Course Workflow for Online Courses - Updated February 2021

Summary of Changes

• You will see a course appear in your Moodle list that starts with MASTER COURSE, followed by the course number and your last name. This is where you will make your course edits going forward. 

  • If you’re teaching this summer, you should see your master course by the end of the week. If you are teaching in future semesters, it will be a little longer. 

  • By having a master course, you’ll be able to make edits at any time, even if the new semester hasn’t been set up yet. You can also make adjustments to the master course while you’re teaching if you find things that need to be edited. 

  • Having a master course also makes it much easier for us to update any support links (like library information) for your course.

  • The master course also allows for sharing between instructors without compromising student information and makes it easier to know which course you should/shouldn’t mark for deletion.

• In addition to the content from the most recent offering of your course, you’ll also see some additions and changes to the course layout. (If you do not see these changes to your master course right away, they’ll be coming over the next few months.)

  • A course banner has been added to the top of the course page. It also will appear on the student dashboard. If you notice any errors in your course banner, please let me know! They have been designed to show different locations at MLC -- a small way to give them a feel for the campus.

  • A “Course Resources” topic has been added to your course with links to program-specific information, Moodle, and Library resources. You may add to this topic if you’d like, but please do not delete anything from it without contacting me first. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the topic, please let me know. 

  • An “Advanced Notifications” block has been added to the right-side menu. This is where course survey announcements and any planned Moodle outages will be posted.

  • A “Your Instructor” block has been added with your information. If you need help editing it, please let me know.

  • In a few cases, course content has been rearranged to accommodate these changes. All previous courses are still intact if you want to refer to them. If you have any questions about what was moved, please let me know.

New Workflow Steps

1. Make your course edits in the master course. This includes any edits to content, updating the syllabus, etc. The only thing you will not be able to do is to assign specific students to groups and set due dates. 

2. Approximately 1 week before the start of the semester, copy course content to the current semester’s course page and set the page to view. At this time, you’ll be able to assign specific students to groups if needed. Assistance will be provided for this step.

3. Teach the course! Throughout the semester, continue to update the master course as needed. Please note that changes to the master course will not appear automatically on the current semester’s course page. 

4. Repeat.