Moodles Tutorial

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NMT Moodle 1.9 Instructor'sGuide

John W. Shipman

2012-01-20 19:59

Abstract

Procedures for instructors using the Moodle courseware system, version 1.9, at New MexicoTech.

This publication is available in Web form1and also as a PDF document2. Please forward anycomments to [email protected].

Table of Contents1. Introduction: What is Moodle? .................................................................................................. 22. How to request a live or test course ........................................................................................... 23. Connecting to the Moodle site ................................................................................................... 34. Settings: Configuring your course ............................................................................................. 3

4.1. Structuring your course .................................................................................................. 34.2. The Edit course settingspage ......................................................................................... 44.3. Special procedures for cross-listed courses ...................................................................... 54.4. Cross-listing with different content for different sections .................................................. 5

5. Using the course calendar ......................................................................................................... 65.1. Adding a calendar event ................................................................................................. 6

5.2. Editing a calendar event ................................................................................................. 75.3. Deleting a calendar event ............................................................................................... 76. Adding content to your course .................................................................................................. 8

6.1. Presenting blocks in reverse chronological order .............................................................. 87. Resources ............................................................................................................................... 10

7.1. Adding a page .............................................................................................................. 107.2. Adding a link to a file ................................................................................................... 117.3. Adding a label ............................................................................................................. 127.4. Moving a resource or activity to a different block ........................................................... 12

8. Moodle's file manager ............................................................................................................ 138.1. Uploading a file into your files area ............................................................................... 138.2. Managing your Moodle files area .................................................................................. 14

9. Roles and access control .......................................................................................................... 14

9.1. Managing role assignments .......................................................................................... 1510. Activities .............................................................................................................................. 1611. Assignment activities ............................................................................................................ 17

11.1. Posting an assignment ................................................................................................. 1711.2. Grading an assignment ............................................................................................... 18

12. Grades ................................................................................................................................. 19

1 http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/2 http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/mooteach.pdf

1NMT Moodle 1.9 Instructor's GuideNew Mexico Tech Computer Center
http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/mooteach.pdfhttp://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/mooteach.pdfhttp://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/mooteach.pdfhttp://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/mooteach.pdfhttp://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/mooteach/


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12.1. Viewing the gradebook ............................................................................................... 2012.2. Configuring the gradebook ......................................................................................... 2012.3. Setting up gradebook categories .................................................................................. 2012.4. Adding a gradebook column for an external grade ....................................................... 2112.5. Setting up your grading formula ................................................................................. 2112.6. Setting up a letter grade scale ...................................................................................... 23

12.7. Hiding and revealing gradebook columns .................................................................... 2512.8. Always show a meaningful overall course grade ........................................................... 2513. How to make a course backup ............................................................................................... 25

1. Introduction:What is Moodle?

The purpose of a courseware systemis to help instructors teach courses by providing a flexible, easy-to-use Web site for course-related materials and communication.

Martin Dougiamas, an educator in Perth, Australia, invented Moodle because he was frustrated by theinflexibility of the WebCT courseware system. Moodle is now an open-source project, heavily used byeducators at every level all over the world.

Whether you use Moodle at all, and what parts of it you use, are entirely up to you. Moodle has amodular structure so you can choose only the parts that fit your teaching style. In this document wedescribe only the most commonly used features, but you will find plentiful online documentation forall of Moodle's features.

We have found that the gradebook and assignment tools, in particular, are features likely to save youand your students time and pain. The gradebook, in particular, has these virtues:

Because it is vital to make it easy for students to track their own progress, as soon as you or a graderposts a grade, the student can see it without any more work on your part. The student can alwayssee their overall course average and the individual grades that are used to compute it.

Brian Borchers of the Math Department and Elaine DeBrine Howell of the Advising Resource Centerhave been using Moodle to track early progress in critical freshman courses such as Math 103 and

104. Feeling that if problems are evident by midterm, that is too late, they now track whether studentsare taking quizzes and submitting assignments in the early weeks, to intervene early with studentswho never get a proper start on their college career.

Abundant online documentation, and lively support resources, are available at the Moodle communitysite3. In particular, see the Moodle 1.9 documentation4page.

2. How to request a live or test course

If you would like to use Moodle to teach one or more of your courses, please send e-mail to specifying the course title, department, course number, section, and CRN.If your course is cross-listed, also list all the child sections and the overall course name.

You will get a reply back once the course has been created.

3 http://moodle.org/4 http://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Main_Page

New Mexico Tech Computer CenterNMT Moodle 1.9 Instructor's Guide2
http://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/http://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Main_Pagehttp://moodle.org/http://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Main_Pagehttp://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Main_Pagehttp://moodle.org/http://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Main_Pagehttp://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/


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Important

If your course is cross-listed under multiple departments or course numbers, please specify the CRNsof all the child sections, and the overall course title. Also, see Section 4.3, Special procedures for cross-listed courses(p. 5).

If you would like to try Moodle out, send mail to the same e-mail address and request a Moodle trainingaccount. We will put up a site where you can try Moodle's features without associating it with a livecourse.

Send any Moodle-related requests or suggestions to this same e-mail.

