MOODLE BASICS FOR FACULTY rev. September 2013
North American University
MOODLE BASICS FOR FACULTY
rev. September 2013
Getting Started with Moodle .......................................................................................................... 5 What is Moodle? ......................................................................................................................... 5 Browser Requirements ............................................................................................................... 5 Logging into Moodle ................................................................................................................... 5 My Home Page ............................................................................................................................ 6 Editing Your Profile ..................................................................................................................... 7 Navigating in Moodle .................................................................................................................. 7 Moodle Course Basics ..................................................................................................................... 8 Course Screen ............................................................................................................................. 8 Turn Editing On ........................................................................................................................... 9 Navigation Block ....................................................................................................................... 10 Settings Block ............................................................................................................................ 11 Switch role to… ......................................................................................................................... 12 Student Enrollment ....................................................................................................................... 12 Recover Student’s Old Grades .................................................................................................. 14 Unenroll a student .................................................................................................................... 14 Self Enrollment – Enrollment Key ............................................................................................. 15 Grading Policy ................................................................................................................................ 16 Setting your Grading Policy ....................................................................................................... 16 Categories and Items ................................................................................................................ 19 Aggregation Types .................................................................................................................... 21 Sample Grading Policy – Gradebook Setup .......................................................................... 24 Building and Editing Your Course .................................................................................................. 31 Turn Editing On ......................................................................................................................... 31 Importing Activities or Resources ............................................................................................. 31 Creating Your Course Summary ................................................................................................ 33 Editing Section (Week/Topic) Labels ......................................................................................... 35
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ADD A RESOURCE… ................................................................................................................... 36 ADD AN ACTIVITY… ................................................................................................................... 39 Assignments .................................................................................................................................. 41 Assignment Types ..................................................................................................................... 41 Assignment Settings .................................................................................................................. 42 Assignment Type Specific Settings ............................................................................................ 45 Advanced Uploading Of Files ................................................................................................ 45 Online Text ............................................................................................................................ 47 Upload a single file ............................................................................................................... 47 Offline Activity ...................................................................................................................... 48 How do students submit their assignments? ............................................................................ 48 Viewing and grading submitted assignments ........................................................................... 49 Chat ............................................................................................................................................... 51 Chat Settings ............................................................................................................................. 52 Choice ............................................................................................................................................ 53 Choice Settings .......................................................................................................................... 54 Forum ............................................................................................................................................ 56 Forum Settings .......................................................................................................................... 57 Glossary ......................................................................................................................................... 60 Glossary Settings ....................................................................................................................... 61 Adding a glossary entry ............................................................................................................. 63 Questionnaire ................................................................................................................................ 65 Adding Questions ...................................................................................................................... 67 Quiz ............................................................................................................................................... 68 STEP 1 -‐ Adding a Quiz activity .................................................................................................. 69 STEP 2 – Building Quiz ............................................................................................................... 76 Ordering and Paging in a Quiz .............................................................................................. 78
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Assign Points per Questions ................................................................................................. 79 Adding Random Questions ................................................................................................... 80 Previewing Questions ........................................................................................................... 81 Question Bank ............................................................................................................................... 82 Question Bank Settings ............................................................................................................. 83 Forum ............................................................................................................................................ 84 Forum Settings .......................................................................................................................... 86 Grouping Students ........................................................................................................................ 91 Why use groups? ....................................................................................................................... 92 Group Levels ............................................................................................................................. 92 Groupings .................................................................................................................................. 93 Selecting Grouping in Activity ................................................................................................... 95 Grade Export ................................................................................................................................. 96 Course Backup ............................................................................................................................... 97 Course Restore .............................................................................................................................. 98
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GETTING STARTED WITH MOODLE WHAT IS MOODLE? Moodle is an Open Source Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). You can access Moodle from anywhere on PCs, MACs, or any mobile devices. It helps educators create interactive online courses without having to know web design and development. Moodle provides for a wide range of course activities including: Forums, Journals, Quizzes, Resources, Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, and Workshops. The extent to which these are used will vary from course to course and with each instructor.
BROWSER REQUIREMENTS Minimum browser: Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 8, Safari 5, Google Chrome 11, Opera 9.
LOGGING INTO MOODLE You can access NAU Moodle website from NAU main page: 1. Go to www.northamerican.edu. 2. Click on the Courses link under Faculty/Staff tab. 3. Enter your credentials, same as your NAU computer login username and password, and then click Login button. You can also go directly to Moodle login page: http://www.northamerican.edu/online/login/index.php
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MY HOME PAGE My Home is a customizable "dashboard" page for providing users with links to their courses and activities within them, such as unread forum posts and upcoming assignments.
1. Course Overview: The course overview block shows a list of all courses in which a user is enrolled/has an assigned role. Instructors can see their courses in this block. It also shows any announcements, assignments, or events under each course name. 2. Navigation Block: The navigation block appears on every page of the site. It contains an expanding tree menu, which includes My Home, Site Pages, My Profile, and Courses. 3. Settings Block: The settings block allows you to edit your profile and your blogs. 4. Customize this page: This button allows a user to manage blocks (edit, add, delete, etc.) on My Home page. When editing is turned on, symbols for manipulating a block appear in the header.
: Moves the item up or down in relation to other activities : Allows you to edit the block : Deletes the block : Hides the block from viewer (or shows the item if it is already hidden)
5. My Private Files: This allows a user to manage their private files. Uploaded files may be downloaded, renamed, moved or deleted by clicking the icon next to the file. After making any changes, remember to click 'Save changes' button.
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6. My Courses: The Courses block lists and allows navigation between all of the courses in which the logged in user is a participant (as instructor and/or student). The block title shows as "My courses" and allows one-‐click access to a course's home page.
EDITING YOUR PROFILE Every user has a personal profile in Moodle. Profile information includes some information drawn from your NAU account and other information that you can edit. A user may view their own full profile by clicking My profile > View profile in the Navigation block. To edit your profile information:
1. 2. 3. 4.
Go to My Home, or click your name in the upper right corner of the screen. Click My Profile Settings in the Settings block Click on Edit Profile Edit your profile information. Required fields in the profile form must be filled, such as City/Town, Country, email, etc. 5. Click Update Profile at the bottom of the page when you are done.
NAVIGATING IN MOODLE Users can use Navigation block to navigate in Moodle. The Navigation Bar (breadcrumb trail) is another useful way to show the user's path to their current location. It appears horizontally across the top of the page, and below your course title.
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MOODLE COURSE BASICS COURSE SCREEN
To use moodle, users must be comfortable with its flow and should know about its screen elements.
Navigation: The navigation bar (breadcrumb trail) appears near the top left corner of the Moodle screen. You can also use Navigation block to navigate through your course content. • •
Click the ‘course name’ to return back to the main page. Click My Home to return back to your Moodle main page. 8
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Logout: Click the Logout link in the upper right-‐hand corner of the browser.
Blocks: The left hand column in your course site is home to Blocks. These blocks contain, navigation links, links to tools setting options, and information that you and your students will use in your course. Course Content: The main contents of a Moodle course are located on the right hand column called Weekly Outline. It includes all resources, activities, assignments, and other items in sections.
TURN EDITING ON The top of the page features a ‘Turn Editing on’ button. This action will reveal features for adding activities and resources in the content area of the course, and allow you to work with side blocks. You can turn editing off again by pressing the button.
You will see these icons frequently when editing is on: : the edit icon lets you alter/update whatever resource or activity it is next to. : the help icon will popup a relevant help window. : the duplicate icon allows you to copy an activity or resource within your course. : the open-eye icon means an item is visible to students. It will close when you click on it.
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: the closed-eye icon means an item is hidden from students. It will open when you click on it. : the right icon is used to indent course elements (there is also a left icon). : the move icon allows course elements to be placed anywhere. : the move here icon appears when moving a course element. Click into the box to re-locate your item.
: the up/down arrows allow you to move course sections up or down. : the "crosshairs" move icon allows you to move items or sections by dragging and dropping. : the delete icon will permentantly delete something from the course. : the groups icon allows you to change between no groups or separate/visible groups.
: the roles icon allows you to assign roles locally in the item. : This icon is used to show only the selected section.
: This icon is used to show all sections in a course. : the highlight icon allows you to highlight a section as current.
NAVIGATION BLOCK This block contains a link to your profile as well as a link that displays all course participants. The Reports link offers a variety of information about how students are interacting with your site. Activity logs are especially useful as they can tell you if a student has viewed a link or attempted a quiz.
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SETTINGS BLOCK Most of the links in the course administration menu are only visible and available to instructors of the course and are contextual. Students see a course administration block with just two links -‐ Profile and Grades. The course administration menu system allows instructors to manage Course settings, student and instructor enrollments and their groups, view the course grade book menu (create custom grading scales), access the Question bank, perform backups, restores and imports. Turn editing on -‐ turns editing on or off Edit settings – An instructor can change course settings. Users – to see/edit users and permissions • • • •
•
Enrolled users -‐ An instructor can see all enrolled users, their roles, manually enroll a student, or remove a student. Enrollment methods – You can set/edit your enrollment key, and edit other enrollment methods. Groups -‐ An instructor can organize users into groups within the course or within particular activities. Permissions -‐ to see/set permissions o Check permissions -‐ provides a method to view all capabilities for a selected user based on their role assignments. These capabilities determine whether or not the selected user is allowed to perform associated tasks within the course. Other users -‐ Users can be assigned a role in a course without enrolling. This means they can carry out tasks relevant to their permissions but they don't appear in the Participants list.
Filters -‐ Filters can be used to add links, insert multimedia players, and convert Mathematical expressions or emoticons into images and more. Grades – shows the grade book window. It shows the scores given by each activity, grading settings, categories, reports, scales, import, and export features. Backup -‐ A course can be saved with some or all of its parts by using the course backup. Restore -‐ A course backup file (.mbz) may be restored from within any existing course for which you have permission. Import -‐ Course activities and resources may be imported from any other course that the instructor has editing permissions in. Question bank -‐ allows an instructor to create, preview, and edit questions in a database of question categories. • •
Questions – shows the question settings window. Categories – allows to add/edit question categories. 11
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Import – imports questions from other sources. Export – questions may be exported from question bank in different formats.
SWITCH ROLE TO… ‘Switch role to’ link allows the instructor to switch temporarily to another role in Settings Block Switch role to so that they can see what the course would look like to someone with that role. For example, an instructor can see what students see on the course page. You can go back to your normal role by clicking ‘Return my normal role’ link under the Settings block.
STUDENT ENROLLMENT A course instructor can see enrolled students, enroll a new student, edit roles, and delete students. To see enrolled users: 1. Click Enrolled Users under Settings block.
2. Enrolled user view will pop up. All users, their roles, last access, enrolment methods, and other edit options will be available. Enrolled users can be assigned to groups, have grades, can submit assignments, are visible in the list of participants, can subscribe to forums, can participate in choices, only enrolled users are true participants in course.
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3. To enroll a user, click Enroll users button at the top right or bottom left of the page.
