Moodle 2.8: Completion Tracking

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Completion Tracking is a way to make sure students work through the course and offers the option to automate the completion checks. This feature helps the instructor determine which activities are most crucial to completing the course, connect to prerequisite courses, and saves time by setting up the system to automatically check off completed tasks or take required attendance based on the instructor’s needs without relying on students to remember to keep track or having to wait on someone else to go through and check completion.

Add Completion Tracking to Your Course

  1. Go into the course you want to edit.
  2. In the Administration block, select “Edit Settings.”
  3. Scroll down to the “Completion Tracking” section, and next to “Enable Completion Tracking” there is a drop-down menu.
  4. Choose “Yes” if it is not already visible in the box.
  5. Then click on the “Save Changes” button to exit.

Course Completion Tracking Settings

  1. Back at your course home screen, go back to the Administration block and select “Course Completion.” This will take you to the tracking settings.
  2. In the General section, you can choose between:

    • Course is complete when ALL conditions are met. Or…
    • Course is complete when ANY conditions are met.For this example, we are going to choose, “Course is complete when ALL conditions are met.”
  3. In the “Activity Completion” section, you can choose which activities are required to complete the course. You can choose as many or as few as you want. Or you can choose one of the other options:

    • Completion of Other Courses: Students have to complete other courses as well. It is as close to setting up prerequisite courses as you can get in Moodle. The courses listed are all the courses that have tracking enabled.
    • Date: Input the course close date and no matter how much work the student actually completed the course will still be marked complete. This is a good option if only attendance is required.
    • Enrollment Duration: You can also require the student to be enrolled for a certain number of days. This is a good option for courses that may only be a week long and grades are not important.
    • Unenrollment: If you want the course to be marked complete only when the student is unenrolled then you can check the box in the Unenrollment section.
    • Course Grade: There is the option to mark the course complete based on your choice of final grade. This is good to use in courses where the student must have a certain grade to get credit.
    • Manual Completion: You can also setup the course for manual completion tracking either by the student checking off activities as they go or by having someone else go through and mark the course complete. Use caution when choosing either option as you can either be creating quite a bit of work for someone else or relying on students not to forget.
  4. Click on Save Changes to exit.

Moodle 2.8: Create Groups

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Access Group Settings

  1. Log in with your NetID and password at moodle.rutgers.edu
  2. Find the course you want to edit.
  3. In the Administration Block, go to “Manage Users”
  4. Click on “Groups”

Groups Tab

  1. Under the Groups Tab, scroll down to the bottom and click on the “Create Group” button.
  2. Type in the group name
  3. The group ID number, description, and enrollment key (a password to access the group) are optional.
  4. You can add an image to represent the group and you have the option of hiding the picture. This step is completely optional.
  5. Click on “Save Changes” and this will take you back to the groups tab main menu.
  6. Click on the group name, then the “Add/Remove Users” button.
  7. You will see two columns, Group Members and Potential Members.
  8. Under Potential Members select the users you want to add to the group. To select multiple users, press & hold the ctrl button (command on a Mac) and click on the users’ names.
  9. Once you have the users selected, click on the “Add” button. The names will appear the the Group Members column.
  10. Then click on “Back to Groups”

Groupings Tab

  1. Groupings make a group out of pre-existing groups.
  2. Under the Groupings tab, click on the “Create Grouping” button.
  3. Type in the Grouping name.
  4. The grouping ID number and description are optional.
  5. Click on “Save Changes”
  6. Back in Groupings tab, click on the people icon on the far right of the grouping title. This will take you to the add users menu.
  7. You will see two columns, Existing members and Potential members.
  8. In the Potential members column, select the groups you want to add to the grouping.
  9. Once you have the groups selected, click on the “Add” button.
  10. The groups will appear under the Existing members column.
  11. Click on Back to groupings.

Overview Tab

The overview tab will show you members in each group and grouping and everyone who is not in a group.

