Submit button to declare their submission as final. This allows students to keep a draft version of the submission on the system. If this setting is changed from "No" to "Yes" after students have already submitted those submissions will be regarded as final.

Require that students accept the submission statement - Require that students accept the submission statement for all submissions to this assignment.

Attempts reopened

Determines how student submission attempts are reopened. The available options are:

• Never - The student submission cannot be reopened.
• Manually - The student submission can be reopened by a teacher.
• Automatically until pass - The student submission is automatically reopened until the student achieves the grade to pass value set in the Gradebook (Categories and items section) for this assignment.

Maximum number of attempts - The maximum number of submissions attempts that can be made by a student. After this number of attempts has been made the student's submission will not be able to be reopened.

Students submit in groups - If enabled students will be divided into groups based on the default set of groups or a custom grouping. A group submission will be shared among group members and all members of the group will see each others changes to the submission.

Require all group members submit - If enabled, all members of the student group must click the submit button for this assignment before the group submission will be considered as submitted. If disabled, the group submission will be considered as submitted as soon as any member of the student group clicks the submit button.

Grouping for student groups - This is the grouping that the assignment will use to find groups for student groups. If not set - the default set of groups will be used.

Notify graders about submissions - If enabled, graders (usually teachers) receive a message whenever a student submits an assignment, early, on time and late. Message methods are configurable.

Notify graders about late submissions - If enabled, graders (usually teachers) receive a message whenever a student submits an assignment late. Message methods are configurable.

Grade - Select a number that the assignment is graded out of, or one of the custom scales available either from the site level or created at the course level.

Grading method

Choose the advanced grading method that should be used for calculating grades in the given context.

To disable advanced grading and switch back to the default grading mechanism, choose 'Simple direct grading'. Other options are 'Marking guide' and 'Rubric'.

Grade category - This setting controls the category in which this activity's grades are placed in the gradebook.

Blind marking - Blind marking hides the identity of students to markers. Blind marking settings will be locked once a submission or grade has been made in relation to this assignment.

Students can submit assignments by visiting the assignment activity in Moodle.

They will see a submission button (if submissions are open).

Depending on what has been set up by the teacher, a student may be asked to upload a file:

And/or write some text directly into Moodle:

When they are done they click "Save changes".

They are then given an overview of their assignment, which they may or may not be able to edit depending on the assignment settings:

Once the teacher has graded the assignment, this view may change to something like this:

And feedback appears underneath:

Choose "Chat" from the "Add an activity or resource" menu.

Give your chat room a name.

Write a brief description (maybe what you wish the students to use the chat room for, some general guidelines/rules).

Display description on course page - If enabled, the description above will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the activity or resource.

If you want students to be made aware of times that you will be in the chat room, choose a session time.

Repeat/publish session times - Choose whether a session time will be published in the course calendar, and how often you are repeating this session time.

NOTE - the chat room remains open at all times even outside of the published session times. If you don't want students to use the chat room outside of the published session times, please use the eye to hide the chat room from students.

Save past sessions - this determines how long Moodle keeps a record/transcript of chat sessions.

Everyone can view past sessions - If set to No, only users have mod/chat:readlog capability are able to see the chat logs (teachers, non-editing teachers). If set to Yes, students can also view past chat sessions.

Once enabled, the completion tracking settings are displayed in the completion tracking page, and in the activity settings.

Force theme - If set to "Do not force" then the default theme (which you see on the front page of Moodle) will be used. Otherwise you can choose from a list of themes.

Force language - we recommend leaving this to "Do not force". This way students can choose their own language from the language drop-down menu in the menu bar.

News items to show - if you are using the "recent news" block, then this determines how many items it will display.

Show gradebook to students - determines whether students can see the Moodle gradebook for their own grades.

Show activity reports - determines whether students can see their own activity reports in the course. Teachers can always see activity reports, no matter what this is set to.

Course summary should provide a general idea of what your course covers.

Course summary files - here you can upload a picture or some files and they will display on the course listing page.

Note - neither of these fields are required and can be left blank!

Format

• Topics - numbered topics appear in the middle of the page.
• Weekly - each week (topic box) is dated based on course start date in general settings.
• Social - the course becomes just one big discussion forum.
• SCORM - only use this if you know what a SCORM package is and want to have your entire course just be this single scorm package.
• OneTopic - gives tabs across the top

Number of sections - if you chose Topics or Weekly as your format, this determines the number of section/topic/week boxes you have on your page.

Hidden sections

• Hidden sections are shown in collapsed form - sections you hide using the eye will show only the section heading to the students, they cannot see the contents of the section.
• Hidden sections are completely hidden - sections you hide using the eye will not display at all on the course page for students.

Course layout

• Show all sections on one page - All your topics show stacked on top of each other, with all unhidden resources visible.
• Show one section per page - When students get to the course, they see the summary box, and each topic/week collapsed down to just the heading and anything written in the summary. Clicking any of these headings will take them directly to that topic, with forward and back arrows to get to the next/previous topics.

You can increase or decrease the file upload size by: Turn editing on> Administration>Edit settings>Files and Uploads

Maximum upload size - determines the largest size of file that can be uploaded to the course.  Activity modules also include a maximum upload size setting for determining the file size.