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4. Browse or search for the user. Make sure that ‘Student’ is selected on ‘Assign roles’ dropdown menu. 5. Click the ‘Enrol’ button opposite the user. The user will indent in the list and the ‘Enrol’ button will disappear, indicating that the user is enrolled. 6. When you have finished, click the 'Finish enrolling users' button (or simply close the ‘Enrol’ users box).
RECOVER STUDENT’S OLD GRADES When you add a user manually, you have the possibility to 'recover old grades'. If a student is removed from the course, his/her grades will get lost. To recover the old grades, ‘Recover user’s old grades if possible’ must be checked under Enrolment Options. The grades will reappear after the student is enrolled.
UNENROLL A STUDENT You can manually remove/unenroll a student from your course. Click Enrolled users link under Settings block, then click the X on the Enrollment method corresponding to the student(s) that you want to remove from your course.
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If you delete a student form your course list accidently, you can follow the above steps to enroll him/her back. But make sure that ‘Recover user’s old grades if possible’ option is checked.
SELF ENROLLMENT – ENROLLMENT KEY Enrolment methods provide a course tutor with different methods of getting students onto a course. In order to manage the enrolment methods that are active on your course you will need to go to the course page and from there look for Settings > Course administration > Users > Enrolment Methods. A table at the top of this page will show which methods are currently added to your course, and a drop down list at the bottom of the page can be used to add new enrolment methods (Figure x).
Manual Enrolment: This enables students to be enrolled manually in Settings > Course administration > Users > Enrolled users by course instructors. It allows the instructor of the course to manage individual or collective enrolment to their course themselves. Ensure the "eye" is opened for manual enrollment. Self Enrolment: This allows users to enroll themselves into a course, either directly or via an enrolment key, course password. The instructor does not then have to manually add students. Ensure the "eye" is opened for ‘Self enrollment (student)’. Enrollment Key: A course enrollment key is one method of restricting self enrollment to a smaller group. The default setting is not to set a key and allow anyone to enroll themselves into the course.
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To set an enrollment key: 1. In the course settings block, click Users>Enrolment methods. Make sure self enrolment is enabled (has its eye open) and then click the edit icon on the right:
2. Add your enrolment key in the box provided. (Click Unmask to see what you are typing.)
3. Click ‘Save changes’. The instructor must provide the enrollment key to the students, so that they can enroll the course. If the enrollment key for a course "gets out" and unwanted people self enroll, simply change the key. Currently enrolled students will not need the key again. Unenroll the unwanted users via ‘Enrolled users’ in the course settings block. Changing or placing a key does not impact currently enrolled students.
GRADING POLICY SETTING YOUR GRADING POLICY Depending on your instructional goals and preferred work process, Moodle provides you with a variety of options for managing grades during the semester. Moodle will aggregate the score for the entire course. Weights can be applied to individual elements or categories of elements, such as all quizzes. The aggregated scores will be a percentage of the total. You can choose to display scores as letter grades based on the ranges given in the Letter Grade settings in the Gradebook. 16
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The Grades link (or gradebook) in the Course administration menu shows the scores given by each activity. Modules push their scores to grades.
All the grades for each student in a course can be found in the course gradebook, or 'Grader report' in Settings > Course administration > Grades. The grader report collects items that have been graded from the various parts of Moodle that are assessed, and allows you to view and change them as well as sort them out into categories and calculate totals in various ways. When you add an assessed item in a Moodle course, the gradebook automatically creates space for the grades it will produce and also adds the grades themselves as they are generated, either by the system or by you.
Along the top of the grader report are several rows: first the course, then the category, and then the columns for each graded activity, e.g. Assignment, Quiz, Lesson. Any activities settings which were left "uncategorized" will appear in the general category which is named after the course by
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default (any category name can be changed). You can add a row showing the range of possible scores by selecting 'Show ranges' in 'My report preferences’. There are three ways that the categories can be displayed: • • •
Grades only -‐ without the category totals column Collapsed -‐ Category total column only Full view -‐ grades and the aggregates (the totals column for the category)
Each section has a small icon immediately to the right of its name. Clicking this will cycle through these display modes for that category. + goes to grades only view, o goes to full view and -‐ goes to collapsed view. You can sort by any column. Click the symbol near the top of a column to sort by that column. This will change the symbol to a single down arrow. Clicking again will sort lowest-‐to-‐highest, changing the symbol to an up arrow. The arrows will toggle between these two states until you click on a different column. The student name columns do not have the symbol. Clicking on either the first or last name will cause the report to sort. Highlighting scores that are either adequate or unacceptable in red and green: Turn editing on and click on the edit icon in the controls cell at the top of the column. You can then (maybe need to click 'show advanced') see the option to enter a 'grade to pass'. Once set, any grades falling above this will be highlighted in green and any below will be highlighted in red. Note that the highlighting will not show if the Grader report is viewed in the editing mode.
Horizontal scrollbar: A horizontal scrollbar enables instructors to scroll grades in the grader report.
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Mouse-‐over tooltips: Each grade cell in the table has a tooltip indicating the user and grade item to which the grade belongs. Filtering the gradebook by groups: If you change the course settings Group mode to Visible groups or Separate groups a drop-‐down menu will appear in the gradebook to allow you to filter your students by groups. Editing: Editing anything in the gradebook refers to editing the grades only and none of the available operations bear any relationship to editing the main course page, i.e. the appearance of your course page cannot be influenced by anything you do in the gradebook. The "Turn editing on" button functions separately from the main course one, so editing can be on in the gradebook, but simultaneously off when you switch back to course view. This is because editing grades and editing the course page are separate capabilities. Roles such as 'non-‐editing instructor' may only have one or the other. Altering the grades: You can click Turn editing on button at the top right to show an edit icon next to each grade. Clicking on the icon will bring up the editing screen for that grade which will allow you to set the grade, its written feedback and a number of other attributes. Alternatively, you can choose 'Quick grading' and 'Quick feedback' in 'My preferences' to make the report appear with editable boxes containing each grade, so you can change many at once. This capability can be a real time saver, but make sure to save at reasonable intervals lest pages of changes be lost. If you make changes here, they are then shown highlighted to indicate grades that have been manually changed. Hiding columns or individual grades: Turning on editing then clicking the 'Show show/hide icons' link will give you the familiar show/hide eye icon next to each grade and at the top of each column. For more information, read about grade hiding. Recalculating: If you change any part of an assessment e.g. alter the maximum grade for one of the questions in a quiz, you may find that the columns do not yet reflect the change you have made. Click Turn editing on twice to force the gradebook to re-‐check.
CATEGORIES AND ITEMS Grades can be organized into grade categories. A grade category has its own aggregated grade that is calculated from its grade items. There is no limit to the level of nesting of categories (a category may belong to another category). However, each grade item may belong to only one category. Also, all grade items and categories belong to at least one, permanent category: the course category. Category samples: assignment, quiz, discussion, midterm, final, project To add a category: 1. Select ‘Categories and items’ tab from the gradebook dropdown menu.
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2. Click the "Add category" button near the bottom of the page.
3. Give the grade category a meaningful name, and then select grade category settings as appropriate.
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4. When you have finished, click the "Save changes" button.
AGGREGATION TYPES The aggregation dropdown menu lets you choose the aggregation strategy that will be used to calculate each participant's overall grade for a grade category. The different options are explained below.
The grades are first converted to percentage values (interval from 0 to 1), then aggregated using one of the strategies below and finally converted to the associated category item's range, between Minimum grade and Maximum grade. An empty grade is simply a missing gradebook entry, and could mean different things. For example, it could be a participant who hasn't yet submitted an assignment, an assignment submission not yet graded by the instructor, or a grade that has been manually deleted by the instructor. Caution in interpreting these "empty grades" is thus advised. Mean of grades: The sum of all grades divided by the total number of grades.
Item/max
Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100
0.7
Quiz 2: 20/80
0.25
Quiz 3: 10/10
1.0
(0.7 + 0.25 + 1.0) / 3 = 0.65 0.65 à 65/100
Weighted mean of grades: Each grade item can be given a weight, which is then used in the arithmetic mean aggregation to influence the importance of each item in the overall mean. In simple terms, the category "total" will be equal to the sum of the scores in each grade item, these scores being multiplied by the grade items' weights, and that sum being finally divided by the sum of the weights, as shown in this example.
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Item/max
Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100 weight 10
0.7
Quiz 2: 20/80 weight 5
0.25
Quiz 3: 10/10 weight 3
1.0
(0.7*10 + 0.25*5 + 1.0*3)/18 = 0.625 0.625 à 62.5/100
Simple weighted mean of grades: The difference from Weighted Mean is that weight is calculated as Maximum grade for each item. 100-‐point assignment has weight 100, 10-‐point assignment has weight 10.
Item/max
Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100
0.7
Quiz 2: 20/80
0.25
Quiz 3: 10/10
1.0
(0.7*100 + 0.25*80 + 1.0*10)/190 = 0.526 0.526 à 52.6/100
Mean of grades (with extra credits): Arithmetic mean with a twist. A value greater than 0 treats a grade item's grades as extra credit during aggregation. The number is a factor by which the grade value will be multiplied before it is added to the sum of all grades, but the item itself will not be counted in the division. For example: • • • •
Item 1 is graded 0-‐100 and its "Extra credit" value is set to 2 Item 2 is graded 0-‐100 and its "Extra credit" value is left at 0 Item 3 is graded 0-‐100 and its "Extra credit" value is left at 0 All 3 items belong to Category 1, which has "Mean of grades (with extra credits)" as its aggregation strategy
Item/max
Category: 1 -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Item 1: 20/100
40
Item 2: 40/100
40
Item 3: 70/100
70
20*2 + (40 + 70)/2 = 95
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Median of grades: The middle grade (or the mean of the two middle grades) when grades are arranged in order of size. The advantage over the mean is that it is not affected by outliers (grades which are uncommonly far from the mean).
Item/max
Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100
0.7
Quiz 2: 20/80
0.25
Quiz 3: 10/10
1
Median: 0.25, 0.7, 1.0 à 0.70 0.70 à 70/100
Lowest grade: The result is the smallest grade after normalization. It is usually used in combination with Aggregate only non-‐empty grades.
Item/max
Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100
0.7
Quiz 2: 20/80
0.25
Quiz 3: 10/10
1
Lowest: 0.25, 0.7, 1.0 à 0.25 0.25 à 25/100
Highest grade: The result is the highest grade after normalization.
Item/max
Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100
0.7
Quiz 2: 20/80
0.25
Quiz 3: 10/10
1
Highest: 0.25, 0.7, 1.0 à 1.0 1.0 à 100/100
Mode of grades: The mode is the grade that occurs the most frequently. It is more often used for non-‐numerical grades. The advantage over the mean is that it is not affected by outliers (grades which are uncommonly far from the mean). However it loses its meaning once there is more than one most frequently occurring grade (only one is kept), or when all the grades are different from each other.