3. Connecting to the Moodle site

To work with Moodle, direct your favorite Web browser to this address:

https://moodle.nmt.edu/

Use your regular Tech Computer Center account name and password to log in.Here is an example of the top-level page you will see after you log in.

Once your course has been created and you have been assigned as its teacher, when you log in you willsee a link to the course in the middle of the page. Click on the link to enter the course.

To logout, click on the Logoutlink in the extreme top right corner of the page.

4. Settings: Configuring your course

The first thing you will want to do is to set up general options that control the appearance and structureof your course.

4.1. Structuring your course

You'll need to select one of Moodle's two ways of organizing the sequence of material in your course:

https://moodle.nmt.edu/https://moodle.nmt.edu/


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By week, if you have a fairly strict chronological sequence.

By topic, if students need to cover material in sequence but without reference to specific dates.

Decide how you want to organize the material before proceeding to the next section.

4.2.The Edit course settingspageAssuming that your course is in the system and you are logged in and connected to the course (seeSection 3, Connecting to the Moodle site(p. 3)), you should see a page something like this.

There are four main areas on this page:

Across the top of the page is the Moodle logo, with your Logoutbutton in the top right corner.

Just below the logo is the bread-crumb trail, a sequence of links that shows where you are in yourstructure, and allows you to jump up one or more levels by clicking on any of the links. In the examplepage shown, the bread-crumb trail has two pieces: the word Moodletakes you back to your mainpage (outside the current course), and the text exampleis the name of the example course.

The narrow column on the left contains various functional links such as People, Activities, and Admin-istration.

The wide center column is where most significant content will be presented.

Another narrow column on the right displays various communications tools.

To start setting up your course, in the left-hand column under Administration, click the Settingslink.

Moodle gives you lots of options for structuring your course. We'll discuss only some of the morecommon settings.

Full name, Short name, Course ID numberPlease do not edit these fields; their contents follow a standardized format that helps students findyour course where multiple courses are listed.

SummaryThe summary block is a small built-in editor you can use to write a brief description of the course.



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Format, Number of weeks/topicsIf you want to organize your course content by calendar week, select Weekly format. If instead youwish to present the content as a sequence of topics, select Topics format. Then select the number ofweeks or the number of topics.

Show gradebook to students

If you want to use Moodle's grade book to display grades to your students, select Yes.

Availability

Normally this choice shows This course is available to students. If your content is not ready for thestudents, select This course is not available to students.

Click the Save changesbutton at the bottom of the page when you are done.

4.3. Special procedures for cross-listed courses

If your course is cross-listed in multiple departments or under multiple course numbers, be sure tospecify this when the course is first created. To request a cross-listed course, send an email to .

Specify these items:

The overall course title for the cross-listed set. For each child section, the department, course number, section, and CRN.

For example, the course entitled Introduction to Programmingis cross-listed as CSE 113 and IT 113.In the fall of 2010, CSE 113-01 was CRN 24039 and IT 113-01 was CRN 24043. For this case, the Moodleadministrator will create three coursesunder Moodle:

Each CRN gets its own child section. In Moodle, these are usually invisible to the students registeredin them.

Students will see what Moodle calls a meta-courseorparent coursenamed Introduction to Program-ming.This is where you should put all the content that is shared among the child sections.

A meta-course does not have enrollments of its own; anyone enrolled in a child section is automaticallya member of the parent meta-course.

Initially, the cross-listed course will be set up so none of the students even see the section they are enrolledin. They will see only a link to the parent meta-course, so put your Moodle content here and not in thechild sections.

However, in some situations you as an instructor might wish to put up different material that pertainsonly to certain sections. For that case, see Section 4.4, Cross-listing with different content for differentsections(p. 5).

4.4. Cross-listing with different content for different sections

By default, when the local Moodle administrator sets up your course as a cross-listed set, the child sectionsare invisible to the students. Anyone enrolled in one of the child sections sees only the parent meta-course where you as instructor put up content that is shared among all the students in the cross-listedset.

Moodle allows you to make a child section visible to students enrolled in that section, which allows youto put up content that pertains only to that section.



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For example, suppose CSE 489-04 meets together with CSE 589-07 under the course title Tagging forProfessionals. After the local Moodle administrator sets up this cross-listed set, any student enrolledin either child section sees only the parent meta-course.

However, let's suppose that those enrolled at 500 level get additional assignments. In that case, the in-structor can make the 589-07 section visible only to the students enrolled under that number, and putthe additional assignments up as content in that section. Here is the procedure for making a child section

visible.

Procedure 1. Making a metacourse child section visible

1. Login to Moodle. You will see a list of all your courses, both child sections and meta-courses.

2. Click on the link to the child section you wish to make visible.

3. On the left-hand side, under Administration, click on Settings.

4. Scroll down to the section labeled Availability. Pull down the menu labeled Availabilityand selectThis course is available to students.

5. At the bottom of this page, click Save changes.

After you have done this, any content that you place into the child section will be visible to the studentsthat have enrolled under that child section's CRN.

5. Using the course calendar

Moodle's calendar tool is a great place to post any time-related course information, such as dates oflectures and exams, or homework due dates.

5.1. Adding a calendar event

To post a new item on your calendar, follow this procedure.

