Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contents
Welcome to Moodle 3
Role Description 3
Administrator 3
Manager 3
Editing Teacher 3
Non-editing Teacher 3
Student 3
Adding Users 4
Add New Users to Moodle - Individually 4
Add New Users to Moodle – Bulk 4
Add Users to Course 4
Adding Courses 5
Create a New Course 5
Adding Assignments 5
Add New Users to Course 5
Instructor Tips 8
Granting Extensions 8
Administrator Tips 8
Define existing role 8
Defining a new role 8
Course Backup 9
Backup Settings 9
What is included in a Backup? 9
Backup logs 9
Course Restore 10
Backup Troubleshooting 10
McGraw Hill 11
Adding McGraw Hill to a Course 11
Connect Gradebook to Moodle 11
Getting Students Ready to Sync 12
Troubleshooting Gradebook Sync 12
VitalSource 13
Program an External Tool 13
References 14
Welcome to Moodle
What is Moodle LMS? Moodle LMS is the world’s most popular and most used learning management
system. Why? Because the Moodle Learning Management System is a flexible, open source, and free to
download learning management solution. With 68 million users and 55,000 Moodle sites deployed
worldwide, Moodle is a user-friendly eLearning platform that serves the learning and training needs of
people from all types of organizations.
Role Description
All listed roles are the default roles provided by Moodle. To learn how to edit an existing role or to
define a new role, click here.
Administrator
Administrators can do almost anything and go anywhere. It is recommended that there are one or two
people with the administrator role. Administrators can browse every course without being required to
enroll and without being listed as a course participant. Click here for more notes on the role of an
Administrator.
Manager
Managers can access course and modify them, they usually do not participate in courses.
Editing Teacher
Given name: Editing Instructor
Editing teachers can do anything within a course, including changing the activities and grading students.
Enrol/unenroll students from a course, Edit and add course material (assignments, files…), edit grades,
give feedback to students, and edit and add blocks (McGraw Hill). Click here for more notes on the role
of an Editing Teacher.
Non-editing Teacher
Given name: Instructor
This role cannot add activities or resources but can view and edit grades. Non-editing instructors can
also make announcements and email students.
Student
Students can submit assignments for grading, make posts to forums, and generally participate in a
course. Students cannot edit any of the course settings. Students see their own grades only.
Adding Users
Add New Users to Moodle - Individually
Dashboard > Admin > Users > Add a new user > Manual enrolments > Fill in information
You must change: Username, generate password and notify user, first name, Surname, Email address,
Time zone (America, Edmonton), Interests (Enter their program tags – e.g. BAM), Optional (insert
student ID number and institution).
Once uploaded, “upload users preview page” will appear which show the number users uploaded. Scroll
down the page choose city/town and click the “Upload users” button. The next page will show you the
result of Users uploaded. If there are any user with the same name they will be skipped, and the
remaining will be created.
• Username
• Password
• Firstname
• Lastname
• Email
• Note: You can enrol students in future classes by changing the “Starting from” dropdown menu
to a future date. This is beneficial as students can be enrolled pre-emptively for the month
ahead rather than having an Admin manual enrol new students each week.
• Note: This is where you will add your students and instructors.
Adding Courses
Create a New Course
Dashboard > Courses > Add a new course > Fill in information > Save and return *you do not want to
add participants until the course is fully organized
You must include: Course full name (Economics), Course short name (Economics – this is the name that
can be found in your navigation bar), Course Category (Business Administration Management), Course
start and end dates, Course ID number (BECN), Course Summary, under Appearance change Number of
announcements to 1, under Role renaming change Your word for ‘Teacher’ and ‘Non-editing teacher’ to
preferred names (example: Admin Instructor and Instructor), under Tags add the appropriate tag (BAM
and BECN).
Adding Assignments
Dashboard > Courses > Select program > Select course > Turn editing on > Add an activity or resource >
Select the type of activity or resource > follow prompts to set up activity.
Assignment – You must add any in-class assignments that are taken in for marks. Even though students
do not submit anything online, the addition of an assignment acts as a placeholder for a grade. Include a
note in assignment description stating that “This assignment is to be completed on McGraw Hill (or in
class). No further submission is required. Your instructor will update your grade here once submitted.”