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Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100
0.7
Quiz 2: 35/50
0.7
Quiz 3: 20/80
0.25
Quiz 4: 10/10
1.0
Quiz 5: 7/10
0.7
Mode: 0.7, 0.7, 0.25, 1.0, 0.7 à 0.7 0.7 à 70/100
Sum of grades: The sum of all grade values. Scale grades are ignored. This is the only type that does not convert the grades to percentages internally. The Maximum grade of associated category item is calculated automatically as a sum of maximums from all aggregated items.
Item/max
Category: Quiz -‐ Category Max: 100 Point value Calculation
Quiz 1: 70/100
70
grade total: 70 + 20 + 10 = 100
Quiz 2: 20/80
20
max total 100 + 80 + 10 = 190
Quiz 3: 10/10
10
sum of grades = 100/190
Extra Credit: When the "Sum of grades" aggregation strategy is used, a grade item can act as Extra credit for the category. This means that the grade item's maximum grade will not be added to the category total's maximum grade, but the item's grade will. Following is an example: • • • • • •
Item 1 is graded 0-‐100 Item 2 is graded 0-‐75 Item 1 has the "Act as extra credit" checkbox ticked, Item 2 doesn't. Both items belong to Category 1, which has "Sum of grades" as its aggregation strategy Category 1's total will be graded 0-‐75 A student gets graded 20 on Item 1 and 70 on Item 2
The student's total for Category 1 will be 75/75 (20+70 = 90 but Item 1 only acts as extra credit, so it brings the total to its maximum). Sample Grading Policy – Gradebook Setup Lets set up the gradebook categories to implement our grading policy.
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Scenario I Our grading policy: Category Mid-‐Term Exam
Weight 15%
Assignments
25%
Quizzes
15%
Participation
25%
Final Exam
20% TOTAL
100%
1. Click Grades link under Settings block
2. Click Categories and Items tab
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3. Select Full view to see all features
4. Select ‘Simple weighted mean of grades’ for aggregation next to the course name. It will be the main calculation method for the course.
5. Lets establish our categories. Click ‘Add category’ button.
6. Enter the category name, for example Quizzes. Select ‘Simple weighted mean of grades’ for Aggregation. Keep the Grade type as ‘Value. Maximum grade is the weight of the category. In this case, Quizzes category has 15% weight, so set the Maximum grade as 15, and then click ‘Save changes’ button. 7. Repeat the same process and enter the all categories. 8. Check the Max grade column to see if you set the weight correctly.
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Put a check next to ‘Aggregate only non-‐empty grades’ so that blank grades are not calculated as zeros—this will require you to enter a zero for missing or incomplete work if you want the zero to figure in.
9. Lets add our Mid-‐Term and Final Exam. If your mid-‐term and final exams will be paper-‐ based, but you want to enter grades to Moodle without publishing your exam questions, you need to add them as grade items. To add a grade item, simply click the ‘Add grade item’ button at the bottom of Categories and Items tab.
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10. Lets enter the grade item information: • enter Mid-‐Term-‐1 as item name, • set maximum grade to 100, • select the grade category as Mid-‐Term Exam, • and click Save changes button. • Repeat the same process to enter your mid-‐term exam-‐2, final exam, participation, and all other paper-‐based grade items.
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11. Here is our Categories and Items screen:
Max Grade is set to 100 for all our grade items, but the category total is equal to the weight of the category (%). ‘Simple Weighted mean of grade’ calculation method for a category: (Grade totals / Max grade totals) * Category total max grade For example, if a student gets 80 from Mid-‐term-‐1, 90 from Mid-‐term-‐2, so his Mid-‐Term category total will be: (80 + 90) / 200 * 15 = 12.75 out of 15 12. To add a new assignment, or quiz activity to your course, go to the main course page, and then click Turn Editing On. Within the required Week or Topic Block click on the Add Activity dropdown menu arrow and select the required assignment type. Adding an activity topic will be covered later on. Scenario II If we know in advance what all the graded course items are, and the available points per item are in proportion to each other (bigger items are worth more points), we don’t need to establish categories. We will use ‘Sum of grades’. Our sample grading policy:
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Grade Item Mid-‐Term-‐1
Point Grade Item 75 pts. Assignment-‐1
Point 15 pts.
Mid-‐Term-‐2
75 pts. Assignment-‐2
5 pts.
Quiz-‐1
10 pts. Assignment-‐3
10 pts.
Quiz-‐2
10 pts. Assignment-‐4
10 pts.
Quiz-‐3
10 pts. Assignment-‐5
10 pts.
Quiz-‐4
20 pts. Participation
40 pts.
Quiz-‐5
10 pts. Final Exam
200 pts.
TOTAL = 500 pts.
In this case, we don’t need to establish categories. We will use ‘Sum of grades’. Enter all your grade items, assignments, quizzes, and set the max grades as their point values.
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BUILDING AND EDITING YOUR COURSE TURN EDITING ON The Turn Edit On or Off option can be found as a link in the administration block or as a button at the top right of a course homepage. This option is only available to instructors of the course. Turn editing on allows instructors to change the appearance and functionality of the course. You will be allowed to add, update, move, and remove content. This feature will also allow you to add blocks to the main page of your Moodle course. You can turn editing off again by pressing the button or the admin block link again (both now renamed turn editing off).
IMPORTING ACTIVITIES OR RESOURCES If you already have an existing Moodle course and are teaching the same (or similar) course during the upcoming term, you can copy the contents of the existing course into your new course shell and then update the contents. 1. Click on the Import link In the Settings block
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2. Select the course you wish to import from, and then click Continue. If the course is not listed, use search option.
3. You will be presented with the "backup settings" page. Use the check boxes for import activities, blocks and or filters as types of items, which will show on the next screen.
4. Select the elements you want to include in the import in the Schema settings step.
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5. Review and click Perform import or click the cancel or previous buttons. The confirmation page will place green check marks and red marks next to the backup settings and include item list for you to review.
6. You should see the Import complete; click Continue to return to the course. You'll find your imported element in the same-‐numbered section where it appeared in its original course; to move it to a different section Turn Editing On and drag into place. Importing a quiz from course A to course B, will also add the questions to the question bank so you can use them in new quizzes.
CREATING YOUR COURSE SUMMARY To create your course summary;
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1. Turn editing on 2. Click on the Edit summary icon in the first section of ‘Weekly Outline’, which doesn’t have a title.
3. Enter the course title in the Summary text box. You can add any other text here that you wish to have permanently displayed on the course home page, such as a brief welcome message or course description.
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4. You can add image, edit your text, and check spelling, etc. by using the text editor.
5. Click Save changes button when you are done.
EDITING SECTION (WEEK/TOPIC) LABELS The very top of your course (the General section) and every topic or week contains a summary. This is a default label, which allows you to place information about the specific topic or week. It could be an introduction to the unit of study or a short summary of the weekly plan. Activities and resources are listed below this section.
Because the information you add to the summary appears as a label, it should be very short so that the course page doesn't become too long. If you find yourself wanting to say more than a
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sentence or two then consider adding a resource to this topic instead (for example the first activity might be a page called About This Topic). To edit your section summaries: 1. Turn editing on 2. Click on the Edit summary icon
3. To provide a custom section title in the Navigation menu uncheck the "Use default section name" and include the title in the 'Section Name' text box. If you leave the default section name the navigation menu will contain 'General' for the general section and either 'Topic 1', 'Topic 2', etc. for Topics format or the Week dates for Weekly format.
ADD A RESOURCE… A resource is an item that an instructor can use to support learning, such as a file or link. Moodle supports a range of resource types, which instructors can add to their course sections. In edit mode, an instructor can add resources via a drop down menu.
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Resources appear as a single link with an icon in front of it that represents the type of resource.
File: a picture, a pdf document, a spreadsheet, a sound file, a video file. You can upload your syllabus, presentations, etc. When you wish to share with your students a simple file such as a Word-‐processed document or slideshow (e.g. created in MS Word, PowerPoint, or Open Office) you use the File resource type. It allows you to upload and display a variety of resources on your course. How your students access them depends on your choices in File module settings. Note also that they will only be able to open your files if they have the appropriate software on their own computers. Enter the document name and description.
Click the Add button and the File picker menu will assist you in adding a file from your computer or a Moodle file repository.
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File picker:
Display Options:
▪
Automatic -‐ Make the best guess at what should happen (probably what is wanted 99% of the time).
▪
Embed -‐ Show the Moodle page with heading, blocks and footer. Show the title/description of the item and display the file directly in the page as well (good for images, flash animations, videos, PDFs).
▪
Force download -‐ user clicks on the file, then the web browser pops up with the 'where do you want to save this file' box.
▪
Open -‐ No Moodle heading, blocks, footer or description -‐ just show the file in the web browser (e.g. shows image, PDF, flash animation, taking up the whole browser window)
▪
In pop-‐up -‐ Same as 'Open', but opens a new browser window to show this file (without the Moodle heading, blocks, etc.) -‐ this browser window also does not have all the menus and address bar in it.
All of the above is true of items that can be displayed inside the browser directly (e.g. images, text files, PDFs (with plugin)). If the file cannot be displayed within the browser (e.g. word documents, without a suitable plugin, or other files that need to be loaded by an external
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program), then the pop-‐ups or frames, etc. will be created, but then the browser will take over and ask if you want to save the file. To summarize: • • • • •
Do you want Moodle to sort it all out for you? -‐ Automatic Do you want to force the user to save the file (or open it in a program on their desktop)? -‐ Force download Do you want to show the file as part of the Moodle page (images, PDFs, videos)? -‐ Embed Do you want to show the file in the browser, but without the Moodle page decorations (images, PDFs, videos)? -‐ Open Do you want that, but in a new window? -‐ In Pop-‐up
Folder: folders help organize files and one folder may contain other folders. IMS content package: add static material from other sources in the standard IMS format. Label: can be a few displayed words or an image used to separate resources and activities in a topic section, or can be a lengthy description or instructions. Page: the student sees a single, scrollable screen that an instructor creates with the robust HTML editor. URL: you can send the student to any place they can reach on their web browser. Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia or any other website.
ADD AN ACTIVITY… An activity is a general name for a group of features in a Moodle course. Usually an activity is something that a student will do that interacts with other students and or the instructor.
There are 13 different types of activities in the standard Moodle that can be found on the "add an activity" drop down menu.
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Assignments: Enable instructors to grade and give comments on uploaded files and assignments created on and off line Chat: Allows participants to have a real-‐time synchronous discussion Choice: An instructor asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses Database: Enables participants to create, maintain and search a bank of record entries Feedback: For creating and conducting surveys to collect feedback Forum: Allows participants to have asynchronous discussions Glossary: Enables participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary Lesson: For delivering content in flexible ways Quiz: Allows the instructor to design and set quiz tests, which may be automatically marked and feedback and/or to correct answers shown SCORM: Enables SCORM packages to be included as course content Survey: For gathering data from students to help instructors learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching Wiki: A collection of web pages that anyone can add to or edit Workshop: Enables peer assessment
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ASSIGNMENTS The assignment module allows instructors to collect work from students, review it and provide feedback including grades. Students can submit any digital content (files), including, for example, word-‐processed documents, spreadsheets, images, audio, and video clips. Assignments don't necessarily have to consist of file uploads. Alternatively, instructors can ask students to type directly into Moodle using an online text assignment. There is also an offline activity assignment that can be used to remind students of 'real-‐world' assignments they need to complete and to record grades in Moodle for activities that don't have an online component.