Procedure 2. Adding a calendar item

1. Login and go to the course page.

2. Under Upcoming Eventson the right-hand side of the page, click on Go to calendar....

3. Click on the New Eventbutton.

4. Select the type of event by checking one of these three radiobuttons:

User event: This event will be visible only to you. Course event: Anyone in the course will see this event on their calendar.

5. Click OK. This will bring up the New Eventpage.

6. In the Name:field, enter a short title for the event.

7. In the Description:area, enter a full description of the event. You must place some text in this areaor your event will be discarded.

8. Using the five pull-down menus labeled Date:, select the day, month, year, hour and minute whenthe event starts.

9. Under Duration:, select one of these radiobuttons.

If the event has no specific duration, select Without duration.



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If the event lasts until a specific date or time, select the Untilradiobutton and use the adjacentpull-down menus to select the ending date and time.

If the event lasts a speficic interval in minutes, select Duration in minutesand enter the numberof minutes in the adjacent field.

10. By default, the No repeatsradiobutton will be selected. If you would like to set up a sequence ofevents that repeats at the same time every week, select Repeat weeklyand enter the total numberof events in the adjacent field.

11. Click on the Save changesbutton.

5.2. Editing a calendar event

To modify an existing calendar item, follow this procedure.

Procedure 3. Modifying a calendar item

1. On the right-hand side of the course page under Upcoming events, click on the Go to calendar...link.

2. If the event's month is displayed on the right-hand side of the page, click on the month's name.

If the month of this event is not displayed in the right-hand column on the page, click on any monthname to go to that month's calendar. Near the top of the page you will find the current month name,centered, and links for the previous and following month to the left and right of this title. Click thenext-month or previous-month link until you are on the desired month.

3. Once you are on the correct monthly page, find the date of the event and click on the event name.This will take you to a page that views the day.

4.Click on the editing icon.

5. Make your desired changes, then click on Save changes.

5.3. Deleting a calendar event

To delete a calendar event:

Procedure 4. Deleting a calendar item

1. On the right-hand side of the course page under Upcoming events, click on the Go to calendar...link.

2. If the event's month is displayed on the right-hand side of the page, click on the month's name.

If the month of this event is not displayed in the right-hand column on the page, click on any monthname to go to that month's calendar. Near the top of the page you will find the current month name,

centered, and links for the previous and following month to the left and right of this title. Click thenext-month or previous-month link until you are on the desired month.

3. Once you are on the correct monthly page, find the date of the event and click on the event name.This will take you to a page that views the day.

4. Click on the delete icon.

5. On the Are you sure you want to delete this event?page, click Delete.



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6. Adding content to your course

Whether your course is organized by week or by topic, the large center column of the course will displaya sequence of blocks. The first block is for the entire course, and then each following block is for oneweek or topic.

When you add content, you can add it to any of these blocks. Add content to the first block if it pertainsto the entire course; add content to the other blocks if that content pertains to only one week or onetopic.

To add content, first you must turn on editing. There are two ways to do this:

In the top right corner of the page, just under the Logoutbutton, click the button labeled Turn editingon.

Under the Administrationsection in the column on the left-hand side, click on the link Turn editingon.

When editing is on, each block shows an edit icon. Click on this icon to create or modify the block'ssummary.

Each block also shows two pull-down menus, labeled Add a resource...and Add an activity....

For resources, see Section 7, Resources(p. 10). A Moodle resource is some static content associatedwith the course, such as a syllabus or lecture notes.

For activities, see Section 10, Activities(p. 16). A Moodle activity is a tool that instructors and stu-dents use to interact with the course, for tasks such as homework assignments and online quizzes.

6.1. Presenting blocks in reverse chronological order

Assuming you use topic block format instead of weekly block format (see Section 4.2, The Edit coursesettingspage(p. 4)), you will see one unnumbered block followed by blocks numbered 1, 2, 3, andso on, something like this:

The top, unnumbered block is for material that pertains to the entire course, such as your syllabus. Mostinstructors use each of the numbered blocks for one unit of material, such as a lecture or a week.

If you were to use block 1 for the first unit, block 2 for the second unit, and so on, as the course progressesthrough the semester, students would have to scroll down further and further to get to the currentmaterial.

Therefore, we recommend that you hide all the blocks for future units, and then move each block to thetopas it becomes the active block. Here is the overall procedure.

1. Start in the Edit course settingsmenu: from the course page, on the left side under Administration,click on Settings.



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2. Scroll down a little ways to the pulldown menu labeled Format, and select Topics format if youhaven't already.

3. In the next pulldown menu labeled Number of weeks/topics, select 1. Then scroll to the bottom ofthis page and click Save changes. You will return to the course page.

4.

Click theTurn editing on

button. This makes a number of icons appear:

5. In the first topic, edit the title of the block by clicking the edit icon just to the right of the blocknumber. Enter a title such as Lecture 1.

6. Add resources and activities for the first topic; see Section 7, Resources(p. 10)and Section 10,Activities(p. 16).

7. To add a new block, first go back to the Settingsmenu and add one to the Number of weeks/topics.Save and return to the course page. You will see the new topic block below the other blocks. Again,

click the edit icon and enter a heading for the block, e.g., Lecture 2.

8. Be sure editing is turned on. The way you move the new block above the other blocks depends onyour browser. In some browsers, you will see a four-pointed arrow on the left side of the block,like this:

To move a block in a browser of this type, click on the four-pointed arrow, drag the block on topof the block that is where you want it to be, and drop it there.