Course full name is the full name of the course that will be displayed in the "My Courses" menu and block. They should follow this format:

PeopleSoftID - Course full name

eg ETEC3821 - Electrical Fundamentals A

Course short name is displayed in the navigation/breadcrumb menu. This should be your PeopleSoftID code.

Category should be the programme or department your course is in.

Visible should be set to "show" if you wish students to see, "hide" if you wish only teachers in the course to see it (ie it is under maintenance).

Course start date - ignore this, it doesn't affect anything.

PeopleSoft ID - if you want your students to be automatically enrolled into your course, make sure your correct course PeopleSoft ID code is entered here.

You can create Groups, and add specific students to it. The purpose of this might be to give feedback to groups of students working together which is only relevant to that group.

To create Groups, first go to the Administration Block>Edit Settings>Groups. Then fill in fields. Then you can go back to Users>Groups>Create groups. After that click add/remove users to add students to your Groups.

We generally recommend leaving these settings as you see above.

Group mode

• No groups - There are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community.
• Separate groups - Each group member can only see their own group, others are invisible.
• Visible groups - Each group member works in their own group, but can also see other groups.

The group mode defined at course level is the default mode for all activities within the course. Each activity that supports groups can also define its own group mode, though if the group mode is forced at course level, the group mode setting for each activity is ignored.

Force group mode

If group mode is forced, then the course group mode is applied to every activity in the course. Group mode settings in each activity are then ignored.

Default grouping

You can choose a default grouping for all activities in the course to be available for.

By using the PeopleSoft code, you can let PeopleSoft automatically enrol your students into your Moodle course. They will be enrolled one week before the PeopleSoft course start date, and unenrolled two weeks after the PeopleSoft course end date.

If you need them in longer than these dates, please email yliu@unitec.ac.nz with the course code and the new requested start and end dates.

Instructions:

1. Course Administration block > Edit settings
2. Enter the PeopleSoft course code in the PeopleSoft ID field
3. Click "Save changes" at the bottom

NB: Only one course on Moodle can use the same PeopleSoft ID.

Course enrolment or Programme enrolment?

Manually enrolling staff into your Moodle course means that you as a teacher/course administrator search for and add each teacher, and have to then remove them later when they no longer need access. Please don't manually enrol any student. Students are enrolled automatically by PeopleSoft.

Instructions:

1. Course Administration block > Users > Enrolled users
2. Click "Enrol users" button
3. Choose role (teacher or non-editing teacher)
4. Search for user (type into search box, press Enter on keyboard)
5. Click the "Enrol" button by their name

This lets students enrol themselves in your course. You can put a password on so that not every student can just enrol.

NB: students who have self-enrolled must either unenrol themselves from the course when they are done, or the teacher must unenrol them manually. They will not be removed automatically when the course finishes.

Instructions:

1. Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods
2. Open the eye on self-enrolment and click the edit button, or add self-enrolment using the "Add method" drop down menu if it's not already there
3. Click the cog wheel to choose your settings, taking note of password if you want. Use the ? icon to clarify what any of the settings do
4. Click "Save changes"

(we recommend deleting guest access as this will make the 'Enrol me' button to be located in an obvious pace)

Sometimes it is desirable to modify a student's grade from what moodle has generated (for example a quiz grade). This is called manual grade override.

Setting these overrides is very easy it's typically just a matter of clicking on the grade while reviewing an activity attempt or submission and typing in a new one.

Clearing these overrides is not so straight forward, it requires going into the gradebook setup and removing it.

It is important to differentiate between the moodle gradebook found on your moodle course and the Unitec gradebook accessed through The Nest. These two systems are not the same and are not linked together.

It is however possible to make the moodle gradebook in your moodle course correctly align with the weightings for the various assessment activities. This will provide better feedback for your students about their current progress and make your final input of grades into the Unitec gradebook much simpler.

Teachers can see individual user reports for students.

Students always only see the individual user report.

Teachers, to see individual user reports:

1. Course administration > Grades
2. Change the "Grader report" drop down menu in top left to "User report"
3. On the right, select the student you would like to view from the drop down menu labelled "Select all or one user"

Once you have created your groupings and your groups, you need to assign groups to groupings.

1. Course administration > Users > Groups
2. Click the "Groupings" tab (found near the top of the page)
3. Find the grouping you would like to populate with groups
4. Over to the right there is a little icon for viewing groups in grouping.  Click this.
5. Choose the group (or groups) you want in this grouping from the list on the right and click "Add"
6. When you are done, you can click the "Return to groupings" button or just return to your course. You do not need to save changes.

Removing groups follows the same process, but instead of selecting the group from the right hand list and clicking "Add", you select it from the left hand list and click "Remove".

1. Course Administration > Users > Groups
2. Click the group you would like to add/remove users from to highlight it
3. Click "Add/remove users"
4. Find the users you wish to add in the right hand list (either by scrolling or using the search box below) and use the "Add" button.
5. Find the users you wish to remove in the left hand list (either by scrolling or using the search box below) and use the "Remove" button.
6. When you are done click the "Back to groups" button near the bottom of the page.

