How Do I?

• Activate My Course
• See Moodle as a Student
• Uploading a File from Google Drive
• Set Course to Hide
• Import Course Content
• Remove Course Sections from a Meta-Site
• How Students Can Contribute Files or Links
• Adding a Link to a Webpage in your Moodle Course
• Use Groups in a Discussion Forum
• Turning In Grades
• Adding a TA
• Permanently Deleting Old Courses
• Course Surveys
• Set Course to Hide/View
• View Class Roster
• Initial Communication with Students
• Fixing Orphaned Activities
• Using a Meta-Course
• Add Course Sections to a Meta-Site
• Edit Multiple Due Dates
• Open a Course for One Student
• Fix the "Not part of a Group" Error
• Show/Hide Course Content

Activate My Course

Courses need to be activated before they appear in Moodle. You may activate any course that you are listed as the instructor for.

Instructions

1. Visit portal.mlc-wels.edu
2. Log in to your MLC account by clicking the Login button in the top right corner. Use the same username and password as you do for Moodle.
3. From the Scheduling tab, choose Moodle Courses. 
4. Click the Activate button next to the name of the course you'd like to activate. 
5. The Activate button will disappear and a message indicating the course has been activated will take its place. 

• Activated courses are deployed to Moodle on a schedule and may take up to 24 hours to appear in your Moodle course list. 
• If your course does not appear after 24 hours, please contact Rachel Feld.

See Moodle as a Student

Requesting a Sample Student

• Contact Rachel Feld to request a sample student account.

Enrolling a Sample Student

 

Uploading a File from Google Drive

Set Course to Hide

At the conclusion of a course or the semester, courses should be hidden from student view to protect copywritten material.

Instructions

1. Log into Moodle and click on the course that you'd like to make viewable.
2. From the course homepage, click on the gear menu in the upper right corner and choose Edit Settings.
3. Under the General heading, locate the dropdown menu to the right of Course visibility.
4. Choose Hide.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Save and display.

Import Course Content

Course content from previous offerings can be imported for reuse. The entire course can be imported or just selected parts. 

11 STEPS

Importing a Whole Course

If something is not appearing correctly in your course, please do not import your course again. This will create a duplicate of everything in your course. First, try adjusting your course section numbers. If that doesn't fix the problem, please contact support.

Here's an interactive tutorial

https://www.iorad.com/player/2410797/Import-Course-Content

12 STEPS

1. The first step is to open your Moodle Dashboard and click on the course for the current semester (the one you want to import content into)

2. Click More

3. Click Course reuse

4. Click Import

5. Scroll and click Search courses

6. Type the course number of the course you want to import

7. Click Search

8. Scroll and click to select the course you want to import

9. Click Continue

10. If you want to import all of the course content, scroll and click Jump to final step

If you only want to import part of the content, follow the other tutorial

11. Click Continue

You can safely ignore all technical information and warnings

12. That's it. You're done.

Important Notes

• An extra Announcements discussion forum will appear that should be deleted. 
• If orphaned sections appear, please adjust the number of sections in the course.

Importing Specific Items

1. Follow steps 1-9 above.

2. After the proper course has been chosen in step 9, use the checkboxes to mark what kind of material you'd like to import into the course. Include activities and resources is the most common option.

3. Use the checkboxes on the next page to indicate which specific materials you want to import. By default, all the materials are checked. Use the Select All/None options at the top to quickly check or uncheck the boxes. Then choose the individual items to import. 
     * If you are not able to click on a specific box, look above it for a category header in bold. Check that category header to choose the items underneath it.

4. Click Next.

5. Confirm your choices on the next screen. If they are correct, choose Perform import. You can also choose Previous to go back and choose different items.

6. Continue with steps 8 and 9 above.

Remove Course Sections from a Meta-Site

Meta-courses can be reused from one semester or year to the next by removing the sections that are attached from the previous semester and then attaching the sections for the new semester. 

Instructions

1. If you have not previously used a meta-site, please see these instructions.
2. Log into Moodle and enter the meta-site.
3. Click on the Participants tab on the left menu.
4. Click on the Gear in the upper right corner and choose Enrollment methods. 
5. From the resulting list, locate the section names from previous semesters.
6. Click the trash can to the right of the course section you want to remove.
7. On the resulting page, verify you have chosen the correct section and click the blue Continue button. 
8. Repeat steps 5-7 until all previous sections have been removed. Do not remove Manual enrollments or Guest access.

How Students Can Contribute Files or Links

If you wish to have students contribute to your Moodle site, it is possible, but not very intuitive.   This method allows students to post files and links without altering access rights and permissions.