Course Settings

  1. In the Administration Block, click on Edit Settings.
  2. Scroll down to the Groups section.
  3. Under Group Mode, this mode will allow you to make items in the course visible to certain groups.

    • No Groups: Everyone is part of one big community.
    • Separate groups: Groups can only see members in that group.
    • Visible Groups: Groups can see the other groups in the course.
  4. Do not use Force group mode.
  5. In Default Grouping, you can add students to a grouping if you created the grouping first.
  6. Click on the “Save and Display” button.

Make Items Available to Groups

  1. In your course, turn editing on.
  2. Find the assignment, quiz or forum you want to make available to a group.
  3. Click on the Edit dropdown menu, and then select “edit settings.”
  4. Scroll down to the Restrict Access section.

    1. Click on the “Add Restriction…” button.
    2. In the pop-up menu, click on the Group or Grouping button.

      • Student Must match the following.
      • Group (Choose the group)
  5. Click on “Save and Return to Course” button.

Moodle 2.8 Kaltura: My Media Editor

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Upload Video to “My Media”

  1. The library in the recorder is where all your videos are saved. Videos not yet uploaded to your media space on Moodle will have an orange not attached reading, “Not Uploaded. Upload now”
  2. Click on the pencil icon on the side of the video to access the details editor screen.
  3. At the bottom of the recorder window you should see the “Upload” button. Click on it.
  4. The video will upload and you will receive a website address for the video. You can copy this URL and paste it in emails, messages, or paste the link in your course.
  5. It may take a couple minutes for your video to appear on Moodle.
  6. Go back to “my Media” to see the video added to the top of your media list.

Edit Video in Media Editor

  1. In “My Media,” click on the “edit” button next to the video.
  2. On the Edit screen, you can customize the following features:
  • Details – Title, Description, and Tags.
  • Options – Comments and Clipping.
  • Collaboration – Media Owner and Media Collaborators.
  • Thumbnails – Upload Thumbnail, Capture (using webcam), and Auto-Generate.
  • Downloads – Available Formats.
  • Captions – Upload Captions File (SRT and DFXP formats).
  • Attachments – Upload File.
  • Timeline – Create chapters for the video, and upload slides to play along with video.
  1. To access the CaptureSpace editor, click on the “Launch Editor” button located just underneath the video in the Edit screen. This will take you to the web-based video editor where you can trim the video, hide the audio, and create a video loop.
  • Trim a video by sliding the grey bars (found at each end of the timeline) to the desired point.
  • You cannot chop the video in this editor.
  • To hide the audio, click on the audio button located just above the timeline. A pop-up menu will appear, choose “Hide Audio” from the list.
  • To change the video to a loop, click on the circular arrow button next to the audio button.
  • Use the slider to zoom into the timeline.
  1. When all the edits have been made, you can save the changes to the original video or save it as a copy and keep the original intact.

Details Menu

  1. Name: Type in the video’s title.
  2. Description (optional): Add a summary of the video.
  3. Tags: There are some default tags added to this box. Not all these tags are appropriate. Tags should be keywords that represent the content of the video using words and phrases students would use to search for the video.
  • Delete the tags that do not represent the video content.
  • Add new tags and follow each tag with a comma.
  1. Click on “Save” button.

Options Menu

  1. Comments: Choose to disable the comments or go in later on and close the discussion after a certain period has passed.
  2. Clipping: allow viewers to create clips from the video. Only enable this feature if you own all the content in the video. 

Collaboration Menu

  1. Media Owner: you can transfer ownership of the video to someone else.
  2. Media Collaborators: allow other users to edit the video and details.

Thumbnails Menu

  1. Upload Thumbnail: Add an image file you have prepared that will show in the video thumbnail on your My Media list.
  2. Capture: Use your webcam to take a photo to use as the thumbnail.
  3. Auto-Generate: The editor will choose a random frame from the video to use. An example of this would be the default thumbnail.
  4. Download: You can download the thumbnail to your computer. This is useful if you need the thumbnail for another video or if you need to edit the thumbnail.