Manually creating groups

1. Course Administration > Users > Groups
2. Click "Create a group"
3. Name your group (and you can upload a group icon and give it a description)
4. Click "Save"
5. Repeat to create as many groups as you would like.

Auto create groups

1. Course Administration > Users > Groups
2. Click "Auto-create groups"

Select members from role - The members of your group will be selected from the pool of students by default. If you want to include teachers and students in the auto-creation, change this to "All".

Select members from cohort - Only site administrators should see this setting.

Specify - number of groups or members per group - do you want to break the class up into a specific number of groups, or by the number of people per group?

Group/member count - this field is required and is linked to the previous setting. i.e. If you want your students split into 3 groups, put 3 in here and have "number of groups" for the previous setting.

Prevent last small group - If there are not the right numbers to make even groups, often one group will be created that is smaller than the rest. Checking this will distribute those students amongst the existing groups instead, even if it pushes the numbers above the ones you specified for maximum members in a group.

Allocate members - your options are randomly, alphabetically by first name last name, alphabetically by last name first name, alphabetically by ID number.

Naming scheme - The at symbol (@) may be used to create groups with names containing letters. For example Group @ will generate groups named Group A, Group B, Group C, ...

The hash symbol (#) may be used to create groups with names containing numbers. For example Group # will generate groups named Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, ...

This guide is about how teachers can teach in a shared course.

Has to be done by the team leader: 

1. Edit course settings to allow the PeopleSoft ID to automatically enrol students (How to)
   
2. Manually create groups. Your team should follow a ‘Group naming’ protocol like: “Joe Blogs’ Class 1 ”, then, add students to groups.
   
3. Add sections with the same name as the group name to keep consistency.
   
4. Restrict access to the relevant section, to a specific group.
   

Note:

1. You don’t need Grouping anymore.
   
2. ‘Shut the eye’ to hide the unnecessary warning which says ‘Not available unless..’
   
3. If a teacher wants additional groups within their class, create and label them properly, for example, Class1a, Class1b….
   

 Has to be done by teachers:

1. Add students into your own group(s)
   
2. Add Resources/Activities in your own section and don't modify other teacher’s sections
   
3. If you are using additional groups, you should set up 'Restrict Access' by following number 4 above. 
   

Note: 

Never manually enrol students.

Once a programme template has been decided on, you can import it over the top of your own course. It will not affect any of your existing content, and you may find that you need to move things around once the template is in place to make the content fit.

Some people choose to start from a blank template (start from scratch) and then import the existing content they want to keep from their old course into their new one. This is also an option.

If you would like a new course (your old course will be left as it is), please fill out this form. One of the eLearn team will process this request and you will be emailed when your new course is ready for you to use.

If you would like to import the programme template over your existing course, please follow the instructions below.

Note: You must have editing teacher access to both the template course and your own course. If you do not have editing teacher access to the template course, please speak with another teacher in your programme, they can assign you access.

1. Go to your own course

2. You may need to tidy up the first section in your own course and remove everything from that section

3. Course Administration (block) > Import

4. Find the template course in the list, or search for it using the search box

5. Select that course and click "Continue"

6. Leave all three options ticked (include activities, include blocks, include filters) and click "Next"

7. Scroll to the bottom of the Schema Settings page and click "Next"

8. Scroll to the bottom of the Confirmation and Review page and click "Perform Import"

9. Depending on how much is in the template, you may need to wait a few seconds. You will receive a confirmation screen saying that the import has been successful. Click "Continue" to return to your course, where you should see the new template applied.

Adding images or pictures to your course page can sometimes be done by dragging the picture into the editing window. This doesn't really add the picture properly, though, and it is recommended that you use the picture uploader tool instead.

NB: you must have the image saved to your computer first! Best formats are PNG, JPG or GIF. 

1. In the editing toolbar you will see a picture button- click this.
2. Click "Find or upload an image".
3. If the middle panel doesn't already have a "Browse" button, click "Upload a file" off to the left, then click "Browse".
4. Find the image on your computer and select it.
5. You may want to edit the author and license information for the image. By default the author is the person who is logged in and uploading the image, and the license is "All rights reserved". (Click here for more information on licenses.)
6. Click "Upload this file".
7. It is important to fill out a description. If someone uses screenreading software (because they are vision impaired) then the description is what is read out to them when the software encounters an image!
8. Under the "Appearance" tab you can choose other options like how the image is displayed with text, set a size for the image, border etc.
9. Click "Insert" when you are done.

NB: To edit any of these things after you've uploaded an image, simply select the image (so that it is highlighted) and click the insert/edit image icon again. You will be taken back to the same window, and the button will say "Update" instead of "Insert".

To reduce the file size of an image (so it loads quicker in Moodle):

(If the file size of an image is too big, your Moodle course can be slow too load, and it will take up lots of space).

1. Hover over the image to check file size eg 12kB
2. Right click and scroll to 'open with'
3. Choose 'Paint'
4. click resize
5. select pixels
6. Fill in Horizontal as e.g.180 (vertical will adjust automatically) 
7. ok
8. save as
9. now you can insert it to Moodle

Manually enrolment has no effect on student accessibility to Unitec Moodle. Student enrollment is controlled by PeopleSoft only.