 

Adding a Link to a Webpage in your Moodle Course

Nearly anything with a web link can be shared to your Moodle course page.

Instructions

• Log into Moodle and enter your course site.
• Click the Gear in the upper right corner and choose Turn Editing On.
• Scroll to the course section where you want the link to be. Click Add an activity or resource.
• On the pop-up window, scroll to the bottom of the list. Choose URL and click Add.
• On the next screen, you'll see a few text boxes. You must fill in the top two.
  • Name: what students will see on the Moodle course page.
  • External URL: the link you want students to visit. It is easiest to copy and paste this.
• Scroll to the bottom and click Save and return to course.

Use Groups in a Discussion Forum

Groups can be used in a Discussion Forum to limit the number of posts an individual student interacts with. This can be especially helpful in courses with a large number of students.

 

Using Separate or Visible Groups

Instructions

1. First, you need to set up groups within the course. 
2. After groups have been set up, you need to set the discussion forum to use groups. This can be done either from the Discussion Settings or the course home page.

Method #1 - Discussion Settings

1. Either add a new discussion forum or turn editing on and choose Edit settings from the forum's edit menu to edit an existing forum. 
2. From the settings page, scroll down to Common module settings. Click the title to expand the menu if the options are not visible.
3. Next to Group mode, choose the group setting you want for the forum. 
4. If you have set groupings in your course, an option for choosing the grouping will appear.
5. After you have chosen the group settings, scroll to the bottom of the page and click one of the Save buttons.

Method #2 - Course Home Page

1. Turn editing on within the course.
2. Next to each discussion forum, a small person icon should appear. Hovering the mouse over the icon will indicate which group mode the forum is currently set to.
3. Click the icon to cycle through the 3 group settings. See the image below for what each icon represents.

Removing Groups

If a student is unable to post to a discussion forum and gets an error about not being in a group, likely groups have inadvertently been set within the discussion forum. Follow these instructions to remove the group setting from the discussion forum. This can be done either from the Discussion Settings or the course home page.

Method #1 - Discussion Settings

1. Turn editing on in your course and choose Edit settings from the forum's edit menu. 
2. From the settings page, scroll down to Common module settings. Click the title to expand the menu if the options are not visible.
3. Next to Group mode, choose No groups. 
4. After you have chosen the group settings, scroll to the bottom of the page and click one of the blue Save buttons.

Method #2 - Course Home Page

1. Turn editing on within the course.
2. Next to each discussion forum, a small person icon should appear. Hovering the mouse over the icon will indicate which group mode the forum is currently set to.
3. Click the icon to cycle through the 3 group settings. See the image below for what each icon represents.

 

Turning In Grades

At the end of each semester, grades need to be reported for each student. Grades are reported on Portal by following one of the methods below.  

Manually Submitting Grades

1. Visit portal.mlc-wels.edu and log in with your MLC username and password.
2. Select Grades from the top menu and click on Enter Grades.
3. Click on the name of the course you want to enter grades for and a listing of your students should appear.
4. Next to each student's name, select the appropriate letter grade.
5. Click Submit on the bottom of the page.

Importing Final Grades to Portal from Moodle

• Log in to Moodle and enter your course site.
• Click Grades in the top menu.
• From the dropdown menu, click Export.

• On the next screen, from the "Export as" menu, choose MLC Portal.

• Click Export Grades.
• A new tab will open with the Portal website. If prompted, log into Portal using your MLC username and password.
• The listing of students will be populated with letter grades based on their grade in Moodle. You can make adjustments to the grades as needed.
  • Be sure to check that Moodle has rounded the way you want to round. Moodle calculates to more decimal places than are shown by default, which can impact which letter grade is imported to Portal.
• Click Submit on the bottom of the page.

Other Information

• Grades are due by the date listed on the MLC faculty/staff calendar or the Graduate Faculty Handbook.
• You do not need to enter all grades at the same time.
• Once you submit a grade for a student, you cannot change it yourself. Instead, you need to fill out a Change of Grade Form and send it to the MLC Records office. If you have any questions about this, please contact the MLC Records Office at (507)-354-8221.
• After you have submitted grades, you can inform your students that they can view their final grade on Portal. They should follow these instructions to view their grade.

Exporting the Gradebook

• It is a good idea to export your gradebook from Moodle to an Excel spreadsheet so that the data is saved in case you decide to delete the course site.
• To export the gradebook, please do the following:
  • Enter your course site.
  • Click Grades from the left menu.
  • From the dropdown menu, choose Export to Excel Spreadsheet.
  • Scroll to the bottom and click Download.
  • Move the downloaded gradebook file from your download folder to another folder on your computer.