External tool – This activity is used for VitalSource. Click here to see how to set up an external tool
Forum – Good for discussion questions for both on the ground and online students. Ensure you choose
the correct Forum type (example: Q and A Forum allows the Instructor to post a question for students to
answer), under Activity completion change completion tracking to “show activity is complete when
conditions are met” and edit conditions (such as require posts) if this activity is for marks.
Quiz – All quizzes from an external source (McGraw Hill) are automatically synced. However, you may
choose to create a new quiz as opposed to using a Moodle Quiz. Click here to see how to set up a new
Moodle Quiz.
• PowerPoints – must be formatted to ensure students cannot download the file, but instead
simply open in presenter mode.
• PDF – After uploading your file, ensure you change the display. Under Appearance change
Display to “in pop-up”.
Once you have your question bank, follow instructions to create your Quiz in Moodle.
Dashboard > Courses > Select Course > Turn editing on > Add an activity or resource > Quiz > Fill in
information as directed > Save and return to course
Once you have your quiz frame, select and edit your quiz to add questions. Questions can be added
three different ways – by creating a new question, from your question bank, or randomly added. Follow
on-screen instructions for adding questions.
Questions – allows you to write a new question right into Moodle. This should only be done if you are
creating a quiz from scratch. To do this, follow the prompts to “Create a new question….”
Import – allows quizzes to be uploaded from an existing file. Files must be formatted properly, follow
direction below to ensure proper formatting.
Aiken format – most common, easiest to use, best for multiple choice questions.
Embedded answers (Cloze) – enables the import of a passage of text, best for short answer questions.
Gift format – most complicated, enables multiple-choice, true-false, short answer, matching, missing
word, numerical and essay questions.
Once the question bank page is open, select the category that contains the questions you want to move.
Select the question(s) you want to move by clicking the check box to the left of the question(s). On the
bottom of the page, in the Move to >> dropdown menu, select the category you want to move the
questions to. Click Move to >>.
Instructor Tips
Granting Extensions
All assignments can be granted extensions. If you are using an assignment on McGraw Hill (or a similar
platform), the extension for those assignments will be completed in McGraw Hill. Once changes are
made to McGraw Hill assignments, make sure you sync these changes. Click here for instructions.
For all assignments created in Moodle, follow the instructions below to grant extension.
Dashboard > Courses > Select your course > Select assignment > View/grade all submissions (or View
all submissions) > Find student who needs extension > Click Edit dropdown menu > Grant extension >
Enter an extension due date > Save changes.
Administrator Tips
Define existing role
Roles, such as Instructors, have a list of specified permissions and capabilities. To view the permissions
associated with each role, go to
Dashboard > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles
Dashboard > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles > Add a new role > Insert
required information
Course Backup
Backup Settings
Typically, Moodle is set to run a scheduled backup of all courses Monday – Saturday at 17:00. This
means that a record of all course backups can be found in your backup log. To view any backup settings,
follow instructions below,
Dashboard > Site administration > Courses > Backups > Automated backup setup
• Users
• Role assignments
• Activities and resources
• Blocks
• Filters
• Comments
• Badges
• Calendar events
• User completion information
• Logs
• Questions bank
• Groups and groupings
• Competencies
Backup logs
To access Moodle backups, follow instructions below
This page will show all Course backups as well as any errors that might arise during a backup.
Course Restore
Dashboard > Site administration > Courses > Restore course > scroll down to “Course backup area” >
Select backup file
When restoring a course, you may choose to either restore as a new course or into an existing course. If
you choose to restore as a new course and your new course has fewer sections than the course you are
restoring, the extra sections will appear as "orphaned activities". Increase the number of sections in the
new course to make them visible.
Backup Troubleshooting
Following a backup, you may get a message that reads “Some of your courses weren’t saved!!” There
are three possible causes of this problem:
1. Error - this happens when the backup procedure has found an error and so hasn't finished the
backup of a course. These are "controlled" errors and the scheduled backup continues with the
next course.
2. Unfinished - this happens when the backup procedure dies without knowing why. When the
cron is next executed it detects that the last execution went wrong and continues skipping the
problematic course. A possible solution would be to raise the PHP/Apache limit in your
installation (memory, time of execution...). By looking to your log tables, you should be able to
see if the "crash" is happening at exact time intervals (usually a problem with the
max_execution_time php's variable), or if there is some exact point were all the courses are
breaking. Click here to learn how to access your log tables.