In other browsers, you will see upward- and downward-pointing arrows on the right side, likethis:



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To move a block up one position, click on the up-arrow; to move a block down one position,

click on the down-arrow.

7. Resources

A Moodle resourceis a functional tool that you can add to your structure. There are several kinds of re-sources:

A text pageis a simple page with not many formatting options besides being broken into paragraphs.

A web pagecreated within Moodle offers you a wider range of formatting options. You can use thebuilt-in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, or create HTML directly if you prefer.

See Section 7.1, Adding a page(p. 10).

You can linkto a file (such as a PDF, Power Point, or image), or link directly to any page on the World

Wide Web. See Section 7.2,Adding a link to a file

(p. 11).

If you have lots of files, you can organize them in directories.

A labelis a simple heading you can use to separate other kinds of content. See Section 7.3, Addinga label(p. 12).

Once you have added a resource to a block, you can move it to a different block; see Section 7.4, Movinga resource or activity to a different block(p. 12).

7.1. Adding a page

You can add two kinds of content pages to a block: a simple text page or a fully structured Web page.

Procedure 5. Adding a content page

1. Make sure editing is on (see Section 6, Adding content to your course (p. 8)), and determinewhere you want to add the page. Add it to the top block if it pertains to the entire course; add it toa week or topic block if it pertains only to that block.

2. Pull down the Add a resource...menu for the relevant block, and select either Compose a text pageor Compose a web page.



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You will see a link to the file or page you just added.

To delete a file or web link, click on the next to its content link.

7.3. Adding a label

To add a label (heading) to a block, first insure editing is turned on (see Section 6,Adding content to

your course(p. 8)).

Procedure 7. Adding a block label

1. Find the block where you want to add the label, click its Add a resource...pull-down menu, andselect Insert a label.

2. Under the heading Label textyou will find the usual editing tool. Enter the heading here.

3. The Visiblepull-down menu normally displays the choice Show. Select Hideto make the labelinvisible to students.

4. When you are finished creating the label, click Save and displayto see what you have created, orclick Save and return to courseto add more content.

To remove a label, click the next to the label's name.

7.4. Moving a resource or activity to a different block

If you have set up a resource or activity in a block, and wish to move it to a different block, follow thisprocedure.

1.In the course page, click the Turn editing onbutton.

2. The method you will use depends on what browser you are using. In some browsers, you will see

a four-pointed arrow next to each item:

If this is what you see, click the four-pointed arrow next to the item you want to move, drag it intothe block where you want to place it, and drop it there. You are done.

In other browsers, you will see a double-arrow icon next to the name of the resource or activity:



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Suppose you are moving something called Quiz 1. Click the double-arrow icon in that item.You will see a page with a number of small rectangular boxes with dashed borders, like this:

Each of these dashed boxes represents someplace you may put your resource or activity. In thepicture above, you would click on the first one to place Quiz 1 before the News forumlink in thecourse block; the second box would place it just under the forum link; and so forth.

8. Moodle's file manager

For security and performance reasons, you can move files into the Moodle server. You must do this toadd files to course content.

There are several ways to get into the file manager. For example, when you are adding course files (seeSection 7.2, Adding a link to a file (p. 11)), the Choose or upload a filebutton brings up the filemanager.

You can also enter the file manager at any time by clicking on the Fileslink in the Administrationmenuon the left side of the page.

8.1. Uploading a file into your files area

To move a file into your Moodle files area from your computer or from any accessible file system, follow

this procedure.

Procedure 8. Uploading a file into Moodle

1. When you enter the file manager, the page shows files you have already imported into Moodle, ifany. This is a table with four columns: Name, Size, Modified, and Action.

To move a file into Moodle, look below this table and click the button labeled Upload a file.

2. If you know the path name of the file you want to upload, enter it in the field shown. Instead, youmay wish to click the Browsebutton to use your Web browser to navigate to the file.



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Once you have the correct path name, click on Upload this file.

3. If you are in the process of adding a file to course content, a Chooselink will appear in the file tableunder the Actioncolumn. Click this link to choose the file.

8.2. Managing your Moodle files area

If you have a lot of files to manage, you can organize Moodle's file area into folders, subfolders, sub-subfolders, and so forth.

To create a folder, click the Make a folderbutton.

To move down to a sub-folder, click its name in the file table.

To move up from a sub-folder, click the Parent folderlink.

To move one or more files to a different folder, select the checkboxes to the left of those files in thefile table. Then select the With chosen files...pull-down menu and click on Move to another folder.Then move into the destination folder and click on Move files to here.

To delete one or more files, select the checkboxes to the left of those files in the file table. Then select

the With chosen files...pull-down menu and click on Delete completely.

To make one or more files into a Zip archive, select the checkboxes to the left of those files in the filetable. Select the With chosen files...pull-down menu and click on Create zip archive. Then edit thename of the archive you are creating in the field labeled What do you want to call the zip file?(makesure the name ends with .zip) and click on Create zip archive.

9. Roles and access control

What users can or can't do in a given Moodle course depends on their role in that course. Here are theroles that you may assign in your course.