As an Editing Teacher role, you can manually enrol a user, it looks fine from your teacher’s view. But, it only works for Staff. Even a student's name appears in your participant list, they still can’t access your course, because their account is not activated yet. Even worse, the inactivated manually enrolled account will cause unpredict issues which will incur complaints to Unitec.  

Please remove all manually enrolled students to avoid any further issues.

As a teacher, you can remove multiple manually enrolled users quickly. (You can't remove PeopleSoft enrolled students)

It is often best to resize images before you upload them to Moodle. This makes their file size smaller, and means less data your students have to download every time they view the image.

Here is a quick instructional video on resizing an image using a free browser-based tool called Pixlr Editor. You don't have to install something, just go to the Pixlr website and start using it!

Instructions:

1. Go to Pixlr.com
2. Launch the "Pixlr Editor" web app (under the big banner)
3. Choose to open a file from your computer
4. Find the file and open it
5. Go to Image > Resize
6. Choose a smaller size (recommended maximum 800 x 600 for uploading to Moodle) by typing values into the boxes or using the sliders
7. Click ok
8. Go to File > Save
9. Choose a new name for your image (recommend putting _resized after the image name so you know it's the resized one)
10. Click ok
11. Choose where to save it on your computer and click save

It is now ready to upload to Moodle!

You can do this using free software such as Gimp or Paint.NET. On a Windows machine, you can use the inbuilt Paint software to resize images. On Macs, you can use iPhoto.

If you need to tweak an image size slightly after uploading, it's easy.

1. Make sure you are editing the label or page where the image is.
2. Select the image by clicking on it (it should highlight blue).
3. You can drag the little corner boxes to resize the image...
   OR...
4. Click the "Insert/edit image" button.
5. In the second tab "Appearance" change the image dimensions manually (this is more accurate)

NB: Super hint! If you wish an image to resize automatically to the size available on the screen, then remove the height property in the image dimensions, and add 100% (or whatever percentage) to the width property! The image will then scale / resize automatically!

Resize this window and see the difference between these two pictures. One will resize, the other will not:

These are items containing information/knowledge that a teacher offers to support learning.

To add a new resource to your course you must first turn editing on

Note: There are now two methods for adding activities and resources to course pages, you may either use the traditional Add activity or resource link or the new Activity chooser. 

Check the Administration block to see if you have the Activity chooser turned on or off. You may turn the chooser on or off by clicking on the entry within the Administration block.

Add an resource using the Add activity or resource link

Note: To use this method the Activity chooser must be turned off

The Add an activity or resource window will appear. Scroll past the list of activities to select the type of resource you wish to add and click the Add button, otherwise click Cancel to return to your course page.

Add a resource using the Activity chooser

Note: To use this method the Activity chooser must be turned on

When enabled the Activity chooser replaces the Add activity or resource link described above with two drop down boxes one for resources and one for activities.

Scroll to the bottom of the section where you wish to add the resource and click the Add a resource drop-down menu. Click on the resource type you wish to add from the list that appears.

This page describes the process of adding resources to your course page, however, the process of adding activities is essentially the same.

Presents content in a textbook format, allowing for chapters and subchapters (2 levels only). Pages can be enhanced by multimedia.

Setting up a book:

Choose "Book" from the "Add an activity or resource" menu.

Give the book a name.

You can give it a description, though this is not necessary.

Chapter numbering

• None - Chapter and subchapter titles have no formatting
• Numbers - Chapters and subchapter titles are numbered 1, 1.1, 1.2, 2, ...
• Bullets - Subchapters are indented and displayed with bullets in the table of contents
• Indented - Subchapters are indented in the table of contents

Custom titles

Normally the chapter title is displayed in the table of contents (TOC) AND as a heading above the content.

If the custom titles checkbox is ticked, the chapter title is NOT displayed as a heading above the content. A different title (perhaps longer than the chapter title) may be entered as part of the content.

You will be prompted to add your first page (chapter) when you create the book. Add in a title (this will show in the book table of contents) and content (this will display in the main page area).

Adding pages (chapters and subchapters):

Make sure you have editing on when you are viewing your book to edit and add chapters. You will know if you do, because the table of contents will have editing icons after each chapter/page like this:

• Cog - edits the page
• Cross - deletes the page
• Eye - hides the page
• Plus - adds a new page after the selected page

When adding a page you have the option to make it a 'sub-chapter'. This nests the page under the one you clicked the plus icon by.

When you have multiple pages, there will be another icon which lets you change the order of pages in your book:

A document presented for students to download - PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, image...

Adding a file:

Drag and drop the file onto your course page (make sure you have editing turned on before doing this).

OR

Choose "File" from the "Add an activity or resource" menu.

Give it a name.

Description is optional.

Drag the file into the drag and drop box or choose the "Add..." button to browse for the file on your computer.

Once the file appears in the box on the Moodle page, you can continue.