Download Menu

  1. Source file: Download the original video file.
  2. Mobile-friendly: Download a compressed version of the file suitable for mobile devices or if the original file is too large.
  3. HD 720p – web compatible: This is a larger file size than the mobile-friendly version. This is good for website use, but may have trouble playing on mobile devices.

Captions Menu

  1. Upload a DFXP file for captions
  2. Change the file’s information by clicking in the pencil icon. You can change the language and the label.
  3. Delete the file by clicking on the X icon.
  4. Download the caption file by clicking on the downward arrow icon.

Attachments Menu

  1. Upload attachment documents  which can be transcripts, reading assignments, or other supplementary material.
  2. Pencil icon: edit file title and description.
  3. X icon: delete file.
  4. Downward arrow icon: download file.

Timeline Menu

  1. Bookmark icon: Create a new chapter. A chapter marks the start of a new section in the video. For example, you can create skipping points in the video to help viewers find certain parts of the video. So, if a video is 15 minutes long, you can have skipping points every 5 minutes to help students review material. You could also break the video up based on topics. If you cover only 2 topics in the video then you can have one chapter marker at the start of the second topic.
  2. Page icon: Upload slides (PPT, PPTX, or PDF files).
  3. View in Player: preview the video before saving the edits.

Moodle 2.8: Gradebook

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All the grades for students can be found in the gradebook. This is where various assessments are collected. They can be sorted with categories and the gradebook will calculate totals using chosen settings.

Access the Gradebook

  1. Log in with your NetID and password at moodle.rutgers.edu
  2. Find the course you want to access.
  3. Once in the course, go to the administration block.
  4. Click on Gradebook Setup. This will take you to the Gradebook Setup view.

 

Gradebook Setup View

The Gradebook Setup view is the place to go to add categories and items, or edit your gradebook.

Add a Category

  1. In the Gradebook Setup view, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
  1. Click on the “Add Category” button.

Grade Category

  1. Input the Category name.
  1. Aggregation: Determines how grades in the category are combined for the final grade. Choose an option from the drop-down menu. 
  1. You can exclude empty grades by checking the box, otherwise, the empty grades will count as zeros. 
  1. Drop the Lowest: Input the number of grades you would like to drop. For example, drop the lowest 3 grades. 

Category Total

  1. Grade Type: Choose the grade options. 
  1. Maximum Grade: Input the top grade. 
  1. Grade Display Type: Determines how the grades are displayed in the gradebook. 
  1. Overall decimal points: The number places after the decimal in a points type grade. For example, 65.7 or 48.667.
  1. You can also hide the grade from student view until a certain date (Hidden Until) or after a certain date (Lock After). Just check the box and input the date using the data boxes or the calendar icons. 

Parent Category

  1. If you want the category to be associated with another category you can choose that parent category in the drop-down menu. For example, if you have a category called, Participation, and you wanted that grade to include discussion forums, then you would create a discussion forums category and choose Participation as the parent category. 
  1. Weight: You can have the category’s weight adjusted based on how much of the parent category’s weight it is going to take up. If you set the parent category weight to 25% and check the Weight Adjusted box, then the new category’s weight will automatically be adjusted to only take up 25% of the Parent Category.

Add a Gradebook Item

  1. In the Gradebook Setup view, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
  1. Click on the “Add Grade Item” button.

Grade Item

  1. Input the item name.
  1. Item Info: Information about the item that will not be displayed to students. 
  1. Grade Type: Choose the options the grade. 
  1. Maximum Grade: Input the top grade. 
  1. Minimum Grade: Input the lowest grade a student can earn. The default is zero.
  1. Grade to pass: Input the grade a student needs to earn to pass.
  1. Grade Display Type: Determines how the grades are displayed in the gradebook. 
  1. Overall decimal points: The number places after the decimal in a points type grade. For example, 65.7 or 48.667.
  1. You can also hide the grade from student view until a certain date (Hidden Until) or after a certain date (Lock After). Just check the box and input the date using the data boxes or the calendar icons. 