Non-editing teacherSomeone with this role can grade assignments. They can see (but cannot change) external gradecolumns created with the procedure described in Section 12.4, Adding a gradebook column for anexternal grade(p. 21).

GraderSomeone this role can grade assignments, but they cannot even see external grade columns.

Advising CenterThis role was created for use by the Advising Center at the Center for Student Success (CSS). If youassign this role to someone, they can see the entire gradebookbut cannot change grades or changeanything else in the course.

ImportantIt is entirely up to you as course instructor whether you grant this access to the CSS.

The intent is that, especially for critical early courses such as Math 103 and 104, the Advising Centercan use the gradebook to detect and intervene with underperforming students much earlier thanmidterms.

If you elect to grant this role, grant it only to the Moodle account name elaine(Elaine DeBrine-Howell).



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9.1. Managing role assignments

Use this procedure to grant or revoke roles to other Moodle users.

Note

This procedure works only for classes that are not cross-listed. If your course is a meta-course (cross-listed), you must enter one of the (normally hidden) child sections and add the role there. If you needto do this, send mail to .

Procedure 9. Assigning or revoke a role

1. From the course page, under Administrationon the left-hand side, click on Assign roles.

2. In the Rolescolumn of the table that appears, click on the name of the role you want to assign orrevoke.

3. You will see two large blocks labeled existing usersand potential users. Between them are AddandRemovebuttons.



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To assign a role, click on the user's name in the right-hand window to highlight it, and click Add.The name will disappear from the right-hand window and appear in the left-hand window.

Warning

Role assignments take effect immediately. There is no save changesstep.

To revoke a role, click the name in the left-hand window to highlight it, then click Remove.

Because the right-hand window has thousands of entries, you will probably want to use the searchfunction instead. Enter a name, email, or part of a name in the field below the potential usersblock,then click Search. Only the names that match your seach pattern will appear; highlight and click Addas above to grant the highlighted name that role.

10. Activities

Moodle's activities are tools that you and your students use to interact with the course. There are many,but here are the common ones; see the online help for instructions on the use of most of these tools.

AssignmentsFor posting homework assignments. Depending on options you choose, you may wish to allow thestudent to upload their submissions as one or more files. See Section 11, Assignment activit-ies(p. 17).

For outside homework, or quizzes and exams that don't use Moodle's online quiz feature, there aretwo ways to get that grade into the gradebook. If you want to give your graders the ability to post that grade, use an Assignmentsactivity of

type Offline activity. If you don't want your graders to be able to post or even see a grade, use the procedure described

in Section 12.4, Adding a gradebook column for an external grade(p. 21).

For details about the kinds of graders and their access rights, see Section 9, Roles and access con-

trol(p. 14).

Chat

Creates an online chat room for course members.

ChoiceA simple poll containing one multiple-choice question.

Forum

The forum activity is a full-featured bulletin board with threading.

GlossaryIf your course involves a lot of technical jargon, you may want to create a glossary for the course.

Lesson

With the lesson tool, you can create arbitrarily complex computer-assisted instruction scenarios.

QuizYou can construct online tests with various types of questions: multiple-choice, short answer,computational, or essay questions.

WikiIf you like, you can set up a Wiki, a sort of interactive encyclopedia, for course members.



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Once you have added an activity to a block, you can move it to a different block; see Section 7.4,Moving a resource or activity to a different block(p. 12).

11. Assignment activities

Use Moodle's assignment activity to post and grade homework assignments.

11.1. Posting an assignment

Moodle gives you four choices for posting homework assignments, depending on how you want to re-ceive student submissions. When you create an assignment, a column for its grade automatically appearsin the gradebook.

To add an assignment activity, insure that editing is turned on (see Section 6, Adding content to yourcourse(p. 8)), and decide in which weekly block or topic block you want to attach the assignment.

Procedure 10. Posting a new assignment

1.In the relevant block, click the

Add an activity...pull-down menu.

2. Under the Assignmentssection of this menu, select one of these four choices for receiving submis-sions:

Advanced uploading of files

Students may upload any number of files as their homework submission.

Online textStudents can enter their homework submissions directly into a text area on a web page.

Upload a single file

Students must upload one file as their homework submission.

Offline activity

Use this choice if the submission is not in the form of a computer file. You can post the assign-ment online, but students are not allowed to post submissions.

3. You are now on the Adding a new Assignmentpage. In the Assignment namefield, enter a brieftitle for the assignment.

4. Under Description, enter a general discussion of the assignment. You must enter something here.

5. Under Grade, select the maximum number of points from 1 to 100, or select No grade.

6. To limit the period when the assignment is visible, select the starting date and time of visibilityusing the Available frommenus.

If you want the assignment to be visible immediately, select the Disablecheckbutton to the rightof these menus.

7. To limit the period when you will accept assignments, select the ending date and time from theDue datemenus.

If you don't wish to cut off submissions, check the Disablebutton to the right of these menus.

8. Under Prevent late submissions, select Noto allow submissions past the due date, or select Yesifyou do not wish to accept late submissions.

9. Select either Save and displayto review the assignment, or select Save and return to coursewhenyou are satisfied with the assignment.



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If you select Save and displayand you would like to make further changes, click the Update thisassignmentbutton.