Adding a TA

A Teachers' Assistant (TA) can be added to courses to assist with various instructional duties.

Instructions

https://www.iorad.com/player/2415641/Add-a-TA

10 STEPS

1. The first step is to open the course and click Participants

2. Click Enrol users

3. Click Select users

4. Type the username/email address of your TA

5. Click the student's name

Note: Many students have similar names. Please be careful when choosing the student. The email address is the best unique identifier.

6. Click to the side to close the search box

7. Click in the Assign role drop-down menu

8. Select Teaching Assistant - Grading or Teaching Assistant - Editing

Grading allows your TA to enter grades, but not adjust course content. Editing gives your TA the same course content editing options that you have as the instructor.

9. Click Enrol users

10. That's it. You're done.

Important Notes

• You can view and edit your TA's role from the Participants list. Click the pencil to edit or remove their role.
• Follow the steps above for each additional course your TA needs access to. 
• If working with separate groups within your course, make sure your TA is also a member of those groups.

Permanently Deleting Old Courses

Most online instructors do not want to delete a course site right after they have taught it since they might want to refer back to it the next time they teach the course. However, after teaching a course several times, several previous course sites will have accumulated, and it is appreciated if you mark the oldest ones for deletion.

Instructions

• Access your course in Moodle.
• Select Edit settings from the gear icon in the upper-right (or the Administration block if available) to open the Edit Course Settings window.
• In the Course full name box, add the word Delete in front of the course number so Delete is the first thing in the box.   
• i.e. Delete EDT1001 01: Digital Literacy (201617 2)
• Scroll to the bottom and select Save and display. 

Rachel Feld will periodically search in Moodle for courses that begin with the word Delete and will permanently delete them from Moodle. You can also email Rachel and let her know you've marked some courses for deletion so that they're removed more quickly.

Caution: Once a course is deleted, it is erased and cannot be retrieved. 

Course Surveys

A common end-of-course survey is conducted at the conclusion of all online courses in order to gather valuable feedback for course improvement. The survey instructions are sent out to your students by Rachel Feld via the Announcement Forum in your course. The survey is conducted via the MLC Portal, where you will be able to view a compilation of the survey results.  

Accessing Results

• Use this link to access the survey area of MLC's Portal.
• Log in to the Portal with your Moodle username and password.
• If you’re not prompted to log in, the login area is in the upper right.
• Select the survey for your course and the results should appear.

Additional Notes

• It can be helpful for you to add additional encouragement to your students to complete the survey.
• Once the survey is completed, the results are shared with the appropriate person(s) in the MLC administration and are available for the instructor to view via the MLC Portal. 
• The survey questions were shared with all online instructors at some point in time. If you would like a new copy of the survey, simply contact Rachel Feld. 
• You are welcome to create your own survey and administer it in addition to the common survey.

Set Course to Hide/View

By default, all courses are initially hidden from student view. Courses are automatically made visible to students 1 week prior to the beginning of the semester. If you wish for your course to be hidden after the 1-week mark, follow the instructions below. 

Instructions

https://www.iorad.com/player/2415651/Set-Course-Visibility

4 STEPS

1. The first step is to open your course and click Settings

2. Next to Course visibility, choose show or hide.

If show is selected, all students, instructors, and TAs can see the course on their Moodle dashboard. If hide is selected, only instructors can see the course on their Moodle dashboard.

3. Scroll down and click Save and display

4. That's it. You're done.

Notes

• You can check if your course is hidden or shown by looking at your dashboard. Courses that are hidden say that they are hidden underneath the course name.

• After setting your course to view, you might end up with orphaned activities, making it look like content has disappeared. See Fixing Orphaned Activities to remedy this issue.
• Online instructors are encouraged to make their courses visible to students a few days prior to the start of the semester so that students can become familiar with the course layout and content.
• At the end of the semester, courses should be hidden from student view to protect copywritten material.

View Class Roster

Class rosters are available to view prior to the semester via Portal or during the semester via Portal or Moodle. 

Instructions for Viewing the Roster in Portal

1. Visit the MLC Portal by clicking Portal in the top menu of your Moodle page or by going to portal.mlc-wels.edu.
2. If you are not automatically logged in, click the Login button near the top right corner and use your Moodle username and password to log in.
3. After logging in, click Scheduling and choose Schedule Browser. 
4. Click your name.
5. Scroll down below the course schedule and click the blue people icon to the left of the course name.
   • If you do not see any courses in the schedule, you likely need to switch the semester being shown. Click the semester name on the right side underneath the gear menu and choose a different semester.
     • The summer semester is semester 3.
6. Your course roster will be displayed on the resulting page.
   • For further directions on emailing your students, please see Initial Communication with Students.