Appearance

Display

This setting, together with the file type and whether the browser allows embedding, determines how the file is displayed. Options may include:

• • Automatic - The best display option for the file type is selected automatically
  • Embed - The file is displayed within the page below the navigation bar together with the file description and any blocks
  • Force download - The user is prompted to download the file
  • Open - Only the file is displayed in the browser window
  • In pop-up - The file is displayed in a new browser window without menus or an address bar
  • In frame - The file is displayed within a frame below the navigation bar and file description
  • New window - The file is displayed in a new browser window with menus and an address bar

Display size

Displays the file size, such as '3.1 MB', beside links to the file. If there are multiple files in this resource, the total size of all files is displayed.

Display type

Displays the type of the file, such as 'Word document', beside links to the file. If there are multiple files in this resource, the start file type is displayed. If the file type is not known to the system, it will not display.

This page describes a method for creating read-only links for students to view office documents directly in the browser.

Description

It is common for teachers to want to put content on a Moodle course for students to access.

This may be in the form of Microsoft Office documents such as Word, Powerpoint or Excel.

Traditionally a teacher might upload these documents as File resources, either as the original file type (eg. doc, ppt, xls) or exported to PDF first. This method works fine, but these resources need to be carefully maintained should the content of the file need changes in future.

An alternative solution may be to create read-only links for students to view live documents directly in their browser, while also allowing the teacher to edit the content without any need to update or otherwise maintain links in Moodle.

Step 1: Get a link for your office document

This requires your document to be stored in OneDrive or SharePoint and the document open in your web browser. 

Once the document is open and you are satisfied the content is ready to share with your students, click the Share button in the top right corner of the window.

 or 

This will bring up the sharing popup, click on Get a link on the left hand side, then click on the drop down list to select appropriate security options.

If you wish to restrict access to Unitec students only; select View link - account in your organization required, otherwise if you want anyone to be able to view the document; select View link - no sign in required.

Once you have selected the appropriate View link - option you are ready to select and copy the URL link provided.

Right click on the URL box and select copy from the drop down menu (or use control-c to copy the text).

You are now ready to move onto the next step.

Step 2: Create a URL resource in moodle and link to your document

Go to your moodle course page and Turn editing on, then use the activity picker to create a new URL resource.

Give your link a meaningful name, and an optional description if you wish.

Paste your URL into the External URL box

It's a good idea to check that your URL resource is setup to open in a new window so that students don't lose their place in Moodle by following your link. This is done under appearance.

Check any other settings you might wish to change, for example displaying the description on the course page and automatic completion tracking when students view the resource.

Finally, click Save and Return to Course and you are done.

Turn editing off for your course and check your newly created link works correctly.

This entry contains suggestions for how to tidy up your moodle course. 

1. If you’re not using it, delete it, or drag it to a hidden section

2. Put links into a Glossary or a Page (to reduce scroll of death)

Glossary features:

• searchable by author /date / letter
• alphabetical
  
• make your own categories - or it can be updated by date 
  
• your students to contribute their links (if you set up for this)
  
• share with other teachers or keep to yourself / your class
  
• can insert .pdf files
• can link to words in forum entries

Page features:

• name it whatever you want
  
• edit it right there inside moodle
• can curate the links i.e. describe what the link is and why students should access it (required reading / recommended reading / helpful for assessment 2 etc)
• can copy and paste from MS Word doc into 'page', then don't have to delete docs and re-upload if out of date. 

3. Put files e.g PDF, Word or PPT into Folders (or Glossary) or do 5. below

Folder features:

• name it whatever you want
  
• can contain related files altogether eg all files for assessment 1, or topic 1 or week 1
• reduces scroll of death

4. Videos and images

Put videos into a 'page' by either adding a link or inserting the embed code. Don't put the video on your course homepage, as it will take time to load.

Reduce your image size - otherwise, it will take time to load. 

5. Instead of uploading Word, Ppt, Excel etc files , use Office 365 and link from there.

Benefits:

• you only update your file in Office365, and because it is linked into Moodle, students will see the update immediately. (check sharing permissions)

 6. Contact Te Puna Ako staff for help with how to do any of these steps (or search in the Guide to Moodle for the relevant word e.g. page/glossary)

..........

enjoy your tidy course!!

If you are a teacher, but your Moodle profile email is not the one you are using now, then you should change it to the right one. 

If you are a student, our Moodle updates your profile every day according to your Unitec Student Portal data. you should NOT change your email in Moodle, because of the change will be overwritten by PeopleSoft overnight. So please change your email here: 

https://myportal.unitec.ac.nz/welcome, then wait for the next day to see your Moodle email updated.

If it is the right email but you didn’t get any email from Moodle, they might land into your Junk mails or Spam folder. Follow the link below to the guide of how to tame Gmail. Hotmail and other Email Apps should be similar.

Another possibility (unlikely) is that you had turned off the Moodle notification at some stage. Follow the link below to the guide of how to turn it back on:

https://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/mod/glossary/showentry.php?eid=572

Visit the chat room on your course page.

This will show you:

• Name of chat room
• Chat room description
• A link to open the chat room
• A link to a more accessible version of the chat room (good for older browsers or screen readers)
• A link to past chat sessions (if any)
• A list of people currently in the chat room (if any)

Click to enter the chat room.