11.2. Grading an assignment

To grade submitted assignments, follow this procedure.

Procedure 11. Grading an assigment

1. Go to the course page.

2. To look at a specific assignment, click the Assignments link on the left side under the headingActivities. This brings up a table showing all assignments.

3. If anyone has submitted files, click on the link in the fifth column of this table (Submitted) to viewthe assignments.

If this is an offline assignment, click on that link, which will read No attempts have been made onthis assignment.

4. You are now on the Submissionspage, where you will see a table showing a row for each student.

To view a submitted file, click on the file's name.

5. We suggest that you set up your preferences here.

The checkbox labeled Send notification emailsis checked by default. If you don't want to sendemails to students when you grade their work, clear this checkbox.

To enter multiple grades quickly, set the checkbox labeled Allow quick grading in the bottomright corner.

You may wish to change the number of Submissions shown per pagefrom the default value of10.

If you have changed any of the above settings, click Save preferences.

6. Back on the Submissionspage, there are two ways to enter grades.

In the Gradecolumn, pull down the menu that reads No gradeand select the grade. You mayalso give the student feedback in the Commentbox.

If you would like to compose a lengthy response to the student, you may instead click the Gradebutton in the Statuscolumn. This brings up a Feedbackpopup menu that has plenty of roomand the usual editor in addition to the Gradepull-down menu. Click Save changeswhen youare done.

7. Click the Save all my feedbackbutton when you are finished.

Warning

If you leave the page before you click this button, all your work will be discarded!

8. When you have posted and saved all the grades for one item, move this item from the Uncategorisedcategory to its final category so that these grade values will be included in the computation of thecurrent course average. (See Section 12.3, Setting up gradebook categories (p. 20) to set upgrading categories.)

From the course page, click on Assignments, and then click on the name of the assignment in theNamecolumn.



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9. From the assignment page, click the Update this assignmentbutton in the top right corner.

10. You are now on the Editing Assignmentpage. Near the bottom, under Common module settings,in the Grade categorypull-down menu, select the category under which you want this assignmentto appear.

11. Click Save and return to course.

When you return to the table of assignments, you will see a link for each assigment in the Submittedcolumn. It might read something like No attemps have been made on this assignment. If you need torevise the grade or feedback, click this link, and go through the Submissionspage again.

12. Grades

Moodle's gradebook facility is a good way to simplify the process of computing grades and reportingthem to students. Each student can see only their own grades, and only those grades you want them tosee. The gradebook is sort of a specialized spreadsheet.

The gradebook mechanism is quite flexible. The computation of the current course average for eachstudent depends on a system of categories.

Every individual graded item in your course must be assigned to a category. By default they are as-signed to the Uncategorisedbutton (spelled that way because Moodle's inventor, Martin Dougiamas,is from Perth, Australia).

You will typically set up a formula that computes the overall numeric course grade as a function ofthe averages in each category.

For example, suppose you have a system that weights homework assignments as 70% of the gradeand exams as 30%. Suppose a student has an 80% homework average and a 70% exam average. Thecourse grade would then be (800.7) + (700.3) or 77.

This formula mechanism is far more powerful than this example demonstrates. You may be comfortedto know that your grade formula can use log (common or natural), exponential, and both regular andhyperbolic trig functions, should you so desire.

In your role as teacher, you can bring up the gradebook by clicking on the Gradeslink on the left sideunder Administration(you may have to scroll down, it's one of the last links over there).

You are now on the Grader report page. In the main table, there is a row for each student, and columnsfor their names, individual grades, and course total.

The Choose an action...pull-down menu at the top left has a number of choices.

ViewGrader report takes you to the grader report page. See Section 12.1, Viewing the grade-book(p. 20).

ViewUser reportdisplays the grades in the form that students will see them. On the right is a pull-down menu labeled Select all or one user: use this select grades for a specific students or for all studentsin your course.

For the Categories and itemsgroup, see Section 12.3, Setting up gradebook categories(p. 20).

For the Lettersgroup, see Section 12.6, Setting up a letter grade scale(p. 23). For the Settingsgroup, see Section 12.2, Configuring the gradebook(p. 20).

We recommend that you start by setting up your grade categories (Section 12.3, Setting up gradebookcategories(p. 20)). Then, every time you complete the grading for some item, you will move that itemto its final category so that the current overall course average includes it.



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12.1. Viewing the gradebook

In the main grades table, there is a row for each student, and a summary row at the bottom.

The first column shows student names. You can sort the rows of this table by first or last name byclicking on the words Firstnameand Lastnamein the heading. Click the word a second time to changefrom ascending to descending order.

Each of the remaining columns in the table displays grades for some activity that is graded, such as anassignment or quiz. The last column shows the course average.

If you need to revise an assignment grade, click on the activity name at the top of the column, whichwill take you to the assignment page; see Section 11.2, Grading an assignment(p. 18).

12.2. Configuring the gradebook

To set overall options for the gradebook, click on the Gradesbutton under Administration. Then, in theChoose an action...pull-down menu, under the Settingsgroup, select Course.

If you want the course grade column to appear first instead of last, under General settings, in the

Aggregation positionpull-down menu, select First. In the Grade item settingssection, use the Grade display typepull-down to select how grades are

displayed. For example, the choice Percentage (real)displays each grade as a percentage, with thereal-number equivalent after it in parentheses. (These numbers are different only if you use a numberother than 100 as a maximum.)

