Outline Getting started .................................................................................. 3 Logging in to Moodle .........................................................................................3 Printing this Manual...........................................................................................3

Tracking course participants in Moodle......................................... 4 Setting up activities.......................................................................... 5 Choices ............................................................................................. 6 Assignments ..................................................................................... 7 Forum .............................................................................................. 11 Grades ............................................................................................. 14 Blocks.............................................................................................. 15 Changing the names of the Topics/Weeks .................................. 20 Further information ........................................................................ 20

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Getting started Hello and welcome to Moodle II Quickstart Guide for AUB faculty! In this guide you will find information about very important Activities in Moodle like Assignments, Choices, and Forums. You will also find information about grades, tracking course participants…etc If you have any questions about Moodle please send us an email at [email protected] or call ACC at 3586 - 3588 - 3589 so we can help you. Logging in to Moodle You have two ways to access the Moodle server - Type the URL of Moodle at AUB: http://moodle.aub.edu.lb Î Log in to Moodle Or - Go to the AUB homepage and follow this path: AUB Homepage Î Elearning Î Moodle Î Log in to Moodle Both ways will lead you to this screen:

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For all Moodle users, your username and password are the same as your AUB Imail (Ex: ab99). Printing this Manual It is recommended to print this Quickstart and keep it as a handy reference as you are using Moodle. If you want to print this manual, simply go to File > Print.

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Tracking course participants in Moodle You can track the activities of students and designers in your course using the reports tool found in the Administration Block.

Click on Reports in the Administration block to get the Reports page that will detail for you all the activity of the participants in your course.

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Course logs show activity within the course. It allows instructors to see what resources are being used and when, or check that an individual student has viewed the resource they claim to have read. You can filter the results (1) by selecting a single participant or all participants. You can also specify dates and to get logs for only specific activities.

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Once you click on Show these logs (2), you will get a list of results (3) with the Time, the IP Address of the computer from which the participant logged in to your course, Full name, Action done by the participant, and some additional Information that describes the activity. Note: You can track the activities of both designers and students. So using course logs you can also track your activities in your course.

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Live logs from the past hour This link in the middle of the Report page (see above image), shows all the activity in the last hour, with a single click. For an administrator on the site homepage, it calls up all site activity. A teacher in a course, will see just the activity for that course in the last hour. Note that these reports have active links. For example, this allows the teacher to click on the page a student was watching. Here is an example of a live log. Activity reports There is a detailed help button for these reports. Generating an Activity report is a two stage process. First select the period, user type, and action type. This will bring you to the participation report screen with a list all the users and instances that meet the filter of the first step. You can further narrow down the type of activity. Reports can be emailed to participants in the course.

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Setting up activities Building a course involves adding course Activity modules to the main page in the order that students will be using them. You can shuffle the order any time you like. To turn on editing, click Turn editing on in the course menu or in the Administration block. This toggle switch shows or hides the extra controls that allow you to manipulate your main course page. Editing Controls review: You will see these arrows to the right of each week/topic to move the content of this week/topic up/down. To indent any resource/activity to the right/left or the blocks from one side to another To move any resource/activity up/down or from one week/topic to another To delete a resource/activity completely To re-edit any resource/activity, or to edit week/topic summary If the eye is opened beside the resource/activity this means it is available to your students. If the eye is closed beside the resource/activity this means it is hidden from your students. Adding Activities To add a new Activity, go to the week/topic section of the screen where you want to add it, and select the type of activity from the Add an Activity… drop down menu.

Choices A choice is basically a poll. When you add a choice, you ask a question, and supply two or more answers to the question. Then students may vote. This only asks one question at a time, so works well as a poll, but would not work well as a multiple choice test (that is under the quiz module). To add a Choice, select Choice from the Add an activity … drop down menu. “Adding a new Choice” page will open:

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In this page you can add a title for this Choice in the Choice name (1). You can also add description about this choice in the Choice text area (2). The choices that a student will choose from can be entered in the Choices area (3). You can specify a limit for each option and this will allow you to limit the number of participants who can select each particular option. After enabling it from the drop down arrow beside Limit the number of responses allowed you can type in the field next to Limit (4) and enter a certain number, so the maximum number of students who can choose this Choice will be that number. There are other settings found in this page which you can go through them. When you finish, don’t forget to click on Save Changes.