ASSIGNMENT TYPES There are 4 types of assignments:
Upload a single file: A student can upload a single file, such as a Word document, spreadsheet or anything digital. Multiple files can be zipped and then submitted. After learners upload their files in this arrangement, the instructor will be able to open the submission and then use the Moodle interface to assign a grade and offer comments as feedback. Advanced uploading of files: Options include multiple file submission, allowing students to type a message alongside their submission & returning a file as feedback. Online Text: This assignment type asks users to compose and edit text, using the normal editing tools. The online text assignment can be set up to allow learners to compose, revise and edit over time or such that the learner only has one opportunity to enter his or her response. Furthermore, with the online assignment, instructors can grade the work online and even edit and/or provide comments within the learner’s work. The online text assignment is ideal for journaling and composition work. Offline activity: This is useful when the assignment is performed outside of Moodle. It could be something elsewhere on the web or face-‐to-‐face. Students can see a description of the assignment, but can't upload files. Grading works normally, and students will get notification of their grades. Specifically, an instructor in a hybrid or blended environment (combination of face-‐ to-‐face and online instruction) may use the offline activity type of assignment to assign a project that the learner will physically present to the instructor at a face-‐to-‐face session. This
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arrangement allows the instructor to communicate the project expectations online while creating an entry for the project in the Moodle gradebook. In another example, consider the instructor who gives reading assignments or assigns problems for practice. These activities wouldn’t necessarily be turned in for a grade, but the instructor needs a tool for communicating the assignment details. The offline assignment, with its unique icon, could be used as a consistent visual cue for the learners; learners would come to know that they can always look for the assignment icon to see what work they need to complete.
ASSIGNMENT SETTINGS The following configuration options are available when creating or editing/updating any Assignment activity. Settings specific to each of the assignment types are detailed separately below. To add a new Assignment activity to your course, turn editing on. Within the required Week or Topic Block click on the Add Activity dropdown menu arrow and select the required assignment type. To edit an existing Assignment activity, select the Update icon against the relevant Assignment item. Alternatively, after logging into your course simply click on the name of the Assignment activity you wish to edit and then click the Edit Settings link under Assignment administration within the Settings block.
Assignment name: Give your Assignment a name (e.g. “Report on Topic 1 Content”). The title entered here will be the name that learners see in the course content area. Learners will click on this name to view the details of the assignment and, if applicable, submit their work. Description: The description of the assignment, which should include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the assignment, the form, in which it should be submitted, the grading criteria etc.
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Use this area to describe the assignment and explain what learners are expected to do to complete this task. The assignment description can be as brief or as detailed as you feel is necessary to meet the needs of your learners. However, it is to your benefit to provide as much detail and information as possible, especially at the start of the course while you are still establishing procedures. Generally, the more information you are able to provide here the fewer questions and problems your learners will have completing the task. The assignment description field can also be used to provide information or resources related to the assignment. An instructor, for example, could provide some literature, a video clip, an image, or a link to a webpage, and then ask the learners to use these materials in completing the task. Available from: The Available from setting prevents students from submitting their assignment before the shown date.
This option allows an instructor to set a day, month, year and time (24 hour clock) from which learners can begin to submit their assignments. Please note that this setting does not hide the activity from the learners. Instead, the learner will see the activity, be able to view the instructions and use any materials you have include in the description, but the learner will not be able to submit or complete the assignment until the Available from date. By default the Available from date is enabled (ticked) and is set at the day and time you selected Add Assignment. To disable this feature simply ensure the Enable checkbox is not marked. Due date: The Due date setting prevents students from submitting their assignment after the shown date. This option allows an instructor to set a day, month, year and time (24 hour clock) before which learners must submit their assignment. By default the Available from date is enabled (ticked) and is set at 7 days ahead of the day and time you selected Add Assignment. To disable this feature simply ensure the Enable checkbox is not marked. Notes on Date Settings: Both the Available from and Due dates are displayed for learners in the assignment details, but the Due date is also marked in the course Calendar as a visible reminder for participants and provides a link to the activity. Your use of the Available from and Due date settings will probably be dependent on the overall structure of your course. If you are facilitating an open ended course or a course with rolling enrolment, then you might find it easier to not apply the Available from and Due date settings.
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This arrangement will allow the learners to access the assignment according to their own schedule and progress within the course. Alternatively, if you are working within a more structured format or adhering to a timeline, the Available from and Due date settings are useful for keeping learners on schedule. Using the Available from setting will make it possible for learners to preview upcoming activities, while at the same time, prevent them from finishing the course in the first week and not returning for additional activities or information. Likewise, the Due dates help keep the learners from lagging too far behind and decrease the likelihood that the learner will become overwhelmed by having to complete several weeks worth of work at once. Assignments without a Due date will not appear on the My home page. Prevent late submissions: Setting Prevent late submissions to Yes will prevent learners from being able to submit this assignment after the Due date (where specified).
If you set Prevent late submissions to No, then learners can submit the assignment as long as the assignment is visible or accessible to them but their submissions will be marked as late. Grade: Specify the maximum grade or Scale to be applied to the assignment. If you will not be giving a grade for the assignment, choose No Grade.
Grading method: Select either Rubric (advanced grading form used for criteria-‐based assessment) or simple direct grading (entering a grade or scale item). Grade Category: Any custom Grade Categories that have been created within your site or course will be listed here and will be available for selection. Select the required Grade Category to add this assignment as a Grade item within this Category. Group mode: When course group mode is turned on, the group mode can be one of three levels: No groups, Separate groups or Visible groups.
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• •
•
No groups -‐ There are no groups and all students submit their assignments in one Assignment area. Separate groups -‐ Students submit their assignments within a separate Group based submission area and instructors/trainers can sort submissions by Group or view All Participants. Visible groups -‐ All students submit their assignment within a single Assignment area but may choose which Group to associate their submission with before uploading. Instructors/trainers can sort submissions by Group or view All Participants.
Groupings: Groupings is an Advanced setting. A grouping is a collection of groups within a course. If a existing grouping is selected from the dropdown list, students assigned to groups within the grouping will be able to work together within the group mode specified above. Visible: Choose whether to Show or Hide the assignment from learner view. A hidden assignment will be displayed greyed out on the main course page for those with instructor, creator, manager or admin type roles but invisible to students/learners. ID number: Setting an ID number provides a way of identifying the assignment for grade calculation purposes. If the activity is not included in any grade calculation then the ID number field can be left blank. The ID number can also be set in the gradebook, though it can only be edited on the activity settings page.
ASSIGNMENT TYPE SPECIFIC SETTINGS ADVANCED UPLOADING OF FILES The Advanced upload of files assignment type allows a learner to upload and edit multiple files to form their final submission while the assignment is open and accessible to students.
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Maximum size: This setting specifies the maximum size per file of each of the files that the students can upload as part of their submission. This maximum upload size may only be equal to or less than the course limit (which in turn may only be equal to or less than the site limit). Allow deleting: If enabled, students may delete uploaded files at any time before submitting for grading. Maximum number of uploaded files: The maximum number of files, which may be uploaded by each learner. As this figure is not displayed anywhere, it is suggested that it is mentioned in the assignment Description. Allow notes: If enabled, students may enter notes into a text area associated with the assignment. This text box can be used for communication with the grading person, assignment progress description or any other written activity. Hide description before available date: If enabled, the assignment description is hidden before the "Available from" date. Only the assignment name is displayed. Email alerts to instructors: If enabled, instructors receive email notification whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only instructors who are able to grade the particular assignment are notified. So, for example, if the course uses separate groups, instructors restricted to particular groups won't receive notification about students in other groups. Enable 'Send for marking' button: Where grading is enabled, the "Send for marking" button allows students to indicate to the instructor that they have finished working on an assignment. The instructor may choose to revert the assignment to draft status (if it requires further work, for example). Note: this means that the learner can no longer edit their submission (to do so would risk invalidating any work their assessor had done on their submission). If students regret their decision and wish to edit, they need to request that somebody with course editing access
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reverts them to Draft Status. This is also true if Send For Marking is never turned on and a submission is uploaded; the instructor must take steps to give the student a chance to resubmit. To revert to the draft stage or let a student resubmit, click on the assignment activity, then click on View # submitted assignments, in the upper right corner. On the page with the roster and their submissions, click Grade (or Update for students who have already been graded) for the student who should get to resubmit. When the new window opens, click Revert to Draft at the lower right, or click the X icon to delete their files. ONLINE TEXT The Online text assignment type allows a learner to compose and edit text on screen using the standard Moodle HTML Editor. The online text assignment can be set up to allow learners to compose, revise and edit over time or such that the learner only has one opportunity to enter his or her response.
Allow resubmitting: If set to Yes, students will be allowed to resubmit assignments after they have been graded (for them to be re-‐graded). This may be useful if the instructor wants to encourage an iterative process to assignment completion. Email alerts to instructors: If enabled, instructors receive email notification whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only instructors who are able to grade the particular assignment are notified. Comment inline: If enabled, the submission text will be copied into the feedback comment field during grading, making it easier to comment inline (using a different color, perhaps) or to edit the original text. Note that if the instructor makes inline comments and changes, the student's original submission is kept intact. If inline comments are not permitted, then the instructor will see the student’s submission with a separate area for making comments. Upload a single file The Upload single file assignment type allows a learner to upload a single file for their submission while the assignment is open and accessible to students.
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Allow resubmitting: If enabled, students will be allowed to resubmit assignments after they have been graded (for them to be re-‐graded). Email alerts to instructors: If enabled, then instructors are alerted with a short email whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only instructors who are able to grade the particular submission are notified. So, for example, if the course uses separate groups, then instructors restricted to particular groups won't receive any notices about students in other groups. Maximum Size: This setting specifies the maximum size per file of each of the files that the students can upload as part of their submission. This maximum upload size may only be equal to or less than the course limit. OFFLINE ACTIVITY The Offline Activity assignment is used when an activity or assessment process is performed outside of Moodle. It could be something elsewhere on the web or in person. Students can see a description of the assignment, but can't upload files. Grading works normally, and students will get notification of their grades. The Offline Activity Assignment Type doesn't currently have any specific settings.
HOW DO STUDENTS SUBMIT THEIR ASSIGNMENTS? With the Upload a single file and Advanced uploading of files assignments, students see a button "upload file" which takes them to the file picker where they locate their file(s).
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With the online text assignment, students see a button "edit submission" which takes them to the Text editor where they type their response.