This is a simple three-panel chat interface.

Top left you see any messages users have posted. Note you will only see messages from the time you enter the room until the time you leave the room. To see messages posted when you're not in the room, view the chat logs.

Bottom left is where you can type your messages. Press enter/return on your keyboard to post them to the chat window.

The right panel is the list of users in the room. It shows you how long the user has been idle, and gives you a link to "beep" the user (this will make a beeping sound on their computer if they have sound turned on).

To leave the room, simply close the chat room window.

The choice activity module enables a teacher to ask a single question and offer a selection of possible responses.

Choice results may be published after students have answered, after a certain date, or not at all. Results may be published with student names or anonymously.

A choice activity may be used

• As a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic
• To quickly test students' understanding
• To facilitate student decision-making, for example allowing students to vote on a direction for the course.

Select "Choice" from the "Add an activity or resource" menu.

Choice name - Give the activity a name. This will display on the course page and at the top of the page when viewing the activity.

Description - This is a good place to put the question you are asking the students to answer.

Display description on course page - If enabled, the description above will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the activity or resource.

Display mode for the options

• Display horizontally - will display the possible selections/answers listed horizontally across the page
• Display vertically - will display the possible selections/answers listed vertically on the page

Allow choice to be updated - Allows the student to change their mind/choice even after they have answered.

Limit the number of responses allowed - This lets you put a limit on each option. For example, you can get students to arrange themselves into groups of 4 using the choice activity, so you would limit each option to 4 users. Once 4 users have chosen that option, no more can choose it, they must choose another. If this is left on No, then the "Limit" fields remain disabled.

Options - At least one option must be given. Any fields left blank will not be included.

Limits - If you set "limit the number of responses" to Yes, then these fields will become enabled and you can choose how many students/users can choose each option.

Restrict answering to this time period - By checking this box, you can select a time during which students can use the activity and make their choices. After the time is closed, students can still view the activity and choices they made, but can no longer make changes or new choices.

Publish results

• Do not publish results to students - Students never see responses, only teachers see responses
• Show results to students after they answer - Responses are hidden from student until they have made their own choice
• Show results to students only after choice is closed - Only use this option if you have set the availability start and end date, otherwise it won't work.
• Always show results to students - Students see other responses even if they haven't answered themselves.

Privacy of results

• Publish anonymous results, do not show student names - This produces a simple bar graph of responses with no names.
• Publish full results, showing names and their choices - This produces a chart showing which students have responded to which choice.

NOTE - teachers always see which students have answered which choice, no matter the settings above.

Once you have a choice activity set up it is simple to use.

Students visit the choice activity, select the option they wish to answer, and click "Save my choice".

If they see anonymous results, they may see a bar graph like this:

You as the teacher would also see this bar graph, but you also have a link near the top right that says "View X responses" where X is the number of users/students who have answered the choice activity.

You will see all responses, who responded what, and have the option of deleting responses or downloading all responses in various formats.

The feedback activity module enables a teacher to create a custom survey for collecting feedback from participants using a variety of question types including multiple choice, yes/no or text input.

Feedback responses may be anonymous if desired, and results may be shown to all participants or restricted to teachers only. Any feedback activities on the site front page may also be completed by non-logged-in users.

Feedback activities may be used

• For course evaluations, helping improve the content for later participants
• To enable participants to sign up for course modules, events etc.
• For guest surveys of course choices, school policies etc.
• For anti-bullying surveys in which students can report incidents anonymously

In order to collect data, you need to add fields to your database.

It is best to plan out in advance exactly what information you wish to collect.

Field types

• Checkbox - tick list that allows multiple answers to be selected
• Date - a date
• File - allows the upload of a file (any file type)
• Latlong - latitude and longitude, global position, location
• Menu - drop down menu with the ability to select one option
• Multimenu - menu with the ability to make multiple selections
• Number - accepts only numbers entered into this field
• Picture - allows the upload of an image (png, jpg, gif)
• Radio button - list that allows only one option to be selected
• Text area - larger text area with full HTML editor
• Text input - a single line of text
• URL - a link to a website

Things that are automatically collected (don't need fields added):

• User - the logged in user who added the entry
• Date of entry - the date the entry was made
• Date of last update - the date the entry was last updated

Adding a field:

1. Go to the "Fields" tab when viewing your database
2. Under "Create a new field" choose the field type from the drop down menu.
3. Every field will ask for a Name and Description. These are arbitrary, make them something short you will associate with the data being collected (and the name and description can be the same thing).
4. Depending on the field type there may be other settings. Please see the link above to the MoodleDocs page for more information on each field setting.

Choose "Database" from the "Add an activity or resource" menu.

Name - Give your database a name

Description - Give your database a description. This will display at the top of your database.

Display description on course page - If enabled, the description above will be displayed on the course page just below the link to the activity or resource.

Approval required - If enabled, entries require approving by a teacher before they are viewable by everyone.

Allow comment on entries - This allows teachers and students to comment on database entries.

Entries required for completion - The number of entries a student is required to submit before the activity can be considered complete.

Entries required before viewing - The number of entries a student is required to submit before they can view entries from other students.