Assignments An assignment is a task you ask your students to perform. An assignment in Moodle has a start and due date, maximum grade, assignment description…etc. Assignment Types You can choose from three types of assignments: •

Offline activity: This is useful when the assignment is performed outside Moodle. It could be something elsewhere on the web or face-to-face (Example: Quiz, Midterm…). Students can see a description of the assignment, but can't upload files or anything. Grading works normally, and students will get notifications of their grades.

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Online text: This assignment type asks users to edit a text, using the normal editing tools. Teachers can grade them online, and even add inline comments or changes.

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Upload a single file: This type of assignment allows each participant to upload a single file of any type. This might be a Word processor document, an image, a zipped folder, or any other file format.

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Creating an Assignment To create an assignment, click on Turn Editing on then from the Add an activity drop down menu choose Assignment.

Adding a new Assignment page will open. In this page you can enter the assignment settings. Assignment name: The title of this assignment. Description: The description of the assignment, which should include information for the students regarding the subject of the assignment or any instructions. Grade: The maximum grade for the assignment. You can select numeric or descriptive grades. CAUTION: AUB instructors: be aware that, in Moodle current version: Î Numerical grades range between 1 and 100. Î You CANNOT create a grade above 100. Î You CANNOT use decimal grades (0.25, 0.50 or 0.75 fractions), only integers are allowed. Availability from: The time when a student can access the assignment. Due date: Students won’t be able to submit their assignment after this date.

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Prevent late submission: Set to “No”, assignments submitted after the due date will be marked as late, but students will still be able to submit them. Set to “Yes”, assignment submission will be blocked after the due date. Assignment type: Î see Assignment Types section above. Group mode: If you decided to divide your class into groups you will have different options: • • •

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

Keep the default one No groups if you decided to not use groups. Visible to students: select Show to let your students view the assignment, Hide to hide it. You can hide or reveal your assignment or any other activity from the eye icon outside beside the link name on the course homepage. When you finish click on the Next button to be taken to the next step (See picture below).

Here you will enter additional assignment details. Maximum size: Specifies the maximum size of the file which the students can upload as their submission. Note: This option is relevant only for assignments of the “Upload a single file” type. Allow resubmitting: Specifies whether a student can submit his assignment more than once before the due date.

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Email alerts to teachers: You will be alerted with a short email whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Click on Continue to end this step. You will have the following window if you selected the offline activity type:

Click on Continue to end this step. And the below window if you selected the online text:

Comment inline: If this option is selected (Yes), then the original submission 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. Click on Continue to end this step. After this step, the assignment would be created. The page below will open.

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This is the assignment page which has the assignment description, the assignment availability dates, a note about the maximum file size and browse button to submit the assignment. In addition to that, as an instructor you will have a button to Update this Assignment (1), and another button to View submitted assignments (2).

Forum Forums are where discussions take place. When you add a new forum, you will be presented with a choice of different types - A single simple discussion, Each person posts one discussion, Standard forum for general use, or Q&A Forum. Forum Types You can choose from four types of forums: •

A single simple discussion: students can reply to the topic, but cannot create new ones.

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Each person posts one discussion: students can each start one new topic, which could be useful if each has a special item to discuss.

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Standard forum for general use: students may start new topics any time they wish. The “Standard forum” is the most commonly used forum. And it’s the default one.

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Q & A Forum: it is a forum that requires students to post their perspectives before viewing other student’s posting. After the initial posting, students can view and respond to others’ postings. This feature allows equal initial posting opportunity among all students, thus encouraging original and independent thinking.

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To create a forum, click on Turn Editing on then from the Add an activity drop down menu choose Forum.