VIEWING AND GRADING SUBMITTED ASSIGNMENTS When students have submitted their assignments, the instructor clicks the 'View x submitted assignments' link (where 'x' is the number of assignments submitted) at the top right of the assignment:
This takes them to the gradebook where they click "Grade" to view and grade the work:
With the Advanced Uploading of files assignment and Upload a single file assignment you have to download the students' files to view them -‐ see (3) in screenshot below. A grade can be entered in the dropdown box (2) and feedback can be written in the text box (1).
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With the Advanced Uploading of files assignment, you have the option to re-‐upload their file with your comments from the "response files" button:
With the Online text assignment, if you selected "comment inline" the students' work will appear in the feedback text box for you to write comments/corrections on:
Quick grading assignments: You may prefer to use "quick grading" by checking the box at the bottom of the submissions page. This enables you to quickly grade multiple assignments all on one page, rather than one by one in a new window.
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Simply add the grades and comments then when you're done, click "Save all my feedback" at the bottom of the page before you navigate. Otherwise you may lose all your feedbacks and grades.
CHAT The chat activity module allows participants to have a real-‐time synchronous discussion in a Moodle course. This is a useful way to get a different understanding of each other and the topic being discussed – the mode of using a chat room is quite different from the asynchronous forums.
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CHAT SETTINGS With the editing turned on, in the section you wish to add your chat, click the dropdown menu Add an activity and choose Chat.
Name of this chat room: Whatever you type here will form the link learners click on to enter the chat so it is helpful to give it a name that suggests its purpose -‐ for example "Student council discussion" or "Field trip planning meeting". Introduction text: Type the description of the chat here. Include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the chat. Next chat time: The day and hour of the next chat session. This will appear in the calendar so students know the schedule but it doesn't stop them accessing the chat room at any other time.
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If you don't want them in the chat room at other times, then hide it (with the eye icon) or use Conditional activities to restrict access. If you don't wish to schedule chat times then ignore this and choose from the next settings. Repeat sessions: There are four options for scheduling future chat sessions: • •
• •
Don't publish any chat times -‐ there are no set times and students are welcome to chat at any time. No repeats -‐ publish the specified time only-‐ only the Next chat time will be published. This could be used to schedule special events or meetings or simply to help learners identify a common time in which they can expect to find other learners in the chat room. At the same time every day -‐ Daily chats are useful for scheduling daily office hours or work sessions with learners. At the same time every week -‐ This setting will schedule a chat for the same day and time every week, which could be useful for instance for meeting and reviewing key ideas and questions related to the week’s content/assessment.
Save past sessions: Choose from the dropdown how many days to save, or save everything by selecting Never delete messages. If you have any concerns about discussions that might take place in your chat room, you may want to keep transcripts to check the suitability of what is discussed. If your learners are using the chat room to collaborate on a group project you won't want to delete the messages until the project is complete. Everyone can view past sessions: Decide here whether or not allow everyone to view past chat sessions. Instructors can always view past sessions.
CHOICE A choice activity is very simple – the instructor asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. It can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent.
Choice requires some preparation time for creating your activity and thinking about what results you would like to achieve, but your participation with activity itself is likely to be minimal.
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CHOICE SETTINGS
Name: A short name of the choice (e.g. "Favorite color"). This will be displayed on the course's homepage. Introduction text: Type the description of the choice activity here. It should contain the question that you want your students to answer. An example of the choice text could be "What is your favorite color?" Limits: Enabling this option allows you to limit the number of participants who can select each particular choice. When that number has been reached, no one else can select that choice.
If you unintentionally check this box but don't add a number then your students won't be able to select any choices and will get confused. Options: Specify here the options that participants have to choose from. They will become radio buttons when the choice is saved. You can leave other options blank or click "Add 3 fields to form" to add more options. If Limits is disabled, then any number of participants can select any of the options.
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Restrict answering: If you check this box you can set an "open and close" date for your choice. If you leave it, they can respond at any time. Display mode: Choose "horizontally" if you only have three or four choices maximum; choose "vertically if you have a large number of choices. Publish results: This determines whether (and when) the students will be able to view the results of the choice activity. They may: • • • •
never see the results of the choice see the results only after they have given the answer themselves see the results only after the closing date of the choice always see the results
Privacy of results: If "Publish" was chosen above, then this dropdown in unlocked. You can decide whether to show names of students or merely the number who responded but without names. Allow choice to be updated: If this is set to "Yes", students can change their mind after they have voted. If it's set to "No", students cannot change their choice. Show column for unanswered: If set to "Yes", this will display a column showing how many participants have not answered the choice activity yet. If set to "No", the results will only include the participants who have already voted.
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FORUM The forum module is an activity where students and instructors can exchange ideas by posting comments. There are four basic forum types. Forum posts can be graded by the instructor or other students.
To add a forum: 1. As an editing instructor for a course, click "Turn Editing On", and go to the topic or week section in which you want to create the forum. 2. From the dropdown menu labeled "Add an activity", select "Forum". This will take you to the forum settings page titled "Adding a new forum" page. 3. In an existing forum, the following settings can be found in Settings > Forum administration > Edit settings.
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FORUM SETTINGS
Forum name: A short name of the forum (e.g. "Favorite color"), which will be displayed on the course homepage. Forum type: There are five forum types to choose from: • •
•
•
•
A single simple discussion -‐ A single topic discussion developed on one page, which is useful for short focused discussions Standard forum for general use -‐ An open forum where anyone can start a new topic at any time; this is the best general-‐purpose forum. Displays in a table with headings that link to the posts. Each person posts one discussion -‐ Each person can post exactly one new discussion topic (everyone can reply to them though); this is useful when you want each student to start a discussion about, say, their reflections on the week's topic, and everyone else responds to these Q and A Forum -‐ Instead of initiating discussions participants pose a question in the initial post of a discussion. Students may reply with an answer, but they will not see the replies of other Students to the question in that discussion until they have themselves replied to the same discussion. Standard forum displayed in a blog-‐like format -‐ Functions like the Standard forum for general use. Displays post content directly on the page.
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Forum introduction: Place the description of the forum here. It is a good practice to include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the forum and the rating and grading criteria that might be used in this forum. Subscription mode: When a user is subscribed to a forum it means that they will receive notification (via popup and/or email, depending on the user’s messaging settings preferences) of each new posting. By default, posts are recorded about 30 minutes after the post was first written. People can usually choose whether or not they want to be subscribed to each forum. However, the instructor can choose to force subscription on a particular forum then all course users will be subscribed automatically, even those that enroll at a later time. There are 4 subscription mode options: • • • •
Optional subscription -‐ Participants can choose whether to be subscribed Forced subscription -‐ Everyone is subscribed and cannot unsubscribe Auto subscription -‐ Everyone is subscribed initially but can choose to unsubscribe at any time Subscription disabled -‐ Subscriptions are not allowed.
The subscription mode and subscribe or unsubscribe links appear in the Settings menu under Forum administration when viewing the forum. Instructors can quickly change the mode via the 'Subscription mode' options and view the current subscribers via the 'Show/edit current subscribers' link. Tips: •
•
•
Forcing everyone to subscribe is especially useful in the news forum and in forums towards the beginning of the course (before everyone has worked out that they can subscribe to these emails themselves). Changing the setting from "Yes, initially" to "No" will not unsubscribe existing users; it will only affect those who enroll in the course in the future. Similarly changing "Yes, initially" will not subscribe existing course users but only those enrolling later. There is also a "Subscriptions not allowed" setting which prevents Students from subscribing to a Forum. Instructors may choose to subscribe to a forum if they wish.
Read tracking for this forum?: "Read tracking" for a forum allows users to track read and unread messages in the forum. There are three options for this setting: • • •
Optional (default) -‐ students can turn tracking on or off for the forum at their discretion On -‐ tracking is always on in this forum for all members Off -‐ tracking is always off in this forum for all members
Maximum attachment size: The maximum file size that may be attached to a forum post will first be determined by the Moodle site settings. The instructor may want a smaller size limit for the forum. Server file capacity, student downloading speeds and discouraging images in a document-‐centered discussion are a few reasons to limit file size. Maximum number of attachments: The maximum number of attachments a user can add to their forum post (from 0 to 100) can be specified here.
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Post threshold for blocking: Students (i.e. users which don't have the 'Exempt from post threshold' permission) can be blocked from posting more than a specified number of posts in a given period.
Grade: Forum posts can be rated using a scale (pre existing number or word scales). By default, only instructors can rate forum posts, though students can be given permission to do so if desired (see Forum permissions below). This is a useful tool for giving students participation grades. Any ratings given in the forum are recorded in the gradebook.
Aggregate type: You can set an aggregate type; in other words, decide how all the ratings given to posts in a forum are combined to form the final grade (for each post and for the whole forum activity). Some scales do not lend themselves to certain types of aggregates. There are five options: • •
Average of ratings (default) -‐ This is the mean of all the ratings given to posts in that forum. It is especially useful with peer grading when there are a lot of ratings being made. Count of ratings -‐ The counts the number of rated posts, which becomes the final grade. This is useful when the number of posts is important. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade allowed for the forum. A count may be used if the instructor simply wants to acknowledge that a reply was given in the case students being required to make a certain 59
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number of posts in the discussion. Note: Count of ratings does not work for the "Separate or Connected Ways of Knowing" scale or custom scales due to the limitation imposed by the max grade. Maximum rating -‐ The highest rating is returned as the final grade. This method is useful for emphasizing the best work from participants, allowing them to post one high-‐quality post as well as a number of more casual responses to others. Minimum rating -‐ The smallest rating is returned as the final grade. This method promotes a culture of high quality for all posts. Sum of ratings -‐ All the ratings for a particular user are added together. Note that the total is not allowed to exceed the maximum grade for the forum. Note: Sum of ratings does not work for the "Separate or Connected Ways of Knowing" scale or custom scales due to the limitation imposed by the max grade.
Restrict ratings to posts with dates in this range: The instructor can allow only posts within a certain date range to be rated. This is useful if the instructor wants to keep students focused on the most recent content and maintain a specific pace within the forum or course.
GLOSSARY The glossary activity module allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary.
Glossary can be used in many ways. The entries can be searched or browsed in different formats. A glossary can be a collaborative activity or be restricted to entries made by the
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instructor. Entries can be put in categories. The auto-‐linking feature will highlight any word in the course, which is located in the glossary.
GLOSSARY SETTINGS To add a glossary: • •
• • • •
Click the "Turn editing on" button. Select Glossary from the "Add an activity" dropdown menu.
On the Adding a new glossary page give your new glossary a descriptive name. Describe the purpose of the glossary, provide instructions or background information, links etc. in the Description area. Select the general and grade options and the common module settings. Click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page.
Entries shown per page: This sets the number of words and definitions that students will see when they view the glossary list. If you have a large number of automatically-‐linked entries you should set this number lower to prevent long loading times. Is this glossary global?: Administrators can make a global glossary, with entries linking throughout the whole Moodle site. Any course may contain a global glossary, though the best practice is to place a global glossary on the site front page. Glossary type: Here you can decide whether the glossary will be main or secondary. The glossary system allows you to export entries from any secondary glossary to the main one of the course. In order to do this, you should specify which glossary is the main one. You can only have one main glossary per course. Duplicated entries allowed This allows the entry of more than one definition for a given word. Allow comments on entries: Students and instructors can leave comments on glossary definitions. The comments are available through a link at the bottom of the definition.