You may also use the Overall decimal pointspull-down to select the number of digits you would liketo display after the decimal point, any value from 0 to 5.

In the Overview reportsection, the Show rankpull-down controls whether the student can see theirrank relative to the other students in the course.

The User reportsection controls the display of the report the student sees. Choices are the same as inthe overview report.

12.3. Setting up gradebook categories

By default, all grades are placed into the Uncategorisedcategory. You will need to create one or morecategories so that you can set up a formula for the computation of the current numeric course grade.

Procedure 12. Creating a new category

1. From the course page, under Administration, click Grades.

2. From the Choose an action...pull-down menu, in the Categories and itemsgroup, select Simpleview.

3. Click the Add categorybutton at the bottom of the page.4. You are now on the New categorypage. Under Grade category, enter the name in the Category

namefield.

Then choose a value from the Aggregationpull-down menu. The default choice is Simple weightedmean of grades, but there are several other choices.

5. There are many other choices here, but for most cases you can just click on Save changes.



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12.4. Adding a gradebook column for an external grade

Follow this procedure to add a column to the gradebook for exams and other graded items that are notassignments.

Note

Your teaching assistants and graders who have the Non-editing teacherrole cannot enter grades ofthis type. If you want TAs and graders to enter a grade, make it an assignment of the Offline activitytype; see Section 11, Assignment activities(p. 17).

Procedure 13. Adding an external grade to the gradebook

1. If editing is turned off, click the Turn editing onbutton near the top right corner of the page.

2. Under Administrationon the left side, click Grades.

3. From the Choose an action...pull-down menu at the top left, under Categories and items, selectSimple view.

4. Click the Add grade itemat the bottom of this page .

5. You are now on the New grade itempage. In the Grade itemgroup, enter a unique name in theItem namefield.

6. In the Parent category section, you can select a category for this item (see Section 12,Grades(p. 19)). However, better practice is to leave the grade category in the default category(which has the same name as your course) until you have all the grades entered.

7. Click Save changes. This takes you back to the Simple viewpage.

8. From the Choose an action...menu, under View, select Grader report.

9. In the column for this item, enter the grades for each student.

10.Be sure to click

Updatewhen you are done. If you leave the page by any other route, any gradesyou have entered will be discarded.

11. Now move the graded item from Uncategorisedto its proper category. In the Choose an action...pull-down menu, select Full view.

12. In the row for this item, click the Selectcheckbox in the last column.

13. At the bottom of the page, in the Move selected items topull-down, select the proper category forthe item.

The page will be reformatted so that the item moves into the color-coded block for that category.

12.5. Setting up your grading formula

Once you have set up one or more categories (other than the built-in Uncategorised category) andentered some grades, you can set up a formula to compute the numerical course grade.

Keep in mind that this formula will be applied all through the semester, not just at the end. Studentswill be able to see their numerical course grade all along. To make sure that items not yet graded arenot averaged into the course grade (as zeroes!), be careful not to move graded items from the Uncategor-isedcategory to their final category until you are ready to release the grades. See Section 11.2, Gradingan assignment(p. 18)and Section 12.4, Adding a gradebook column for an external grade(p. 21)for the relevant procedures for assigning categories to graded items.



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Procedure 14. Setting up a grading formula

1. From your course page, under Administrationon the left, click the Gradeslink.

2. From the Choose an action...pull-down menu, under Categories and items, select Full view.

3. The last row of this table is labeled Course total. In the Actionscolumn on the right-hand side, click

on the Edit calculationicon.4. Here is a small example. Category homeworkcontains two homeworks named hw1and hw2. There

is one item named midtermin category exams.

5. You will need to define a symbolic name, called an id number, for each category so that you can usethat category's average in your calculation. In the field labeled Category total for each category,enter a short name, which can be the same as the category name, and then click Add id numbers.

6. In the Calculationfield, enter an expression that computes the course average as a function of thevarious categories and items. Then click Save changes.

The formula must start with =followed by a normal mathematical expression using these elements:

A reference to a category or item, in [[...]]square brackets. In the example, the value of hw1isexpressed as [[hw1]].

The usual mathematical operators and parentheses: + - * / ( ) Assorted functions; see the table below.

To continue the example, here is the formula to compute the course grade as 70% homeworks and 30%exams:

=[[homework]]*0.7 + [[exams]]*0.3

In our example, we will assign id number homeworkto the homeworkcategory and examsto the examscategory. Here is how the Edit calculationscreen looks after we enter the id numbers and then type inthe formula:



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Here are the functions you can use in building your formula.

average(x, y, ...)Takes any number of arguments and returns their average.

max(x, y, ...)Returns the maximum value of its arguments.

min(x, y, ...)Returns the minimum value of its arguments.

mod(x, y)Returns the remainder when xis divided by y.

pi()Returns the value of .

power(x, y)Returns xto the ypower.

round(x, n)Returns xwith the fraction rounded to the nearest value with ndigits after the decimal point.

sum(x, y, ...)Returns the sum of its arguments.

abs, acos, acosh, arccos, arccosh, arcsin, arcsinh, arctan, arctanh, asin, asinh, atan,atanh, cos, cosh, exp, ln, log, sin, sinh, sqrt, tan, tanh

Each of these mathematical functions takes one argument. Isn't it comforting to know that you canuse hyperbolic trig functions to compute your course grade?