The Adding a new Forum page will open. In this page you can enter the Forum settings. Forum name: The title of this Forum. Forum type: Î see Forum Types section above. Forum introduction: An introduction to the Forum that describes the topics that are going to be discussed. Can a student post to this forum? You have the option to allow students to post to the Forum or not. If you choose No discussions, no replies then students won’t be able to either post or reply to any of the discussion. If you choose No discussions, but replies are allowed then the students will be able to only reply but not add any new discussion. The last option would be Discussions and replies are allowed, which allows students to both reply and add discussions topics. Force everyone to be subscribed: If Yes then the posts will be sent to the student as an email. Read tracking for this forum: If On then users can track read and unread messages in forums and discussions. The instructor can choose to force a tracking type on a forum using this setting or choose Optional and leave it to the students to decide. Maximum attachment size: allows you to limit the size of any attachment that students may want to upload in this forum. When you finish click on Save changes and the forum will be created. Allow posts to be rated? Allows you as instructor to rate the postings by your students in the Forum activity, also you can let your students to rate their colleagues. 3 new items to manage postings are added. Their concept is very simple. 1. Post threshold for warning: Put here a number. When students reach the number of postings you specify here, they'll be warned that they are 12 / 21

approaching the threshold. Putting the warning threshold to 0 will disable warnings. 2. Post threshold for blocking: Students will be blocked from posting after a given number of posts in a given period, and as they approach that number. Setting the block threshold to 0 will disable blocking. If blocking is disabled, warnings will automatically be disabled. 3. Time period for blocking: Keeping it “Don’t block” will disable blocking and warnings. Example: If you set warning to 2, blocking to 4 and Time period for blocking to “6 days”, the student will see upon entering the Forum this message: “ This forum has a limit to the number of forum postings you can make in a given time period - this is currently set at 4 posting(s) in 6 days “ As they exceed the warning threshold (set to 2) and until they reach the maximum allowed posts (set to 4) for a time period (set to 6 days), they will get on each post this message: “You are approaching the posting threshold. You have posted 3 times in the last 6 days and the limit is 4 posts.” Once the time period OR the number of postings are exceeded, students get the message when they click on any “reply” inside the forum: “You have exceeded the posting threshold set for this forum.” Note: none of these “post management” settings affect teachers posting. Group mode: If you decided to divide your class into groups you will have different options: • • •

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

Keep the default one No groups if you decided to not use groups. Visible to students: select Show to let your students view the assignment, Hide to hide it. You can hide or reveal your assignment or any other activity from the eye icon outside beside the link name on the course homepage.

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Adding discussion topics Once a Forum is created, you can add to it discussion topics. In the forum click on Add a new discussion topic (See picture below) and you will be taken to a page where you type your message and then post it.

Note: After adding any resource or activity to your course homepage, you will view different icons beside its name if the turn editing is on: You will see these arrows to the right of each week/topic to move the content of this week/topic up/down. To indent any resource/activity to the right/left or the blocks from onside to another To move any resource/activity up/down or from one week/topic to another To delete a resource/activity completely To re-edit any resource/activity, or to edit week/topic summary If the eye is opened beside the resource/activity this means it is available to your students. If the eye is closed beside the resource/activity this means it is hidden from your students.

Grades The tool to manage student grades in Moodle is called Grades and it is found in the Administration block. It is like a grade book for the students in which you can show them the grades for the activities they have done in class. Adding items to the Grades Graded items are added to the Grade automatically, when you create the item from the Add an activity… drop down menu. So if you add an Assignment with a grade of 100, once you finish adding it, a column for that Assignment would be added in the Grade page. Show Hidden Items: Will show or hide grade items that are hidden (using the eye tool). This applies to the instructor view only. Students will not see 14 / 21

gradebook entries for items that are not visible to them. Student totals will include hidden items if this is set to "Yes" The Moodle Grade allows you to do grade weighting, letter grades, dropping a number of grades, excluding individual students from being graded on individual items, curving, and extra credit. Note: Teachers can see the grades for all students in the Grade, while students see only their own grades. When logged in as a teacher, you may click on a student's name to see only their grades.

Blocks Adding new blocks or re-adding deleted blocks If you delete a block and then would like it back, you can always re-add it. This process is the same as adding one of the optional blocks. To add a block, turn editing on and choose the block you would like to add from the Add… drop down menu in the Blocks block. This menu will only be visible when editing is turned on, and will never be visible to your students.

People Block The people block provides a listing of all participants in this course (enrolled students and teachers). If you have enabled groups, then there will be a link to view groups here, as well.