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Allow print view: This provides a printer-‐friendly version link for students. (Instructors are always provided with a printer-‐friendly version link.) Automatically link glossary entries: Turning this on allows individual entries in this glossary to be automatically linked whenever the concept words and phrases appear throughout the rest of the same course. This includes forum postings, internal resources, week summaries and so on. Note: Enabling linking for the glossary does not automatically turn on linking for each entry -‐ linking needs to be set for each entry individually. If you do not want particular text to be linked (in a forum posting, say) then you should add and tags around the text. Note that category names are also linked. Approved by default: That allows the instructor to define what happens to new entries added by students. They can be automatically made available to everyone; otherwise the instructor will have to approve each one. 62
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Display format: That specifies the way that each entry will be shown within the glossary. The default formats are: • • • • • • •
Simple, dictionary style -‐ This looks like a conventional dictionary with separate entries. No authors are displayed and attachments are shown as links. Continuous without author -‐ Like the simple style. Shows the entries one after other without any kind of separation but the editing icons if your theme supports it. Full with author -‐ A forum-‐like display format showing author's data. Attachments are shown as links. Full without author -‐ A forum-‐like display format that does not show author's data. Attachments are shown as links. Encyclopedia -‐ Like 'Full with author' but attached images are shown inline. Entry list -‐ This lists the concepts as links. FAQ -‐ Useful for displaying lists of frequently asked questions. It automatically appends the words QUESTION and ANSWER in the concept and definition respectively.
ADDING A GLOSSARY ENTRY 1. Add a Glossary activity to your course page.
2. From the glossary page, click the "Add a new entry" button.
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3. Enter the word you want to define in the Concept text field.
4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Add the definition of the word or concept. If you've defined categories in the "Browse by category" tab, you can categorize your entry here. If there are synonyms you want to include with the entry, add them to the Keyword(s) text area. Enter one word per line. If you want to add an attachment, such as a picture or an article, you can either drag/drop it, or click the "Add" button to upload via the File picker Select the auto-‐linking option
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This entry should be automatically linked -‐ the entry will be automatically linked wherever the concept words and phrases appear throughout the rest of the course. • This entry is case sensitive -‐ This setting specifies whether matching exact upper and lower case is necessary when auto-‐linking to an entry. • Match whole words only -‐ This setting specifies whether only whole words will be linked, for example, a glossary entry named "construct" will not create a link inside the word "constructivism". 9. Click the "Save changes" button to add your word to the glossary. •
QUESTIONNAIRE Questionnaire module is a survey-‐like type of activity. It allows instructors to create a wide range of questions to get student feedback e.g. on a course or activities. The goals of the Questionnaire module are quite different from those of the Moodle Lesson or Quiz modules. With Questionnaire you do not test or assess the student, you gather data. To add a questionnaire: 1. Click the "Turn editing on" button. 2. Select Glossary from the "Add an activity" dropdown menu.
3. Enter the name and the description of your questionnaire.
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4. Set the date window for when users can complete the questionnaire. You can leave the boxes unchecked if you want the questionnaire to be continually available.
5. Response options:
• •
•
Type -‐ Select whether users will be allowed to respond once, daily, weekly, monthly or an unlimited number of times (many). Respondent Type -‐ You can display your users' full names with each response by setting this to "fullname". You can hide your users' identities from the responses by setting this to "anonymous". Respondent Eligibility -‐ Decide whether everyone can answer or whether you want to restrict it to tutor only or student only responses. For restricted access options remember to assign the correct roles either at the course or activity level. For example, if you put a questionnaire on the front page, intended for instructors only, then you will have to let Moodle know which users are instructors.
Students can view ALL responses: • •
• •
Never -‐ By default, only instructors of the owning course can see all questionnaire submitted responses. After answering the questionnaire -‐ This allows students to see all responses after answering a questionnaire that is set to respond once only. If a questionnaire is set to respond more than once, then students cannot see all responses unless you use one of the next two options. After the questionnaire is closed Always 66
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Save/Resume answers -‐ Setting this option allows users to save their answers to a questionnaire before submitting them. Users can leave the questionnaire unfinished and resume from the save point at a later date. 6. Content options: •
Select one of the radio button options. 'Create new' is the default. You can create questionnaires using three different methods: • Create New -‐ This option allows you to create a completely new questionnaire from scratch. • Copy Existing -‐ This option copies a pre-‐existing questionnaire's content to a new questionnaire, pre-‐seeding the content. You can copy questionnaires belonging to the course, or ones specifically marked as 'template'. • Use Public -‐ If a questionnaire has already been created (in another course on the same Moodle site) with the "public" setting, then you may use that "public" questionnaire in your own course(s). The number of settings available to such questionnaires is limited and you cannot edit its questions nor view the responses. • Example -‐ If a public questionnaire has been created in course A, it can be "used" in courses B, C, ... All the responses from courses A, B, C, ... are collected in the public questionnaire created in course A (the original course where it was created) and are viewable there by the person (admin or instructor) who originally created it. 7. Click ‘Save and return to course’ button.
ADDING QUESTIONS To add a question:
•
Click the questionnaire on your course page.
• •
Click Questions tab. Select the question type from the drop-‐down menu, and then click ‘add selected question type’ button.
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Types of questions •
• • • • • • • • •
Page Break -‐ Use this to insert page breaks in longish questionnaires. Note that if a page contains questions with required response the respondent will not be allowed to navigate to the next page unless those required responses have been given. Check Boxes Date Box Dropdown choices Essay box -‐ HTML editor possible, set width and height of box Numeric -‐ can set length and number of decimal places Radio buttons -‐ have labels you determine for each question Scale -‐ can customize in many ways Text box Yes/no
QUIZ The Quiz activity module allows the instructor to design and build quizzes consisting of a large variety of Question types, including multiple choice, true-‐false, and short answer questions. These questions are kept in the Question bank and can be re-‐used in different quizzes. Creating a new quiz is a two-‐step process. In the first step, you create the quiz activity and set its options, which specify the rules for interacting with the quiz. In the second step you add questions to the quiz.
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STEP 1 -‐ ADDING A QUIZ ACTIVITY 1. Click the "Turn editing on" button. 2. Select Quiz from the "Add an activity" dropdown menu.
When you first set up your quiz from Add an activity>Quiz, you will get the following settings, (which can also be changed later in the Edit Settings link of the Quiz administration settings block).
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General
Name -‐ This is the standard name field. This name will appear on the home page of the course, navigation menu and other places, which will show or provide links to this quiz. Introduction -‐ Write an introduction for the quiz. A student will see the introduction immediately after clicking on the quiz name. The student will see this description before they click on the "Attempt quiz" link and thus before the quiz timer is started (if used). This is a good place to include any special instructions for taking the quiz like the number of attempts allowed, time limit or scoring rules. Open the quiz -‐ You can specify times when the quiz is accessible for people to make attempts. Before the opening time the quiz will be unavailable to students. They will be able to view the quiz introduction but will not be able to view the questions. You can make the quiz available at different times for different groups or users in the Group or User override sections of the Quiz Administration settings block. Close the quiz -‐ After the closing time, the students will not be able to start new attempts. Answers that the student submits after the quiz closing date will be saved but they will not be marked. Even after the quiz has closed students will still be able to see the quiz description and review their attempts. What exactly they will see depends on the settings you choose for review options. 70
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Note: The quiz closing time is the last access time AND the time when the quiz must be completed. If a time limit is set, regardless of whether there is time left on the timer, the quiz closing time determines when a student's attempt ends. Time limit -‐ By default, quizzes do not have a time limit, which allows students as much time as they need to complete the quiz. If you do specify a time limit, several things are done to try and ensure that quizzes are completed within that time: • • •
A countdown timer is shown in the navigation block. When the timer has run out, the quiz is submitted automatically with whatever answers have been filled in so far. If a student manages to cheat and goes over the allotted time, no marks are awarded for any answers entered after the time ran out.
If a quiz closing time is set, a student's attempt will end on or before this time, regardless of whether there is time left on the timer. Thus, if a quiz closing time is set together with a time limit of say 3 hours, it is recommended that students are informed that they must begin their quiz attempt at least 3 hours before the quiz closing time. You can make the quiz available last a different period of time for different groups or users in the Group or User override sections of the Quiz Administration settings block. Layout
Question order -‐ If 'Shuffled randomly' is selected, then the order of questions in the quiz will be randomly shuffled each time a student starts a new attempt at the quiz. The intention is to make it a little harder for students to copy from each other. New page -‐ For longer quizzes it makes sense to stretch the quiz over several pages by limiting the number of questions per page. When adding questions to the quiz, page breaks will automatically be inserted according to the setting you choose here. However, you will also be able to move page breaks around by hand later on the editing page. Note that changing this setting has no effect on questions you have already added to the quiz. The setting will only apply to questions you add subsequently. To change the page breaks in an existing quiz, you need to go to the quiz-‐editing screen, tick the 'Show page breaks' checkbox, then use the repaginate control.
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Question behavior
How questions behave: Deferred feedback -‐ Students must enter an answer to each question and then submit the entire quiz, before anything is graded or they get any feedback. Adaptive mode and Adaptive mode (no penalties) -‐ Allows students to have multiple attempts at the question before moving on to the next question. The question can adapt itself to the student's answer, for example by giving some hints before asking the student to try again. Manual grading -‐ Used for essay questions (irrespective of what the quiz is set to) but you can now choose to have every question in the quiz manually graded, if you wish. Interactive mode -‐ After submitting one answer, and reading the feedback, the student has to click a 'Try again' button before they can try a new response. Once the student has got the question right, they can no longer change their response. Once the student has got the question wrong too many times, they are just graded wrong (or partially correct) and get shown the feedback and can no longer change their answer. There can be different feedback after each try the student makes. Immediate feedback -‐ Similar to interactive mode in that the student can submit their response immediately during the quiz attempt, and get it graded. However, they can only submit one response, they cannot change it later. Deferred feedback or Immediate feedback with Certainty-‐based marking (CBM) -‐ With CBM, the student does not only answer the question, but they also indicate how sure they are they got the question right. The grading is adjusted by the choice of certainty, so that students have to reflect honestly on their own level of knowledge in order to get the best mark. Each attempt builds on the last -‐ If multiple attempts are allowed and this setting is set to Yes, then each new attempt contains the results of the previous attempt. This allows the student on the new attempt to concentrate on just those questions that were answered incorrectly on the previous attempt. If this option is chosen then each attempt by a particular student uses the same questions in the same order, independent of randomization settings. To show a fresh quiz on every attempt, select No for this setting.
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Review options This section controls what information students will be shown when they review their past attempts at the quiz, and during the attempt in adaptive mode. It is a matrix with check boxes.