Parent Category

  1. If you want the item to be associated with a category, you can choose that parent category in the drop-down menu. For example, if you have a category called, Quizzes, and you create a gradebook item for a paper quiz, then you would add it to the Quizzes category. 
  1. Item Weight: When you add an item to a category, you can determine the item’s weight compared to other items in that category. Though, you have to choose the category before setting the weight. 

Edit Your Gradebook

In the gradebook Setup View, you can:

  • Adjust gradebook item weights
  • Move items via selection or drag-and-drop
  • Edit item settings

Adjust Weights

  1.  Find the item or category you would like to edit. 
  2. Under the weights column, you will see the text box next to the category or item name. Input the weight.
  3. Click on the “Save Changes” button. 

Move a Category or Item

  1.  Find the item or category you would like to move. 
  1. There is a two-directional arrow icon next to the category or item name.
  1. Click on the icon and drag the item or category up or down the list.
  1. OR move the item to a category by checking box under the select column next to the item you want to move.
  1. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the “Move selected items to” drop-down menu.
  1. Choose the category and the item should move to that category. 
  1. Click on the “Save Changes” button. 

Edit Item Settings

  1.  Find the item you would like to edit. 
  1. Click on the Edit link. This will take you to the item’s settings page.
  1. Make your edits.
  1. Click on the “Save Changes” button.

The Different Views

The gradebook can be viewed in different ways. Click on the drop-down menu at the top of the page to see the menu. Under the View category you will see the following:

  1. Grader Report – See all students and gradebook items in one spreadsheet.
  2. Grade History – See modifications to any grades and search by the user. If an assignment has multiple attempts each grade can be seen here.
  3. Outcomes Report – See the course average.
  4. Overview Report – All your grades in every course you are enrolled. This is good for student use.
  5. Single View – Grades for a specific gradebook item.
  6. User Report – grades for a specific user.

Moodle 2.8: Manually Grade an Essay Question

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Most of the quiz question options are graded automatically, but essay questions require manual grading.

  1. Go to your course and navigate to Grades.
  2. In the Grader report, find the quiz you want to grade and click on the quiz name at the top of the grade column.
  3. Scroll down the page until you see the class roster.
  4. For each student, find the question marked with “Requires grade” and click on it. This will open the question in a separate window.
  5. Scroll down until you see “Make a comment or override points” and click on the link.
  6. You will be able to write a comment or give feedback in the text box.
  7. Under the text box is a box to input points. Type in the numbers of points earned.
  8. Click “Save”. Back in the grader report, you should see the question now has a point value.

Moodle 2.8: Add Quiz Questions

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Save and Display

  1. Once you have the Quiz settings finished, click on the “Save and Display” button to move onto adding quiz questions or, on the main course page, click on the quiz’s edit link to add quiz questions.
  2. Click on “Edit Quiz” button.
  3. Over on the right-hand side, click on the “add” drop-down menu.
  4. Choose new question.
  5. You also have the option of adding questions from a question bank or adding a random question from a question bank.
  6. Choose the type of question you want from the list. Select a multiple choice question for this example.
  7. Then click on the Add Button.

 

General Section

  1. Either leave the category as a default or select a different category for the quiz.
  2. Input the question name. This is a descriptive name to help you find it in a question bank. It is not going to be seen by students.
  3. Question text: This is where you type in the question students are going to answer.
  4. Input the default points for the question.
  5. General feedback – This is shown to all students after the quiz is complete. No matter what grade was earned.
  6. Choose whether this question has one or multiple answers.
  7. Check the box if you want to shuffle the choices.
  8. Then select the way the choices will be listed: abcd, ABCD, 1234, etc. 

 

Answers

  1. You already have 4 choices available, but you do not have to use all of them and you can always add more if you need them.
  2. For each choice, you will type in the answer option:

    • Then, choose how much that option is worth in the grade drop-down menu.

      • One answer = 100%
      • Two answers = 50%
      • Three answers = 33.33%
    • Then you have the option to supply feedback based on each answer.