Instructions for Viewing the Roster in Moodle

1. After logging into Moodle, click on the course whose roster you want to view. 
2. From the menu on the top, click Participants.
3. If the resulting list is blank, the course has not yet been populated with students. Courses are typically populated with students 4 weeks prior to the start of the course. This process is automatic.

• • Both the Portal and Moodle rosters will be updated as new students enroll in the course. 
  • If a student drops a course, that change takes place once the information is changed in the database, and the database syncs with Moodle.

Moodle Enrollment Process

• When students enroll in an MLC course, they are automatically enrolled in the corresponding Moodle course. Instructors and students do not need anything to enroll in Moodle courses. 
• Enrollments appear in Moodle 4 weeks prior to the start of the semester. Any enrollment changes made after the 4-week mark will appear in Moodle the next time the database and Moodle sync, which happens numerous times a day. 
• If a student drops a course via the MLC Records Office, the roster change will automatically take place in Moodle.
• Enrollment changes are not instantaneous. They can take up to 24 hours to appear. For the most accurate enrollment, view your course roster in Portal.

Initial Communication with Students

For online courses, please contact your students about two weeks prior to the start of the semester, following the guidelines below.

Initial Email Communication

• Access your course roster in Portal.
• Click the blue Email all (Personal) link. Your email program should open with the student-preferred email addresses populated in the BCC box.
  • For information on how to make Gmail your default email handler in Google Chrome, please see this MLC Knowledge Base article.
  • If you have difficulty accessing your course roster and/or email addresses, please let the MLC Office of Continuing Education know at continuinged@mlc-wels.edu.
• In your initial email, please:
  • Welcome your students to the course
  • Mention the date when the course will begin.
  • Attach a copy of the course syllabus.
  • Mention the required textbook information, and any other information you think they would like to know.
  • Inform them when you will make your course visible in Moodle so they can look around at the preliminary course information.
  • Ask them to reply to your email message so that you know they received it.
• If you have some students that have not responded after several days, please contact them by phone to make sure they are receiving the information. Online students appreciate personal contact from the course instructor. If you still do not receive a response, please contact the Office of Continuing Education.

Notes

• When viewing the class roster, you can also click on individual students to view their address, phone number, etc.
• Emailing (messaging) students directly from within Moodle uses whatever email address is currently listed in their Moodle profile, which might not yet be their preferred email address. Students are instructed to update their email address in their Moodle profile during the online orientation for new students.

Here's an interactive tutorial

https://www.iorad.com/player/2111287/Initial-Email-Contact---Online-Course

10 STEPS

1. The first step is to go to portal.mlc-wels.edu and click Login

2. Enter your Username

3. Enter your Password

4. Click Login

5. Click Scheduling

6. Click Schedule Browser

7. Click Your Name

8. Scroll down to the bottom of your schedule and click the blue people icon.

9. Click E-mail All (Personal)

10. The email addresses should populate into a new email from whatever email client you typically use.

If it's not the right email address (i.e. it's not your MLC email address), copy and paste the email addresses into a new email from your MLC account.

Fixing Orphaned Activities

After importing and opening up a course, sometimes activities appear as orphaned. Please follow these directions to fix the issue.

Instructions

1. Log in to Moodle as usual and click on the course.
2. Click on the gear in the upper right corner and choose Edit Settings.
3. Scroll down and click on the blue heading Course Format.
4. Next to the second option, Number of sections, choose a number bigger than what is currently there. Many courses have 8 topics, but it depends on how you have organized your content. If you remember how many sections your course had, choose that number. If not, take your best guess -- the number can be changed again if needed.
   • Number of sections refers to the number of topics in your course. Depending on how your course is designed, this is likely the number of weeks in the semester or units in your class.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Save and display.
6. Check to see that all your course content is displayed/no longer orphaned. If not, the course likely had more sections. Repeat steps 2-5 as necessary.

---

Here's an interactive tutorial

https://www.iorad.com/player/2111278/Fixing-Orphaned-Content

7 STEPS

1. The first step is to open your course and click the gear icon.

2. Click Edit settings

3. Scroll down and click Course format

4. Scroll down and click the dropdown by Number of Sections.

5. Select a number larger than what is currently highlighted.

6. Scroll down and click Save and display

7. Check to see if all of your course sections are visible. If not, repeat the process with a bigger number.

Using a Meta-Course

Some MLC courses have several sections of the same course. These can be combined into a single course, called a meta-course. Using a meta-course eliminates the need for posting/creating content in multiple locations for multiple sections.