The various pieces of information that can be controlled are: • • • • • •
Responses -‐ What the student entered in response to each question. Answers -‐ The correct answer to each question is shown. (See note below) Feedback -‐ The pieces of feedback specific to the student's response to each question. General feedback -‐ The general feedback for the question, which does not depend on the student's response. Scores -‐ Numerical information about the score the student received on each question. Overall feedback -‐ The overall feedback for the whole attempt.
For each of the above items, you can determine the timeframe when the students will see them: Immediately after the attempt -‐ means within 2 minutes of the student clicking "submit all and finish". Later, while the quiz is still open -‐ means after 2 minutes, but before the close date (if the quiz does not have a close date, this phase never ends). After the quiz is closed -‐ means what it says (you never get here for quizzes without a close date).
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Checking any of the boxes in the timeframe row will reveal the test to the student. For example, to allow students to see their quiz immediately after taking it but not later, make sure none of the boxes in "Later" or "After" rows are checked. The student will be able to see their grade but not get into the quiz. Currently, the Answers display is a bit inconsistent between different question types. For example, the matching question type shows students which of their responses are correct, but does not tell them the right answer for the ones they got wrong. The short answer and multiple choices question types do tell the student what the correct answer is. In your list of review options, you must have 'The attempt' (the first option in the lists) selected before you can enable the options to show 'Whether correct', 'Specific feedback', 'General feedback', and 'Right answer'. If you choose not to let the students review the attempt, your only options are to display 'Marks' and 'Overall feedback'. Display Decimal places in grades -‐ This option determines how many digits will be shown after the decimal point when the grade is displayed. A setting of 0 for example means that the grades are displayed as integers. This setting is only used for the display of grades, not for the display or marking of answers.
Extra restrictions on attempts
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Require password -‐ This field is optional. If you specify a password in here then participants must enter the same password before they are allowed to make an attempt on the quiz. This is useful to give only a selected group of students’ access to the quiz. Require network address -‐ This field is optional. You can restrict access for a quiz to particular subnets on the LAN or Internet by specifying a comma-‐separated list of partial or full IP address numbers. Browser security -‐ The options in this section offer various ways to try to restrict how students may try to 'cheat' while attempting a quiz. However, this is not a simple issue, and what in one situation is considered 'cheating' may, in another situation, just be effective use of information technology. (For example, the ability to quickly find answers using a search engine.) Note also that this is not just at problem of technology with a technical solution. Cheating has been going on since long before computers, and while computers make certain actions, like copy and paste, easier, they also make it easier for instructors to detect cheating -‐ for example using the quiz reports. The options provided here are not foolproof, and while they do make some forms of cheating harder for students, they also make it more inconvenient for students to attempt the quizzes, and they are not foolproof. Full screen pop-‐up with some JavaScript security -‐ There is a limit to what the quiz, which runs on a web server, can do to restrict what the student sitting at their computer can do while attempting the quiz. However, this option does what is possible: • • •
The quiz will only start if the student has a JavaScript-‐enabled web-‐browser. The quiz appears in a full screen popup window that covers all the other windows and has no navigation controls. The students are prevented, as far as is possible, from using facilities like copy and paste.
Overall feedback: Overall feedback is shown to a student after they have completed an attempt at the quiz. The text that is shown can depend on the grade the student got.
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For example, if you entered: • • •
Grade boundary: 100% -‐ Feedback: "Well done" Grade boundary: 40% -‐ Feedback: "Please study this week's work again" Grade boundary: 0%
Then students who score between 100% and 40% will see the "Well done" message, and those who score between 39.99% and 0% will see "Please study this week's work again". That is, the grade boundaries define ranges of grades, and each feedback string is displayed to scores within the appropriate range. Grade boundaries can be specified either as a percentage, for example "31.41%", or as a number, for example "7". If your quiz is out of 10 marks, a grade boundary of 7 means 7/10 or better. Note that the maximum and minimum grade boundaries (100% and 0%) are set automatically. You can set as many or as few grade boundaries as you wish. The form allows you up to 5 ranges at first, but you can add more by clicking the "Add 3 fields to form" button underneath. If you're getting confusing error messages about a boundary being out of sequence (when it's obviously *in* sequence), or "boundaries must be between 0% and 100%" (and they are) -‐-‐ check that the Maximum Grade for this quiz is set to something greater than zero.
STEP 2 – BUILDING QUIZ Once a quiz has been added to the course and the Quiz settings established, the instructor can start to build the quiz. However, a Question Bank is needed to import questions. Please see Question Bank section for more details. You can use the Navigation menu to get to the quiz's "info" link or click directly on the Quiz name on the course's home page. Click Edit quiz button to build your quiz.
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The basic idea is in building a quiz is to add questions from the question bank, organize them by page and determine the value of each question. There are several ways to add questions. From the editing quiz tab, the instructor can add question by using the "Question bank contents {Show)" link to find an existing question or use the "Add a question" button to create a new question that is automatically added to the question bank.
In the question bank you can create categories, which are similar to folders in your computer file system. You can use Categories to create a hierarchy for organizing your questions. Depending upon permissions, you might have access to questions created for other courses by other instructors in the question bank. You can use random questions so that different students get different questions, or so that one student gets different questions each time they attempt the quiz. When a student starts an attempt at the quiz, the random question will be replaced by an actual question, picked at random from a certain category in the question bank. Once you’ve created your questions, you’ll need to add them to the quiz. There are many types in the Question bank that you can use. Alternatively, you may choose to import questions.
Your first decision is whether to click on "Add a question" button, or show the question bank contents, or add a random question from the question bank with the button. Since we will describe Using question bank in more detail elsewhere, we will create a question "on the fly". It will be automatically be added to the question bank in the default category for our quiz. •
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Select your question type (We will select Multiple choice) Complete the question form and save the question.
You can keep adding questions this way.
Ordering and paging in a quiz Settings >Quiz administration > Edit Quiz > Ordering and paging There are several ways to change the order of the questions in a quiz. You can "repaginate" by setting the number of questions per page. After setting the number of questions per page, you can move questions so that there are a different number of questions on each page. Tip: Remember, one of the quiz settings will randomize the questions and this will over-‐ride any previous number of questions that were put on a page. Lets put 2 questions on each page, and then change the order. 1. Click on the "Repaginate" button 2. Use pull-‐down menu to repaginate with 2 questions per page 3. Click "Go" Now we have set up 2 questions per page. Page 2 only has 1 question because we only have 3 questions in our quiz.
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Tip: Best practice is to get all your questions in your quiz if you plan to have different numbers of questions on each page. Repaginate will regroup the questions. You now have a choice when it comes to moving questions. You can use: • • •
Move icon -‐ move 1 question up or down in the order "Move selected questions to page" tool -‐ adds selected to the page you select Change the number order and click one of the "Reorder questions" buttons -‐ will automatically renumber the question in increments of 10. But it will recognize single digit numbers when it reorders questions.
Assign points per questions In our example, we assigned the quiz 10 points in the quiz settings. By default the Quiz module said each question was worth 1 point. Thus each question is worth the same. You can change how much a question is worth by changing the number in the grade box and then clicking on save.
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Tip: Each save button is independent of each other. Thus if you change 2 grade boxes and click on the "Save" button, only the grade next to that button will be saved. Your other changes will revert to what they were before. Best practice is to change the grade and save one question at a time.
Here we changed the grade on the first question to 3. Notice in the above example, the total of grades is 5 and the quiz is worth 10 points in the course. The quiz module will do the math, so the 2-‐point question is worth 2 times more when the Quiz module determines how many point out of 10 to award the student. Adding random questions A random question places a link that will select a unique question at random from a specific question category. Random questions are selected when the quiz is generated for a specific student attempt. This means that different students are likely to get a different selection of questions when they attempt this quiz. For example, when a quiz has 10 random questions that draw on a question category with 30 questions. If a quiz allows multiple attempts for each student then each attempt will also contain a new selection of questions.
To add random questions, select the question category you wish to use, then use the drop-‐down menu at the bottom of the Question Bank in the right column. Select the number of random
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questions you wish to add, and click 'Add'. The random question link will appear on the quiz question list in the left column. The same question will never appear twice in a quiz. If you include several random questions then different questions will always be chosen for each of them. If you mix random questions with non-‐random questions then the random questions will be chosen so that they do not duplicate one of the non-‐random questions. This does imply that you need to provide enough questions in the category from which the random questions are chosen; otherwise the student will be shown a friendly error message. The more questions you provide the more likely it will be that students get different questions on each attempt. The grade for the randomly chosen question will be rescaled so that the maximum grade is what you have chosen as the grade for the random question. Previewing questions After you have added questions to the quiz, they will appear on the left. Notice the preview and edit icons next to the fixed questions.
This quiz will work like a real quiz. Submit the quiz to see your answers. Here is the same quiz, where we missed the question. It shows feedbacks.
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QUESTION BANK This feature allows an instructor to create, preview, and edit questions in a database of question categories. The categories can be limited to being used on the site, course or quiz level. The questions in a category can be added to a Quiz or to a lesson activity via an export process. You can enter the question bank by creating or editing a quiz activity or via Settings > Course administration > Question bank.
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QUESTION BANK SETTINGS
Select a category -‐ Questions are organized into categories. Initially each course has only one category called "Default". It is good practice to create more categories to organize your questions. This not only makes it easier to find questions, but also makes the use of random questions and matching question easier. You can create a hierarchy of categories because you can create subcategories inside parent categories. To add or edit categories click on the Categories tab. The question editing screen shows the questions from the currently selected category. You choose this category from the Category: drop-‐down menu. Using the tick box below that menu you determine whether to also show the questions from all subcategories. Add a new question
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Select the question type you want to create from the Create new question drop-‐down menu. Fill in the form for the question type you are creating. Each question type has its own form and has its own options. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the form. Question Types Calculated -‐ Calculated questions offer a way to create individual numerical questions by the use of wildcards that are substituted with individual values when the quiz is taken. Description -‐ This is not a real question. It simply prints some text (and possibly graphics) without requiring an answer. This can be used to provide some information to be used by a subsequent group of questions, for example. Essay -‐ In response to a question (that may include an image) the respondent writes an answer in essay format. Matching -‐ A list of sub-‐questions is provided, along with a list of answers. The respondent must "match" the correct answers with each question. Embedded Answers -‐ These very flexible questions consist of a passage of text (in Moodle format) that has various answers embedded within it, including multiple choice, short answers and numerical answers. Multiple Choice -‐ In response to a question (that may include an image) the respondent chooses from multiple answers. There are two types of multiple choice questions -‐ single answer and multiple answer. Short Answer -‐ In response to a question (that may include an image), the respondent types a word or phrase. There may several possible correct answers, with different grades. Answers may or may not be sensitive to case. Numerical -‐ From the student perspective, a numerical question looks just like a short-‐answer question. The difference is that numerical answers are allowed to have an accepted error. This allows a continuous range of answers to be set. Random Short-‐Answer Matching -‐ From the student perspective, this looks just like a Matching question. The difference is that the sub-‐questions are drawn randomly from Short Answer questions in the current category. True/False -‐ In response to a question (that may include an image), the respondent selects from two options: True or False.