 

Combined Feedback

You can provide feedback based on general conditions such as any correct response, partially correct response, and incorrect response.

 

Multiple Tries

  1. When you set a quiz up with “Interactive with multiple tries” or “adaptive mode” then this section will allow you to customize how much of a percentage will be taken off for each incorrect try.
  2. You can also provide students with hints to help them choose the correct answer. You can also let them see the number of correct responses and/or clear away the incorrect responses.

 

Tags

This helps find the question in a bank like the question name. So if you’ve forgotten the name you can search by keywords.

  1. Click on “Save Changes” to add another question.

 

Add Another Quiz Question

  1. Click on Save Changes” to add more questions. This will take you back to the Edit Quiz page and you should see the question listed. Repeat the “Add questions” steps to add more.
  2. From the Quiz Edit Page, you can reorder the questions using the cross icon on the left of the question.
  3. Delete the question using the trashcan icon to the right of the question.
  4. Edit the question’s points by clicking on the pencil icon in the points box and type in the new point value.
  5. View the quiz question by clicking on the magnifying glass icon. This will take you to a popup window with the question edit page.
    • Short answer questions require you to grade them manually so you would go in and give points.
    • Once you make a quiz with questions then you’ll be able to see it in the grade book automatically.

Moodle 2.8: Quiz Settings

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A Moodle quiz is an activity that can be added to a week/section for student interaction and assessment. Quizzes can fill multiple roles in a course. Use them to check understanding, a short quiz or even an exam.

Access the Quiz

  1. Login with your NetID and password at moodle.rutgers.edu
  2. Go to  the course you want to edit
  3. Once in the course, turn editing on
  4. Then, scroll down to the lesson or week to which you want to add the quiz and click on “+ Add activity or resource”
  5. Choose “Quiz” from the list of activities

 

General

    1. Input quiz name
    2. Include a description (this is optional)
    3. If you want the description to be displayed on the course page then check the box next to “Display description on course”.

 

Timing

  1. Open the quiz – check enable box then input the open date
  2. Close the quiz – check enable box then input the close date
  3. Time limit – (optional) check enable then put in the time
  4. When time expires:
      • Open attempts are submitted automatically
      • There is a grace period when attempts can be submitted, but no more questions can be answered.
      • Attempts must be submitted before time expires, or they are not counted.

 

Grade

    1. Grade Category
      • This needs to be created in your grade book first, but it is not necessary for quizzes to be graded. Then you can choose that category in this section
      • Add  a Grade to Pass
      • Attempts allowed – unlimited or 1-10
      • Grading method
        1. Highest grade
        2. Average Grade
        3. First attempt
        4. Last attempt

 

Layout

  1. New Page – This setting allows you to determine the layout of the quiz in terms of whether the questions will be split into multiple pages like a book. It is recommended that questions be displayed 5 to a page to limit the amount of work lost in case of a glitch or sudden outage, but you do have the choice from the following:

    • Never, all questions on one page
    • Every question
    • Choose between every 2-50 questions. The recommended number is 5 to avoid losing too much information during a glitch.
  2. Navigation Method – This setting allows you to determine how students will be able to progress through the quiz. It is recommended to set this to Free because it allows students to skip questions and go back later just as they would a paper version, but you do have the choice of the following options:
        1. Free
        2. Sequential – cannot return to previous pages nor skip ahead.

 

Question Behavior

  1. Allows you to determine how the questions will be displayed for every student or attempt.
  2. Shuffle within Questions: This randomizes the answer options for each question. For example, students can sit next to each other and have different answers for the “A” option. This discourages cheating.
  3. How Questions Behave: This setting is about question or quiz feedback. You may want students to receive feedback only after completing the quiz (Deferred Feedback) or you may want them to know immediately if the answer to a question is wrong (Immediate Feedback) and have multiple tries to get it right (Interactive with multiple tries).
  4. Allow redo within an attempt: Once the student has answered a question, a redo button will appear which will allow the student to attempt to answer the question again without having to submit the whole quiz and opening another attempt. This setting is more useful for practice questions or low-stakes knowledge check quizzes.
  5. Each attempt builds on the last: A student can work towards getting a better grade on the quiz with each attempt by allowing the results of the last attempt to be visible as the student does a new attempt.