12.6. Setting up a letter grade scale

You can define a letter grade scale so that each numeric course grade will be converted automaticallyto a letter grade. Follow this procedure.



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1. From the course page, click on the Gradeslink on the left side under Administration.

2. From the Choose an action...pull-down menu, under Letters, select Edit.

3. Click the Override site defaultscheckbox.

4. You will see a sequence of pairs of fields, one for the letter and one for the lower boundary of thatletter. Initially you will see grades A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, and F, but of course you may

use any set you like.

5. To change the lower bound for a grade, use the pull-down menu labeled Letter grade boundaryand select the new value. Grades exactly equal to the boundary will fall into the higher category.

For example, if 77% is the lower bound for C+, an average of 77% will be called C+, not C.If you don't want to use a particular grade, set the pull-down menu for that grade to Unused.

6. When you have everything set up, click Save changes.

7. Next you will need to add a letter-grade column to the gradebook. From the Choose an action...pull-down menu, under Categories and items, select Simple view.

8.To add a letter grade for the entire course, click the Edit icon in the Actionscolumn for thecourse.

9. You are now in the Edit categorypage. In the Category total section, click the Show Advancedbutton.

10. In the Grade display typepull-down menu, select one of the choices that starts with Letter. The Letterchoice shows only a letter grade for the course. The Letter (percentage)choice shows both a letter grade and a percentage based on 100%. The Letter (real)shows the numerical average, in case you are using a basis other than 100%.

11. Click Save changes.

You may use a similar procedure to attach a letter grade to any other column.



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Note

If the changes you have made don't show up immediately, go into the Grader report(from the coursepage, Administration: GradesChoose an actionView: Grader report), click on Turn editing on, clickon Update, and then click on Turn editing off.

12.7. Hiding and revealing gradebook columns

Although you as the instructor will always see every graded item as a column in the gradebook, youcan hide that column from the students until grades are set.

1. From the course page, on the left side under Administration, click Grades.

2. In the Choose an action ...pull-down menu in the top left corner, under Categories and items, selectSimple view.

3. In the Actionscolumn of this table are a number of icons. Click on the open-eye icon to hide the

column. Click on the closed-eye icon when you are ready to reveal that grade to the students.

12.8. Always show a meaningful overall course grade

Students need to know how they are doing in your course, even early on in the semester. We recommendthat you set up your gradebook so that the Course totalcolumn can tell them how roughly they aredoing as the course progresses.

Accordingly, we recommend that you follow these hints.

Set up the gradebook early: see Section 12.2, Configuring the gradebook (p. 20), Section 12.3,Setting up gradebook categories(p. 20), and Section 12.5, Setting up your grading formula(p. 21).

For each graded item in your course, leave it in the Uncategorisedcategory until the grades are set

for every student, so that the value of ungraded items is not involved in any gradebook formula.Also, hide that column of the gradebook until all the grades are entered. See Section 12.7, Hidingand revealing gradebook columns(p. 25).

When an assignment or quiz is graded, change the category of the item to its final category so it willbe included in the calculation of the overall course grade. This procedure is described in Section 11.2,Grading an assignment(p. 18). Then reveal the gradebook column.

13. How to make a course backup

At any time, you can build a .zipfile containing some or all of the items in your course.

Although the TCC makes regular backups of the Moodle server, it is a good idea to keep your ownbackups, just in case Speare Hall gets hit by a large meteor.

If you are about to make major changes to your course, back it up first just to be safe. After a course is completely wrapped up, make an archival backup in case there is ever any question

about events in the course, and just for safety's sake.

Procedure 15. Making a course backup

1. Click on the course link.



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2. On the left side, under Administration, click the Backuplink. This brings up the Course backuppage.

3. Select which features of the course you want to backup using the checkboxes.

There are two columns. Check the boxes in the left-hand column to save course features. Checkboxes in the right-hand column to save user data associated with those course features.

Use the All/Nonelinks at the top of each column to set or clear all the checkboxes in that column.

4. At the bottom of this page, click the Continuebutton.

5. Now you will see a field labeled Name:at the top of the page. This is the name of the backup .zipfile that will be written. You may edit this name if you like. Also shown is a table listing all thethings that will go into the backup file.

6. At the bottom of this page, click Continue.

7. After the file is written, you will see the message Backup completed successfully. Click Continue.This will bring up your Filespage in the backupdatafolder.

If you want to download this file, right-click its link and select Save Link As.

If you want to restore a course backup, or to extract parts of a course backup and add them to somecurrent target course, please contact your Moodle administrator for assistance at .

This is a potentially hazardous operation that can mess up your course. If you are a Teacher in the targetcourse, and you are feeling brave, and you have made backups of the target course, the procedure isdescribed in the NMT Moodle Administrator's Guide5.

5 http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/admin/course-restore-merge.html
http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/admin/course-restore-merge.htmlhttp://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/admin/course-restore-merge.htmlhttp://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/admin/course-restore-merge.htmlhttp://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/moodle/admin/course-restore-merge.html

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