FORUM The forum module is an activity where students and instructors can exchange ideas by posting comments. There are four basic forum types. Forum posts can be graded by the instructor or other students.
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To add a forum: 1. click "Turn Editing On", and go to the topic or week section in which you want to create the forum. 2. From the dropdown menu labeled "Add an activity", select "Forum". This will take you to the forum settings page titled "Adding a new forum" page.
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FORUM SETTINGS
Forum name -‐ A short name of the forum, which will be displayed on the course homepage. Forum type -‐ There are five forum types to choose from:
•
A single simple discussion -‐ A single topic discussion developed on one page, which is useful for short focused discussions.
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•
Each person posts one discussion -‐ The view will be basically the same as in the previous case, the only difference being the 'Add a new discussion' option. Viewing a forum page, the student will see the text you have written at the 'Forum introduction' space while creating the forum, and, if there are any, the discussions that have been started.
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Q and A Forum -‐ Instead of initiating discussions participants pose a question in the initial post of a discussion. Students may reply with an answer, but they will not see the replies of other Students to the question in that discussion until they have themselves replied to the same discussion.
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Standard forum displayed in blog-‐like format -‐ In the upper right corner of the home forum screen (above the introduction), the student may see the options the instructor has set for subscriptions to the forum, and the 'Jump to' field, with which you can 'jump' to any part of the course. This is also place where the instructor will find the "Update this forum" button.
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Standard forum for general use -‐ An open forum where anyone can start a new topic at any time; this is the best general-‐purpose forum.
Forum introduction -‐ Place the description of the forum here. It has the standard Moodle HTML editor toolbar to assist the instructor. It is a good practice to include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the forum and the rating and grading criteria that might be used in this forum. Subscription mode -‐ When a person is subscribed to a forum it means that they will be sent email copies of every post in that forum. This will over ride some student settings in their profile. By default, posts are recorded about 30 minutes after the post was first written. Depending upon the email settings of each forum member, they may be sent an email immediately after the 30 minute edit window is closed, or in a batch at a time fixed by the site administrator.
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People can usually choose whether or not they want to be subscribed to each forum. However, the instructor can choose to force subscription on a particular forum then all course users will be subscribed automatically, even those that enroll at a later time. If the instructor selects the option "Yes, initially" then all current and future course users will be subscribed initially but they can unsubscribe themselves at any time. If the instructor chooses "Yes, forever" then the forum members will not be able to unsubscribe themselves. •
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Forcing everyone to subscribe is especially useful in the News forum and in forums towards the beginning of the course (before everyone has worked out that they can subscribe to these emails themselves). Changing the setting from "Yes, initially" to "No" will not unsubscribe existing users, it will only affect those who enroll in the course in the future. Similarly changing "Yes, initially" will not subscribe existing course users but only those enrolling later. There is also a "Subscriptions not allowed" setting which prevents Students from subscribing to a Forum. Instructors may choose to subscribe to a forum if they wish.
Read tracking for this forum? -‐ "Read tracking" for a forum allows users to track read and unread messages in the forum. There are three options for this setting: • •
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Optional (default) -‐ students can turn tracking on or off for the forum at their discretion On -‐ tracking is always on in this forum for all members. Not quite sure about this statement. This seems to only be true for users who have read tracking enabled in their user settings Off -‐ tracking is always off in this forum for all members
Maximum attachment size -‐ The maximum file size that may be attached to a forum post will first be determined by the Moodle site settings. The instructor may want a smaller size limit for the forum. Server file capacity, student downloading speeds and discouraging images in a document-‐centered discussion are a few reasons to limit file size. Maximum number of attachments -‐ The maximum number of files a user can attach to a forum post can be specified here (from 0 to 100). Post threshold for blocking -‐ Students (i.e. users which don't have the 'Exempt from post threshold' permission) can be blocked from posting more than a specified number of posts in a given period.
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Grade -‐ Forum posts can be rated using a scale (pre existing number or word scales). By default, only instructors can rate forum posts, though students can be given permission to do so if desired (see Forum permissions below). This is a useful tool for giving students participation grades. Any ratings given in the forum are recorded in the gradebook.
Aggregate type -‐ You can set an aggregate type, in other words, decide how all the ratings given to posts in a forum are combined to form the final grade (for each post and for the whole forum activity). Some scales do not lend themselves to certain types of aggregates.
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Average of ratings (default) -‐ This is the mean of all the ratings given to posts in that forum. It is especially useful with peer grading when there are a lot of ratings being made. Count of ratings -‐ The counts the number of rated posts which becomes the final grade. This is useful when the number of posts is important. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade allowed for the forum. A count may be used if the instructor simply wants to acknowledge that a reply was given in the case students being required to 90
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make a certain number of posts in the discussion. Note: Count of ratings does not work for the "Separate or Connected Ways of Knowing" scale or custom scales due to the limitation imposed by the max grade. Maximum rating -‐ The highest rating is returned as the final grade. This method is useful for emphasizing the best work from participants, allowing them to post one high-‐quality post as well as a number of more casual responses to others. Minimum rating -‐ The smallest rating is returned as the final grade. This method promotes a culture of high quality for all posts. Sum of ratings -‐ All the ratings for a particular user are added together. Note that the total is not allowed to exceed the maximum grade for the forum. Note: Sum of ratings does not work for the "Separate or Connected Ways of Knowing" scale or custom scales due to the limitation imposed by the max grade.
Restrict ratings to posts with dates in this range -‐ The instructor can allow only posts within a certain date range to be rated. This is useful if the instructor wants to keep students focused on the most recent content and maintain a specific pace within the forum or course.
GROUPING STUDENTS An instructor can organize users into groups within the course or within particular activities. To create a group:
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Click the 'Create group' button in Settings > Course administration > Users > Groups
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Click Create group button, add a group name and optional description, enrolment key, and picture (displayed on the participants page and next to forum posts), click the 'Save changes' button.
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Click the 'Add/remove users button. In the "Potential members" list, select the users you want to add to the group. Multiple users may be selected using the Crtl key. Click the Add button to add the users to the group.
WHY USE GROUPS? Using groups on the course or activity level will allow the instructor to: • • •
You are an instructor in a course where you have several classes and you want to filter your activities and gradebook so you only see one class at a time. You are an instructor sharing a course with other instructors and you want to filter your activities and gradebook so you don’t see the students from your colleagues’ classes. You want to allocate a particular activity or resource to just one class or set of users and you don’t want others to see it.
GROUP LEVELS A group or grouping can be used on two levels: • •
Course level -‐ The group mode defined at the course level is the default mode for all activities defined within that course. This is determined in the course settings. Activity level -‐ Each activity that supports groups can also have its own group mode defined. If the course setting "Force group mode" is set to "Yes" then the option to define the group mode for individual activities is not available. If it is set to "No", then the instructor may change the group mode.
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Group mode -‐ There are three group modes:
No groups -‐ There are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community Separate groups -‐ Each group can only see their own group, others are invisible. Visible groups -‐ Each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups. (The other groups' work is read-‐only.) For example, enabling either separate or visible groups on an assignment drop-‐box enables staff to filter the student submissions to see only those from a particular tutor group. With visible groups, students can see which other groups are doing the same activities as they are; with separate groups, they do not know which other groups are doing the same activities. Using groups with discussion forums allow instructors to restrict interaction between students. Separate groups mean only students in the same group can see and participate in discussions within a particular forum. Visible groups allow students to see other group's discussions, but only participate in their own group's discussions. • • •
GROUPINGS If you want to make an activity (such as an assignment or a quiz) visible to only one set of users within a course, you need first to put the users into a group and then put them into a grouping. A single grouping can house one group or several groups. If you assign an activity to a grouping then only the group/grouping that is selected will be able to see and do the activity. It will be invisible to other groups or groupings. Adding groups to a grouping: To add groups to a grouping: • •
In your course, click Settings > Course administration > Users > Groups. Click the groupings tab
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Click ‘Create grouping’ button
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Enter group name and description, then click Save changes button
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Click the "Show groups in grouping" people icon in the edit column
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On the ‘add/remove groups’ page, select the group(s) you want to add to the grouping from the "Potential members" list. Click the arrow button that points towards the "Existing members" list.
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Click the "Back to groupings" button. The group(s) you added to the grouping will now be listed in the table on the groupings page.
Existing groupings can be edited and/or deleted using the appropriate icons in the edit column of the table on the groupings page.
SELECTING GROUPING IN ACTIVITY To use a particular grouping in an activity:
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In the "edit settings" link of the Settings block for the activity, click the "Show advanced" button in the common module settings section. Ensure that the group mode is set to separate or visible groups. Select the grouping from the grouping dropdown menu. Check the "Available for group members only" box.
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Click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page.
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Students will only see the activities they have been assigned to. Instructors will see the name of the grouping in brackets after the activity name on the course page. A count of activities assigned to each grouping is kept on the groupings page. Please note that the grouping option appears by default only in activities that support group modes. If you enable ‘Available for group members only’ you will be able to assign resources to specific groups also.
GRADE EXPORT Grades can be exported to Excel spreadsheet, OpenDocument spreadsheet, plain text file or XML file. We strongly recommend you to export your grades to an Excel spreadsheet, and then manually calculate your students’ final grades if you are not an expert of Moodle Grade Categories, and aggregation methods. To export grades from the gradebook: •
Click Grades under Settings block
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Click Export tab
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Set options as required, and Select the grade items to be included, then click Submit button.
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After previewing the data on the following page, click the download button.
COURSE BACKUP A course can be saved with some or all of its parts by using the course backup. An instructor with editing privileges can create a backup or download an existing backup for safekeeping, or for use on another Moodle site. To backup a course •
Click Backup under Settings block
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Initial settings -‐ Select activities, blocks, filters and other items as required then click the Next button. Users with appropriate permissions, such as administrators, can choose whether to include users, anonymize user information, or include user role assignments, user files, comments, user completion details, course logs and grade history in the backup.
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Schema settings -‐ Select/deselect specific items to include in backup then click the Next button
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Confirmation and review -‐ Check that everything is as required, using the Previous button if necessary, otherwise click the 'Perform backup' button
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Complete -‐ Click the Continue button
COURSE RESTORE To restore a course backup: •
Click restore under Settings block
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Upload the backup file or choose a file in the course backup area or user private backup area and click Restore
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Confirm -‐ Check that everything is as required then click the Continue button Destination -‐ Choose whether the course should be restored as a new course or into an existing course then click the Continue button Settings -‐ Select activities, blocks, filters and possibly other items as required then click the Next button Schema -‐ Select/deselect specific items and amend the course name, short name and start date if necessary then click the Next button 99
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Review -‐ Check that everything is as required, using the Previous button if necessary, then click the 'Perform restore' button Complete -‐ Click the continue button
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