 

Review Options

  1. The review options control the information provided to students after completing a quiz or attempt. 
  2. Go through the categories and check the boxes that best suit your desired feedback method. Think of each category as this question, “What are students allowed to see ____?”
      • During the attempt
      • Immediately after the attempt
      • Later, while the quiz is still open
      • After the quiz is closed

 

Appearance

  1. Show the User’s Picture: You can choose to have the profile pictures of the user displayed during the quiz.
  2. Decimal Places in Question Grades: If you choose to use points for the grade, you can choose how many decimal places there are in the score. For example, 20.50 or 66.333.
  3. Show Blocks During Quiz Attempts: Show the blocks in the sidebar from your course main page while students are taking the quiz. 

 

Extra Restrictions on Attempts

  1. Require Password: Make the quiz accessible only to students who have the password. 
  2. Require Network Address: Make sure students only use the university’s internet by inputting the IP address here.
  3. Enforced delay between 1st and 2nd attempts: Require the students to take a certain amount of time between quiz attempts. You can choose between seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks. 
  4. Enforced delay between later attempts: This setting is for 3+ attempts. You can require students to take a certain amount of time between quiz attempts. You can choose between seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks. 
  5. Browser Security: The quiz opens in a pop-up window and prevents students from searching for the answers on the internet, but only works if the student has a java-script enabled browser.
  6. Allow quiz to be attempted offline using the mobile app: If the students download the app to access the course, they can still take the quiz even without internet access. 

 

Overall Feedback

Give overall feedback for the quiz after the student’s attempt. You can choose to have the feedback display immediately after the attempt or after the quiz is closed. Just input the grade you would like to give feedback on in the grade boundary box and type in the feedback in the text box. You can add more feedback boxes by clicking on the “Add 3 more feedback fields” button.

 

Common Module Settings

  1. Visible – make sure it is set to show. That way students can see the forum.
  2. Group mode – you will use this feather if you have already created groups.

 

Restrict Access and Activity completion

  • Allows you to release the assignment to students using a set of conditions. This is not necessary if you have an open and close date set. Activity completion gives you choices on how the assignment will be marked complete on the course page.
  • Click on “Save and display” to move on to adding quiz questions.

 

Moodle 2.8: Forums

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A discussion forum in Moodle is a tool that can be used for student interaction. Users in the course can come together in a forum to share ideas or ask questions in real time. Forums can be used to post announcements from the instructor, hold classroom discussions, host student group meetings, receive feedback from students, or host a Q&A.

Access the Forum Tool

  1. Log in with your NetID and password at moodle.rutgers.edu
  2. Go to the course you want to edit.
  3. Once in the course, turn editing on
  4. Then, scroll down to the lesson or week to which you want to add the discussion forum and click on “+ Add activity or resource”
  5. Choose “Forum” from the list of activities

General

  1. Input forum name
  2. The description is optional.
  3. If you want the description to be displayed on the course page then check the box next to “Display description on course”
  4. Then choose the forum type.
    • A single simple discussion: One topic everyone can reply to.
    • Each person posts on discussion: Every student can post exactly one new thread to a forum.
    • Q and A Forum: Students have to post first before seeing other posts.
    • Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format: An open forum where anyone can post a new topic that is displayed on the same page.
    • Standard forum for general use: An open forum where anyone can post a new topic.

