Uploading Course Materials & Publishing a Course

Course materials are hosted within the department's Moodle LMS. To upload materials, go to the Courses site homepage and click the "Log in with SSO" link in the top right corner. Enter your Single Sign-On (SSO) account details if/when prompted to do so.

Once logged in, either navigate to your course using the list at the bottom of the homepage, or click "My courses" to see just the courses you have been assigned to. Make sure you select the course for the correct year - older courses are likely to be listed first in My courses because it defaults to alphabetical order.

On the course page, expand Course information to see the synopsis, number of lectures, etc. You cannot edit this section, so please email academic administration (@email) if you spot any issues.

As the course lecturer, you should see the "Edit mode" toggle in the top-right corner - click that to turn edit mode on and start editing the course.

A course can contain several modules. They are usually split up as into the following sections:

• General - Announcements, lecture videos, reading list, discussion forum
• Course Materials - Problem sheets, lecture notes, links, and so on
• Intercollegiate Classes - Class signup, attendance tracking, and class tutor feedback (Part B/C courses only)

These are likely to have been copied across from the previous year, but you can add/remove/reorder sections and modules as required.

Adding Activities / Resources

To upload your lecture notes, slides or other resources, click the "Add an activity or resource" link at the bottom of Course Materials.

Select the appropriate module type. The ones you may want to use are:

• Assignment - e.g. Problem sheets (see Adding Problem Sheets or Other Assignments for details)
• File - Upload a single file which does not require any work submission by the students, e.g. Lecture notes
• Folder - Upload multiple related files, e.g. Example code
• URL - Link to an external website (please do not host your own course materials externally though)

Others that are less commonly used in the department include:

• Page - Enter content that can be viewed directly in Moodle
• Quiz - Create an online test that is marked automatically

Enter a suitable name.

Optionally enter a description and tick "Display description on course page".

Fill in other details as required - e.g. Upload the file.

Tips:

• Make sure you use a sensible name, as any mention of that name anywhere in the course will be converted to a link to the resource. For example, if you use the name "Lecture Notes", it will be automatically linked from a problem sheet with the description "The relevant section of the lecture notes is Chapters 2 and 3".
• We recommend you include the course name in all file names, so students can more easily find them after downloading them.
• You can use $\LaTeX$ formulae in most fields by enclosing them between \(...\) (inline format) or \[...\] (block format).
• If you want to embed a Panopto video, you can do so by pressing the green Panopto logo button in the editor.

Previewing a Course as a Student or Tutor

Moodle allows you to preview the page how other users would see it. You can do this even if the course is not published yet.

Click your initials or avatar in the top right corner and select "Switch role to...", then select one of the available roles:

• Class Tutor
• Teaching Assistant
• College Tutor
• Student - specifically one who is enrolled in the course
• Authenticated user - a student that is logged in but not enrolled on the course
• Guest - someone that is not logged in, including the general public

However, as noted on the "Switch role to..." page, this preview may not be perfect. In particular:

• When viewing as a Class Tutor or TA, you will not see any student data unless you are assigned to at least one class.
• The "Guest" and "Authenticated user" previews assume guest access is enabled, which it may not be for some courses.
• The Panopto block (right sidebar) may incorrectly say "You do not have access to view this Panopto folder".

It should be good enough to allow you to check who can see different activities, problem sheet solutions, and so on - but please contact IT support if you have any concerns.

To return to your normal Lecturer role, use the same menu and select "Return to my normal role". If you want to make further changes to the course, you will need to enable "Edit mode" again.

Publishing a Course

Once you are happy with your course, you can make it visible to students, if academic admin haven't done so already (which usually happens in week -1 or week 0).

From the main course page, click the "Settings" tab.

Change "Course visibility" to "Show".

Click "Save and display".

Need Help?

If you need any technical assistance with Moodle, please contact IT support.

If any of the course information is wrong, please contact academic admin (@email) or the relevant course administrator.