Moodle FAQs

• The Description section can be useful for detailing any office hours.
• The User Picture section is where you can upload an image file (which will be cropped an resized to a 100×100 pixel square).

You can change the settings in your profile so that you only get one email per day from forum posts.

• • • Click on your name in the top-right hand corner of the screen.
    • Select  Preferences then Forum Preferences and choose from the options listed.
    • To receive no emails then select No Digest from the first dropdown menu

To change the assignment notification you need to change the message settings

• Under My profile choose Messages > Messaging and then choose how you want to be notified for Assignments (i.e.have them unticked).

1. Click on your name in the top right hand corner of the screen and select Profile from the drop down menu.
2. In the User Details section click on Edit profile.
3. Scroll down to the Timezone option. If it needs to be changed click on it and select your nearest location from the list. For UK time it should be set to Server timezone (Europe/London).
4. Save your changes by scrolling to the bottom of the screen and pressing Update profile.

Double check: Have you selected the correct timezone?   You may wish to double check, since an incorrect timezone may lead to incorrect deadlines being set. Your profile change will only alter the dates / times provided by the system, and only you will be able to see them in this format.  If you are working in a different timezone, you can double-check you have applied the correct UK timings by reverting to the ‘Server timezone (Europe/London)’ setting.

• Navigate to your Moodle course.
• Click Calendar (from underneath the Dashboard link on the left menu).

• Click New Event button on the top right of the calendar.
• Complete the relevant details for your event and click Save.

Note that if you click the ‘Show more’ button you have the option to include ‘repeating’ events.  As ‘recurring’ Zoom meetings only appear as one event in the Moodle calendar you could add the remaining meetings to the calendar using this option (if they are repeated weekly).  Select ‘Repeat this event’ and enter the number of weekly repeats you would like, before saving. You can view all events across all Moodle courses by visiting Home > Dashboard > Calendar.

Moodle Boards enables a post-it board activity for students. This is a collaborative activity where the teachers sets out a number of columns with optional names and then participants can add contributions to the columns. Students posts are anonymous (however, it is recommended to inform students that Teachers will be able to access creation details, such as names).

For further information see our Moodle Board Overview and FAQs page.

Watch the 6-minute video below for instructions on how to enable a Board on your Moodle page. It will also show you how participants can add posts.

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How to set Default Enrolment Duration: You can set a Default enrolment duration for participants that are Manual enrolments and/or Self enrolment (Student). The Default enrolment duration does not affect SAMIS enrolled students. The Default enrolment duration will remove participants once they have reached the allocated enrolment time on the unit. Setting the default enrolment duration may limit the number of manual and self-enrolled participants you will need to manually remove from your unit. To set the Default enrolment durations:

1. Click on Participant.

2. Then click on the cog for the dropdown menu.

3. From the dropdown menu choose Enrolment methods.

4. Click on the cog in the row you wish to alter the enrolment duration.
5. Choose the Default role you would like to set the enrolment duration for. Then enable the Default enrolment duration and choose the enrolment duration. You can also choose to notify participants when their enrolment time expires. When you are happy with your changes click Save changes.
   
6. Once a student is unenrolled (in this way or any other) you will no longer see any of their assignment submissions. If you want to access those submissions, you can re-enrol the student and as long as the group feature is not in use for the unit, the assignment will reappear.

To manually unenrol an individual or group of users please watch the guidance video below. It is recommended to check your course enrolment before the start of each semester and remove any manually enrolled users no longer needed.

If the Short code for the Moodle page is a SAMIS unit or programme code, then the corresponding cohort of students will be automatically enrolled (assuming they are correctly registered in SAMIS). This is called the “default mapping”. 

You may additionally add a bespoke mapping, enabling additional (non-default) cohorts to be added to the course. These can be removed at any point if required.

• Locate the SAMIS Integration block and press the Manage Mappings link

At this point, a new window will open up.  This window will display a list of all of the courses that you have Teacher access to.  Identify the course to which you wish to add additional cohorts, and expand the reference to it by pressing the expand  icon.

• Press the Add cohort button (the following options will display)
• 
• Enter the relevant cohort details (e.g. LT00021, 2021/2, S1) including your preferred un-enrolment method, as described below. Ensure the Period code is correct or no students may be found.