Attachments and Word Count

  1. Make sure the maximum attachment size is set to the maximum upload limit, 100 MB
  2. Then, leave the maximum # of attachments as the default
  3. Display word count: This is optional, but if you want to show the word count of each post then change this to “yes”

 

Subscription and Tracking

  1. Subscription Mode: Allows participants in the forum to receive notifications. There are four options for this:

    • Optional subscription: The default setting where students can choose to receive emails about new posts in the forum.
    • Forced Subscription: Everyone receives emails about new posts in the forum and cannot opt out.
    • Auto Subscription: Everyone receives emails about new posts to the forum initially, but they can opt out at any time.
    • Subscription disabled: No one receives emails about new posts and they cannot opt in.
  2. Read tracking: An optional setting where you can see which posts have been read.


RSS

RSS feed for this activity is set to “None.” For this, if you want to set up a feed to follow the posts in this forum then you can choose between following the discussions or posts added.

 

Discussion Locking

Lock discussions after period of inactivity: After a determined period of time after the last post, a forum can be locked so that students cannot make any new posts.

 

Post Threshold for Blocking

  1. Students can be blocked from posting more than a given number of times in a given period.
  2. Time period for blocking, choose:
    • Do Not Block
    • Select the numbers of days between each post (1-6)
    • 1 week
  3. Post threshold for blocking
    • Max number of posts
  4. Post threshold warning
    • Sends students a warning as they approach the maximum number of posts

 

Turnitin Settings

  1. Using this service is entirely up to you, but it is a third-party service that scans students’ posts for possible plagiarism, though it is best to use it for midterms or finals.
  2. Just go down the list and answer each question based on the best fit for your forum.

 

Grade

  1. Grade Category: For forums to be graded you need to create a category in your grade book first. Then you can choose that category in this section.
  2. Grade to Pass: Input the grade needed for students to pass.

 

Ratings

  1. Roles with Permission to rate: You can allow students to rate each other’s work if you want, otherwise, leave it at the default settings.
  2. Aggregate Type: How the ratings will be combined to make up the final grade. Choose from the options in the drop-down menu.
    • No Ratings
    • Average of Ratings
    • Count of Ratings
    • Maximum Rating
    • Minimum Rating
    • Sum of Ratings
  3. Scale: Choose whether to have the grade as a scale or point system. If you choose Points, then input the maximum points in the Maximum Grade box.
  4. If you want to restrict the rating period to certain dates, then check the box and enter the dates using the data boxes or the calendar icons.

 

Common module settings

Visible – make sure it is set to show. That way students can see the forum.
Group mode – you will use this feather if you have already created groups.


Restrict access and Activity completion – allows you to release the assignment to students using a set of conditions. This is not necessary if you have an open and close date set. Activity completion gives you choices on how the assignment will be marked complete on the course page.

Moodle 2.8: Assignments

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An assignment in Moodle is content students can interact with while going through the course to build on the theoretical material learned through the text content. They can be essays, worksheets, video responses, audio files, etc. Assignments can be added to the grade book during the initial setup or, later, as a gradebook item.

Access the Assignment Tool

  1. Log in with your NetID and password at moodle.rutgers.edu
  2. Go to the course you want to edit.
  3. Once in the course, turn editing on
  4. Then, scroll down to the lesson or week to which you want to add the assignment and click on “+ Add activity or resource”
  5. Choose “Assignment” from the list of activities

General

  1. Give the assignment a name.
  2. For the description, you can add the assignment instructions here or upload the instructions as a file. If you want the student to see the description on the course page, then check the box beneath the description text box.
  3. The additional files box is where you can upload an assignment document for students to download. To add a document file, drag and drop the assignment from your computer’s desktop or folder onto the arrow. You can also add the assignment file by clicking on the “Add file” button and browsing your computer or other files you have stored on the Moodle server.
    • Click on “Add file” button
    • Then select “Upload file” in the sidebar.
    • Click on “Choose file” button
    • Find the file on your computer, select it and click on “open.”
    • Add a Save as file name (optional)
    • Click on “Upload this file” button

Availability

The availability section is where you can input an open and close date for student access to the assignment.