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- My Courses: (1) it’s the list of all your courses on Moodle at AUB. You can select another one to view it’s participants (in case you have any other course, as an instructor or as a student) - Separate groups: (2) If you have enabled groups, then there will be a link to view participants groups here, as well. 15 / 21

- Show users who have been inactive for more than: (3) [ 1 day up to last year ]. CAUTION: you’ll see this option only if you are instructor in the course. Another great tool in the Participants page is the ability to send messages only to your class (Instructors, students or by manual selection).

At the bottom click on the Select all button and from the > drop down menu select Add/send message. A message body window will open:

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Type in it the message to be sent to your selected participants and click on the Preview button to check your message before sending. If you want to confirm, click on Send if not click on Edit to return back to your message. At the bottom of your message you will see all participants selected and beside each user there is a remove button if you decided at the last minute to exclude him/her. Note: don’t worry about your student list, whenever you activate your course (make it available to the students in the current semester) all your students will be enrolled automatically in your course. When they login to Moodle, you can see their names here. Only those who login will appear here! The image below shows the listing of Instructors and Students in this Participants page under the People block.

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Messages Block This block will show a list of new messages and links to the messages page. Clicking on Messages… opens a pop up window with three tabs. With this tool, you can communicate with all Moodle-AUB users by chatting 1- if the user is online 2- if the user is offline, messages will be automatically transferred to his/her email after 10 minutes (you can change this setting). You will find different icons, below is the definition of each: This icon allows you to add the user you searched to the contact list you have. When you add a contact, you’ll see it in your contacts’ list (see figure). This icon allows you to remove one of the users added to your content list This icon allows you to prevent a specific user from contacting you. This icon allows you to see all the message history occurred between you and the person selected.

Contacts: Contains previously added contacts. At the beginning it is empty. Search: Allows you to either search for a person from among the students of your course only, or all users registered at AUB. Settings: Settings regarding the Contact List, Alerts, blocking messages, HTML editor…etc Upcoming Events Block This block will display the upcoming events and a list of due dates for course activities (Default 10) that will occur in a 18 / 21

chronological order starting from today's date, and students may click the names of this list to directly access the activities. Events in Moodle At the bottom of the Upcoming Events block there are two links Go to Calendar and New Event… Creating Events New Event: To create an event click on New Event…Here there are two types of events that you can choose to create. •

User event: To add your personal private events.

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Course event: is an event specific to the course. Only instructors can post this type of events, students can not post course event. Both instructors and students inside the course will see this event.

To select one of these events select corresponding radio button and then click on Ok.

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The New Event Page will open. Here you specify the settings to this events with all the information regarding this event. Name: Event name. Description: description of this event. Date: The date of this event, when is it going to take place. Duration: The duration that this event will take. Repeats: Specifies whether this event is going to be repeated on regular basis. Click on Save changes to create this event. You will be taken to the Day View of the event. You can see your event, its day and time.

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To create an event you can also click on Go to Calendar from the Upcoming Events block. In the Calendar page you will see a list of upcoming events. Clicking on a day in the calendar will open the day view. While Clicking on the month in the Calendar will open the month view. To create a new event click on the New Event button under the navigation bar

Follow the same steps as before to enter the information related to this event.

Changing the names of the Topics/Weeks To change the name of a Topic or Week in your course Homepage first click on Turn editing on, then go to the topic block, click the edit icon next to the Topic or Week’s title

And type in a new name. Click save changes and the new name will show up in the Course Menu.

Further information If you have any problems with your course, please email Moodle at AUB at [email protected]. If you have ideas for improvements to Moodle or even some good stories come over to http://moodle.org and join in the course called Using Moodle. The Moodle Community would love to hear from you, and you can help Moodle improve. There are a number of Tutorials and Guides describing Moodle components in detail, as well as movies showing how to set them up, in the ACC site. Just go to AUB Homepage Î E-learning Î Moodle Î Moodle for Faculty Î Tutorials & Help. Tips and frequently asked questions are covered in the FAQ section. Just go to AUB Homepage Î E-learning Î Moodle Î Moodle for Faculty Î Faculty FAQ. Thanks for using Moodle - and good luck with your teaching! 20 / 21

End – Moodle II Quickstart.

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