Instructions

1. Request a meta-course through this form.
2. That's it :) 

• The individual sections will still appear on your dashboard, but you can safely ignore them. Do all updating, grading, etc. in the meta-course.
• Meta-courses cannot be created until the single sections are created in Moodle through the database. This happens approximately 6 weeks before the start of each semester.

Add Course Sections to a Meta-Site

Meta-courses can be reused from one semester or year to the next by removing the sections that are attached from the previous semester and then attaching the sections for the new semester. 

Instructions

1. If you have not previously used a meta-site, please see these instructions.
2. If you are reusing a meta-site from a previous semester, please remove the existing course sections before continuing. 
3. Activate each course section via the MLC Portal. Continue with the next steps once the sections appear in Moodle. This can take up to 24 hours.
4. Log into Moodle and enter the meta-site.
5. Click on the Participants tab on the left menu.
6. Click on the Gear in the upper right corner and choose Enrollment methods. 
7. From the Add method dropdown menu, choose Course meta link.
8. From the top Link course dropdown menu, search for the course name of the first section you want to add. Pay careful attention to the section, school year, and semester to ensure you choose the right section. If the search window won't disappear after you select the proper course, press the Escape button.
9. From the bottom Add to group dropdown menu, choose Create new group. This will allow you to separate some assignments and activities by section. 
10. Click the blue Add method at the bottom.
11. Repeat steps 5-10 until you've added all your sections to the meta-site.

Edit Multiple Due Dates

The Edit Dates report lets you review and update due dates, cut-off dates, and other timed events for multiple assignments, activities, or resources all on one screen. This feature is especially helpful if you’re reusing a previous course.

Instructions

• • Log into Moodle and select your course from the Dashboard.
  • Click Reports on the top green menu.
  • Click Dates on the resulting screen.
  • Click the drop down menu by Activity Type to filter your view by activity.
  • Click your course sections to expand the content of each section, or click Expand All to view everything.
  • The date options for each course item will be displayed under each item. Make adjustments as needed.
  • When you’re done adjusting the date, click the blue Save changes button. 

Open a Course for One Student

In general, courses should be hidden after they are completed. Sometimes, a student might need access to a closed course if they have an incomplete or are studying for their comprehensive exam. Instead of setting the course to view, which opens it up for all students, follow the directions below to open the course for an individual student. The access should be removed when the student no longer needs the content.

Instructions

Opening the Course

• • • Log into Moodle and click on the course you want to make visible to the student.
    • From the course home page, click on Participants in the left hand menu.
    • In the list, locate the student who needs access to the course.
    • In the Roles column, click the pencil icon next to "Student".
    • Click the down arrow to see the drop-down menu choices and choose Single Viewer.
    • Click the save icon 

Closing the Course

• • • Log into Moodle and click on the course you want to make visible to the student.
    • From the course home page, click on Participants in the left hand menu.
    • In the list, locate the student who needs access to the course removed.
    • In the Roles column, click the pencil icon next to "Student".
    • Click the x next to Single Viewer.
    • Click the save icon 

Fix the "Not part of a Group" Error

In discussion forums, sometimes a student will get an error that says they cannot post because they are not part of a group. There are two ways to address this problem.

If the Discussion Forum IS Using Groups

• • Add the student to one of the groups being used in the discussion forum by following these instructions.

 

If the Discussion Forum is NOT Using Groups

• • Turn on editing in your course if it isn't already turned on.
  • Check the small blue icon next to the forum's edit button. Make sure that it's a solid blue person icon without a circle. This is the "No Groups" icon in the image below.
  • If it is a different icon, either the "Separate Groups" or "Visible Groups" icon in the image below, click the icon until it is a solid blue person.

Show/Hide Course Content

When content is not ready for students to view, you can hide whole sections or individual items from student view. You can also use the bulk edit feature to hide course content.

Instructions

https://www.iorad.com/player/2415696/Change-availability-of-course-items

10 STEPS

1. The first step is to open your course and click to turn on Edit mode

2. Scroll to the item you want to hide/show and click the three dots

3. Click Hide on course page to hide the item or Show on course page to show the item

4. Once hidden, you can also adjust the availability by clicking Hidden from students and choosing Show on course page

5. To change availability for multiple items, click Bulk actions near the top of the page

6. Click the boxes to Select the items you want to show/hide

7. After you've selected the items you want, click Availability at the bottom of the page

8. Click Hide or Show, depending on what you want to do

9. Click Apply

10. That's it. You're done.