• Sync	If a cohort is registered on SAMIS for a unit for Semester 1 or Semester 2 then they have access to the Moodle course for a defined duration. To see the Unenrol Date, you can select “View Enrolled Users” after adding the cohort.
  Specified Date	You can select any future date when the cohort will be automatically unenrolled from the Moodle course.

• Press the Create Mapping button. 
• This mapping will save automatically, though you may wish to press the Save Changes button for peace of mind.
• Repeat the process to add more than one user defined mapping.

Note:  Programme mappings can also be created (enabling Teachers to enrol a specific year group/all year groups as required)

On occasion you may want to immediately synchronise enrolments in your Moodle course with the information held in SAMIS, rather than waiting for a scheduled automatic sync. To do so follow the instructions in the screencast below: 

1. Navigate to the Moodle page you wish to unenrol from.
2. On the Moodle page go to Participant.
3. Look for the row with your name.
4. At the end of  the row click on the trash can icon.
5. Click Unenrol to confirm.

Student

1. Navigate to the Moodle page you wish to unenrol from.
2. On the Moodle page go to the pink cog at the top right hand corner.
3. Click on Unenrol me from “unit name”.
4. Click Continue to confirm.

Non-editing Teacher As a Non-editing Teacher you are unable to unenrol yourself from the Moodle course. You will need someone with Teacher access to remove you from the unit.

• for staff so that they can understand student behaviour and analyse how students are working with the online content
• for students so that they can keep track of their progress

Find out more about Using Reporting Tools to Explore Online Activity

• Set expectations early.
• Communicate frequently and clearly.
  • Use the announcement forum to broadcast information
  • Other forums support students asking questions to you and to peers
• Consider using Moodle’s Video feature to introduce new topics etc (max 2 mins in length)

• Give learning interventions clear descriptions outlining expectations (e.g. duration, dates etc.)
• Consider to what extent you’ll use synchronous communication you want to have: this could be a set time for Forum discussions in Moodle, or a chat/video based Meeting with Teams.
• Consider timed release of activities (read the Restrict Access by Date instructions)

1. Online Moodle Grading – see overview video and our Moodle course instructions

• Works in the browser to allow annotation/inline commenting on scripts.
• To support maths, other symbols, calculation, diagrams etc, it is easiest to mark up the script (e.g. insert a C1 comment for calculation comment 1, S1 for style/grammatical comments etc) and then attach a supporting file with all the comments summarised (you can also use annotation tools but works best on touch screens and can be tricky).

2. Moodle Offline Grading- see video and our Moodle course instructions

• Download all scripts to your local machine (if you select Download in folders, each student’s work will be downloaded into a folder for each student).
• In terms of feedback, you can edit/markup their submission (using a more powerful pdf editor than Moodle’s annotation tools).
• Supplementary files placed in the students folder will also be uploaded as feedback to them (this can also support scripted assessment of programming projects).

3. Rubrics and Marking Guides see video and Moodle course instructions

• Rubrics allow you to assess against a set of performance indicators (and award a fixed mark for each one, i.e. comment 4 must map to 4 and not a range of marks) – selecting the performance indicator can feedback to students on generic positive points and areas to improve (there is also space for free comments too).
• Marking guides, have a number of criteria (similar to rubrics), but allow a free comment for each (and any marks up to maximum for that criteria to be awarded).
• Both approaches support standardisation of marking and also give a clear structure for the feedback.

4. Mix and Match + other strategies

• These approaches aren’t exclusive to one another. For example the coded marking  (e.g. C1-type comments etc) could be used for online/offline/marking guides (one could also distribute a general version of the coded marking feedback sheet to all students separately on Moodle).
• There are also lots of other genetic feedback strategies one can use inside Moodle. For example: feedforward/student engagement with feedback  – e.g. instead of detailed feedback on whole piece, ask for student to redraft/correct/identify small number of highlighted issues: Moodle allows for resubmission and you provide detail comments on the selected improved parts.
• The suitability of these strategies will be dependent on the context of the assessment (formative/summative), the assessment aims and also the nature of the submission.