How Do I?

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. 

See Moodle as a Student

Requesting a Sample Student

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. 

 

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.

1. Visit moodle.mlc-wels.edu.

2. Log in to your MLC account.

3. Choose the new course that you want to import content into.
     * If you do not see your new course, please check that your course is activated. Courses can take several hours to appear in Moodle after they've been activated. 

4. From the course home page, click on the settings gear and then Import. 

Image from Gyazo

5. Search for the course you'd like to import content from. The best option is usually the Master Copy of your course. 
     * Some courses, especially those taught every semester like Doctrine and BHL, have so many course sites that the one you're looking for might not appear in the search. If that is the case, search for the Course Short Name.

6. After you've located the correct course, click the radio button to the left of the course name and then choose Continue. 

7. If you want to import the entire course, click Jump to final step. If you only want to import some of the content, further directions can be found below.

8. Wait for the course content to import. Depending on the amount of information being imported, it can take a minute or two. After the import has been completed, click Continue. 
     * There might be some messages under the Technical information and warnings section after the import has been completed. These messages are normal and can be ignored. 

9. After clicking Continue, the course home page will appear with the course content from the previous course, and the import is completed.

Important Notes

 

Importing Specific Items

1. Follow steps 1-6 above.

2. After the proper course has been chosen in step 6, 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

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.

Moodle-Groups.png

 

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

  1. Log in to Moodle and enter your course site.
  2. Click Grades in the top menu.
  3. From the dropdown menu, click Export.
  4. On the next screen, from the "Export as" menu, choose MLC Portal.
  5. Click Export Grades.
  6. A new tab will open with the Portal website. If prompted, log into Portal using your MLC username and password.
  7. 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.
  8. Click Submit on the bottom of the page.

Other Information

Exporting the Gradebook

Adding a TA

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

Instructions

  1. After logging into Moodle, click on the course your TA needs access to. 
  2. From the menu on the left, click Participants.
  3. On the next screen, click the Enroll users button on the right side of the screen.
  4. In the Select users search box, start typing the MLC email address of your TA.
  5. When the TA appears in the list, click on their name and their profile information will appear above the dropdown menu. If this is not the person you want to add, click the X and search again.
  6.  After the correct person has been selected, click the bottom dropdown menu next to Assign role and choose either Teaching Assistant (non-editing) or Teaching Assistant (editing). 
    • The Teaching Assistant (non-editing) role can grade assignments, but cannot edit anything within the course.
    • The Teacher Assistant (editing) role can grade assignments and can also edit course materials, including uploading files and adding new activities. 
  7. After choosing the role, click Enroll selected users and cohorts.

 

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

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
Additional Notes

Set Course to View

By default, all courses are initially hidden from student view. Instructors need to make courses viewable for students to access them.

Instructions

  1. Log into Moodle and click on the course that you'd like to make viewable.
  2. Make a quick count of how many topics/sections you have in your course. This will help in step #7.
  3. From the course homepage, click on the gear menu in the upper right corner and choose Edit Settings.
  4. Under the General heading, locate the dropdown menu to the right of Course visibility.
  5. Choose Show.
  6. Scroll down and click on Course Format.
  7. If the number of sections is set to 0, select the number you counted in step #2. 
  8. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Save and display.
  9. Scroll to the bottom of your course page. If you see orphaned activities, go back into Edit Settings (step #3) and choose a larger number.

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Notes

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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 peopleicon.png 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.

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 left, click Participants.
  3. If the resulting list is blank, the course has not been populated with students yet. Courses are typically populated with students 2-3 weeks prior to the start of the course. This process is automatic.

 

Moodle Enrollment Process

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
Notes

 

    Here's an interactive tutorial

    ** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

    10 STEPS

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

    Step 1 image

    2. Enter your Username

    Step 2 image

    3. Enter your Password

    Step 3 image

    4. Click Login

    Step 4 image

    5. Click Scheduling

    Step 5 image

    6. Click Schedule Browser

    Step 6 image

    7. Click Your Name

    Step 7 image

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

    Step 8 image

    9. Click E-mail All (Personal)

    Step 9 image

    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.

    Step 10 image



    Next step

    Go Live

    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

    ** Best experienced in Full Screen (click the icon in the top right corner before you begin) **

    7 STEPS

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

    Step 1 image

    2. Click Edit settings

    Step 2 image

    3. Scroll down and click Course format

    Step 3 image

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

    Step 4 image

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

    Step 5 image

    6. Scroll down and click Save and display

    Step 6 image

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

    Step 7 image



    Next step

    Go Live

    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. Activate each course section via the MLC Portal. 
    2. Request a meta-course through this form.
    3. That's it :) 

    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

    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
    Closing the Course

    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
     
    If the Discussion Forum is NOT Using Groups

    Moodle-Groups.png