Note: If entries are required before viewing, the database auto-linking filter should be disabled. This is because the database auto-linking filter can't determine whether a user has submitted the required number of entries.

Maximum number of entries - The maximum number of entries a student is allowed to submit for this activity.

Available from and to is when the database may have entries added to it.

Read only from and to is when the database can still be viewed but can no longer have any entries added to it (or edited).

If you are feeding the entries of this database out using an RSS feed (either into another course or an external site), here you can determine how many entries are included in the RSS feed.

Grade category - This setting controls the category in which this activity's grades are placed in the gradebook.

Roles with permission to rate - To submit ratings users require the moodle/rating:rate capability and any module specific capabilities. Users assigned the following roles should be able to rate items. The list of roles may be amended via the permissions link in the administration block.

Aggregate type - The aggregate type defines how ratings are combined to form the final grade in the gradebook.

• Average of ratings - The mean of all ratings
• Count of ratings - The number of rated items becomes the final grade. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade for the activity.
• Maximum - The highest rating becomes the final grade
• Minimum - The smallest rating becomes the final grade
• Sum - All ratings are added together. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade for the activity.

If "No ratings" is selected, then the activity will not appear in the gradebook.

Scale - If ratings are enabled, choose which scale will be used.

Restrict ratings to items with dates in this range - If enabled, only entries made between the dates specified can be rated. If entries are made outside of those times, they cannot be rated.

The Calendar block displays the following events:

• Site (event viewable in all courses - created by admin users)
• Course (event viewable only to course members - created by teachers)
• Groups (event viewable only by members of a group - created by teachers)
• User (personal event a student user can create - viewable only by the user)

The course completion status block shows what has been done towards completing the course. The student and teacher will both see this block. The "More information" link will lead to a more detailed report. This report can have some interactive elements in the form of check boxes for the student and teacher.

The "Course completion block" must be added to the course in order to see the "Course completion status" block.

Student view

The student can see their progress in the course by looking at the content of the block or clicking on the "More details" link to see a report.

The student, if required, can mark an activity as completed on the course's homepage.

Course completion report, student view, 1 course:

Course completion report, student view, 2 courses - teacher needs to mark complete:

Course homepage, students has completed lesson, needs to self complete quiz:

Teacher view

This block shows the status for each student. It is also the place where the teacher (or others) can mark the course as complete.

Note: The course completion status block will only appear if completion tracking criteria are set in Settings > Course administration > Completion tracking. This is what the teacher sees:

Course completion report, teacher view, 1 course:

Course completion report, teacher view, showing prerequisite:

Turn editing on.

On the left, under any existing blocks, is the "Add a block" menu.

Select the block you would like to add from the menu (if you do not see the block you want to add here, it may already be on your course page! Some blocks can only be added once to a course).

Once the block has been added it will appear on the left at the bottom. From here you can move (drag and drop) the block to a new location, and configure the block (using the cog icon).

If you want to embed a Youtube video on Moodle, you can do that by letting Youtube itself provide you with the code you need:

• Go to the Youtube video you are keen to share.
• Click on the 'Share' link under the video

• Click on 'embed'
• Copy the code provided to you
• On Moodle, in the editor, click on the <> symbol to open the HTML editor.
• Paste the code
• Select update
• Save changes.

The lesson activity module enables a teacher to deliver content and/or practice activities in interesting and flexible ways. A teacher can use the lesson to create a linear set of content pages or instructional activities that offer a variety of paths or options for the learner. In either case, teachers can choose to increase engagement and ensure understanding by including a variety of questions, such as multiple choice, matching and short answer. Depending on the student's choice of answer and how the teacher develops the lesson, students may progress to the next page, be taken back to a previous page or redirected down a different path entirely.

A lesson may be graded, with the grade recorded in the gradebook.

Lessons may be used

• For self-directed learning of a new topic
• For scenarios or simulations/decision-making exercises
• For differentiated revision, with different sets of revision questions depending upon answers given to initial questions

The quiz activity enables a teacher to create quizzes comprising questions of various types, including multiple choice, matching, short-answer and numerical.

The teacher can allow the quiz to be attempted multiple times, with the questions shuffled or randomly selected from the question bank. A time limit may be set.

Each attempt is marked automatically, with the exception of essay questions, and the grade is recorded in the gradebook.

The teacher can choose when and if hints, feedback and correct answers are shown to students.

Quizzes may be used

• As course exams
• As mini tests for reading assignments or at the end of a topic
• As exam practice using questions from past exams
• To deliver immediate feedback about performance
• For self-assessment

Quiz settings

Building Quiz

Using Quiz

Quiz reports

Quiz FAQ

Video Resources:

1. The video below shows how to add and remove Quiz questions - click the square box icon in bottom right corner to make it play in full screen.

2. This video shows how to check your students quiz results

Back to activities

A SCORM package is a collection of files which are packaged according to an agreed standard for learning objects. The SCORM activity module enables SCORM or AICC packages to be uploaded as a zip file and added to a course.

Content is usually displayed over several pages, with navigation between the pages. There are various options for displaying content in a pop-up window, with a table of contents, with navigation buttons etc. SCORM activities generally include questions, with grades being recorded in the gradebook.