3. Skipped - this happens when a course is unavailable to students and has not been changed in
the last month (31 days). This isn't an error situation - it's a feature, especially useful for sites
with many unavailable old courses, saving process time. See below for system skip settings.
McGraw Hill
Format: McGraw-Hill AAIRS Block
Programming: McGraw Hill is programmed using a plugin. This means that it was downloaded and
programmed through the administration access and that all edits will have to be made through the
admin > plugins page. This plugin allows students, instructors, and administration to access student
grades through Moodle via online syncs.
1. Go to Moodle and follow your McGraw-Hill AAIRS block’s link to McGraw Hill Connect.
2. Go to Performance > Reports. You will see your section performance (this appears as a bar
graph if you have students completing assignments)
3. Follow the “view gradebook sync list” link on the right
4. Select any assignments you would like to sync to your Moodle page.
• Ensure you have the attempt selected (see dropdown option next to sync button)
5. A message will pop up telling you that your sync is in process.
• This process can take longer depending on how many grades you are syncing
6. Once your sync is complete, instructors and students will be able to view updated grades. For
each assignment in the gradebook sync list, you’ll see its name, type, sync status, due date, and
the attempt score you last synced.
• Note: Students must be “ready to sync”. Click here to see how to go about this step.
• Note: If you are unable to complete sync, click here to troubleshoot.
• Note: As grades are taken from McGraw Hill, ALL WEIGHTING associated through
McGraw Hill will also come through. This means that it is important to check the
points to ensure the course is being weighted properly. Otherwise, students will see
an incorrect score.
At this point, students with active licenses will be paired with McGraw-Hill Campus and taken to your
course. Students without active licenses will be asked to renew their registrations, and then they will be
taken to your course.
1. Go to Site Administration > Plugins > Web Services > External Services
2. Locate the Web Service, MHAAIRS Gradebook Service
3. Click on the Edit link (to the right of the MHAAIRS Gradebook Service option)
4. On the next page, enable and click Save Changes
1. Go to Site Administration > Plugins > Web Services > Manage Tokens
2. Click Add
3. Select or enter your admin user account
4. Select MHAAIRS Grade Book Service as the Service
5. Click Save Changes
6. Your token is now listed, please copy it and paste in an email to Jeremy at McGraw Hill (he will
setup your Gradebook Connector using this token) Partacz, Jeremy
Jeremy.Partacz@mheducation.com
VitalSource
Format: External Tool
Programming: VitalSource is programed using what is called an LTI package. This means that when a
user clicks the link, it will go directly to their account. This external link allows students to access their
textbook without having to input a code. Instead, they follow a link that will automatically redeem the
generated code on behalf of the user.
You will need: Tool URL, Consumer key and Shared secret
*The tool URL, consumer key, and shared secret must be provided by the tool provider. The method of
obtaining a consumer key varies between tool providers. For VitalSource, contact Paulson, Gordon
Gordon.Paulson@vitalsource.com, for McGraw Hill, contact Johnston, Jordan
jordan.johnston@mheducation.com
References
http://createwp.customer.mheducation.com/wordpress-mu/success-academy/using-gradebook-sync/
http://createwp.customer.mheducation.com/wordpress-mu/success-academy/getting-your-students-
ready-to-sync/?new_window=1
http://moodleanswers.com/index.php/information/instructor-tutorials
https://it.umn.edu/moodle-30-32-grant-extension-assignment
https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Roles_and_permissions
https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Theme_settings#Theme_designer_mode
https://www.lambdasolutions.net/resources/the-complete-moodle-user-guide/how-to-set-up-
moodle/how-to-enroll-students-into-a-moodle-course/
https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Assign_roles#System_context
https://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Administrator_role
https://docs.moodle.org/19/en/Automated_backup_setup
https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Course_restore
https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Backup_and_restore_FAQ
https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/moodle-quiz
https://www.umass.edu/it/support/moodle/overview-quizzes-moodle
https://www.vidyamantra.com/blog/index.php/2013/06/create-multiple-users-account-in-moodle-in-
just-few-minutes/