SCORM activities may be used

• For presenting multimedia content and animations
• As an assessment tool

The wiki activity module enables participants to add and edit a collection of web pages. A wiki can be collaborative, with everyone being able to edit it, or individual, where everyone has their own wiki which only they can edit.

A history of previous versions of each page in the wiki is kept, listing the edits made by each participant.

Wikis have many uses, such as

• For group lecture notes or study guides
• For members of a faculty to plan a scheme of work or meeting agenda together
• For students to collaboratively author an online book, creating content on a topic set by their tutor
• For collaborative storytelling or poetry creation, where each participant writes a line or verse
• As a personal journal for examination notes or revision (using an individual wiki).

How to edit a wiki:

1. Turn editing on

2. Click the wiki

3. Click the edit tab

4, Delete or Add the text you want to change.

5. To edit the table (ie add more rows), click the icon in the top left corner of the edit window, then click the 'table' icon

6. Click save

The workshop activity module enables the collection, review and peer assessment of students' work.

Students can submit any digital content (files), such as word-processed documents or spreadsheets and can also type text directly into a field using the text editor.

Submissions are assessed using a multi-criteria assessment form defined by the teacher. The process of peer assessment and understanding the assessment form can be practised in advance with example submissions provided by the teacher, together with a reference assessment. Students are given the opportunity to assess one or more of their peers' submissions. Submissions and reviewers may be anonymous if required.

Students obtain two grades in a workshop activity - a grade for their submission and a grade for their assessment of their peers' submissions. Both grades are recorded in the gradebook.

Back to activities

Templates are how the database looks on your Moodle page.

There are three main templates you need to worry about:

• List view
• Single entry view
• Add template

All others can be left on their default settings.

List view

This is the default view when people first arrive in the database activity. It shows multiple entries, usually stacked vertically one after the other. If there are a lot of entries in the database, and the entries are long, it may be worth making this a reduced view (with just a title and entry author) which can click through to the single entry.

Single entry view

This shows just a single database entry. It will contain all the information.

Add template

This determines what the page looks like when a student (or teacher) adds a new entry to the database. It will also contain all the possible fields for the participant to fill out, laid out in a way and order that makes sense.

The external tool activity module enables students to interact with learning resources and activities on other web sites. For example, an external tool could provide access to a new activity type or learning materials from a publisher.

For example, to Add Echo360 activity, you can select "Echo360' from the 'External too type' drop down menu:

The forum activity module enables participants to have asynchronous discussions i.e. discussions that take place over an extended period of time.

There are several forum types to choose from, such as a standard forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time; a forum where each student can post exactly one discussion; or a question and answer forum where students must first post before being able to view other students' posts. A teacher can allow files to be attached to forum posts. Attached images are displayed in the forum post.

Participants can subscribe to a forum to receive notifications of new forum posts. A teacher can set the subscription mode to optional, forced or auto, or prevent subscription completely. If required, students can be blocked from posting more than a given number of posts in a given time period; this can prevent individuals from dominating discussions.

Forum posts can be rated by teachers or students (peer evaluation). Ratings can be aggregated to form a final grade which is recorded in the gradebook.

Forums have many uses, such as

• A social space for students to get to know each other
• For course announcements (using a news forum with forced subscription)
• For discussing course content or reading materials
• For continuing online an issue raised previously in a face-to-face session
• For teacher-only discussions (using a hidden forum)
• A help centre where tutors and students can give advice
• A one-on-one support area for private student-teacher communications (using a forum with separate groups and with one student per group)
• For extension activities, for example ‘brain teasers’ for students to ponder and suggest solutions to

Forum settings

Using a forum

Forum FAQ

The glossary activity module enables participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary, or to collect and organise resources or information.

A teacher can allow files to be attached to glossary entries. Attached images are displayed in the entry. Entries can be searched or browsed alphabetically or by category, date or author. Entries can be approved by default or require approval by a teacher before they are viewable by everyone.

If the glossary auto-linking filter is enabled, entries will be automatically linked where the concept words and/or phrases appear within the course.

A teacher can allow comments on entries. Entries can also be rated by teachers or students (peer evaluation). Ratings can be aggregated to form a final grade which is recorded in the gradebook.

Glossaries have many uses, such as

• A collaborative bank of key terms
• A ‘getting to know you’ space where new students add their name and personal details
• A ‘handy tips’ resource of best practice in a practical subject
• A sharing area of useful videos, images or sound files
• A revision resource of facts to remember

Glossary settings

Using Glossary

Glossary FAQ

The HotPot module allows teachers to distribute interactive learning materials to their students via Moodle and view reports on the students' responses and results.

A single HotPot activity consists of an optional entry page, a single elearning exercise, and an optional exit page. The elearning exercise may be a static web page or an interactive web page which offers students text, audio and visual prompts and records their responses. The elearning exercise is created on the teacher's computer using authoring software and then uploaded to Moodle.

A HotPot activity can handle exercises created with the following authoring software:

Hot Potatoes (version 6)

• Qedoc
• Xerte
• iSpring
• any HTML editor