  1. Allow submissions from: Check the enable box first, input the date using the data boxes or the calendar icon. 
  2. Due Date: Check the enable box first, input the date using the data boxes or the calendar icon. 
  3. Cut-off Date: This is the date to cut-off late submissions. 
  4. Remind me to grade by: If you’re setting up your assignments ahead of time, you may want to set a little reminder for yourself telling you to grade it by a certain date.

Submission Types

  1. Check file and/or online texts. It is recommended to check both boxes.
  2. Enter the max number of uploaded files a student can submit.
  3. Maximum submission size should be left at the default setting
  4. Accepted file types: Click on the “Choose” button to select the file types in the pop-up menu.
  5. (Optional) Check the box to enable a word limit and input the number. 

Feedback Types

  1. Feedback Types: choose the ways you would like to give feedback from the following options:

    • Feedback files
    • Feedback comments
    • Offline grading worksheet
    • Annotate PDF
  2. Comment Inline: Decide if you want to add comments to the submitted text. TIP: use a different colored text to make your comments stand out from the student’s work.

Submission Settings

  1. This section allows you to determine how students can submit their work for the assignment.
  1. Require students to click submit button – It is recommended to set this to “Yes,” in case a student accidentally submits the wrong file, this will give them the opportunity to check before submitting.
  2. Require students to accept the submission statement: This is an optional setting which is a statement based on the honor system stating the student will not cheat.
  3. Attempts reopened – Allows the student to submit the assignment multiple times, but you can choose if the assignment can be reopened only by the teacher or if the assignment is automatically reopened until the student earns a passing grade. If you do not want students to have multiple attempts, then choose “Never.”
  4. Maximum Attempts – This is the number of attempts or submissions students have. This feature becomes active when you set attempts to “Manually” or “Automatically until pass.”

Group Submission Settings

  1. If your assignment is for a group, then you would use this section along with the submission settings.
  2. Students submit in groups – change to yes.

Notifications

  1. This section allows you to say whether or not you want an email every time a student submits an assignment. This can clutter up your inbox and most people find it annoying especially since they can check for submissions on Moodle.
  2. It is recommended that students get notified about submissions as it is a form of receipt and reassurance that their assignment has been submitted.

Turnitin Settings

  1. Using this service is entirely up to you, but it is a third-party service that scans students’ papers for possible plagiarism. It is best to use it for midterms or finals. Just go down the list and answer each question based on the best fit for your assignment.
  2. TIP: The “Allow submission of any file type?” setting may not work for audio and video files. It’s best to use Turnitin for document file formats.

Grade

  1. You can grade by points or a scale such as ABCDF, pass/fail, etc. The option to choose a scale only becomes available when you choose “Scale” in the grade type.
  2. You have the choice of also using a grade guide or rubric as your grading method. A grade guide is similar to a rubric, but not as flexible.
  3. Grade Categories are first created in the gradebook and then they can be selected here.
  4. You can input the grade a student needs to earn in order to pass.
  5. Blind grading hides the student’s identity.
  6. Use grading workflow is for an assignment that needs multiple rounds of grading before the grade can be released to the students. To assign instructors to grade different parts of an assignment, change the “Use grading allocation” setting to “Yes.”

Click on “Save and Return to Course” to go back to the main course page.

Moodle 2.8: Add a Folder of Files

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Access the Folder Tool

  1. In your course, turn editing on by clicking on the link in the Administration Block or using the drop-down menu connected to the gear icon.
  2. Find the section you want to which you want to add content.
  3. Click on the “+ Add an activity or resource” link. A menu will pop-up on your screen.
  4. Scroll down to the Resources category and choose “Folder” from the list of options.
  5. Click on the “Add” button. This will take you to the Folder Tool settings page.

General Settings

  1. Input the title of the page.
  2. Adding a description is optional.

Add Content

  1. Files: Drag the file from your computer’s desktop or folder and drop it on the blue arrow in the upload box.
  2. OR click on the file button in the corner and choose to get the file from:

    • Upload a file: find the file on your computer.
    • Server files: Find a file you already uploaded to the course.
    • Recent files: Find a file you recently uploaded to the course.
    • URL Downloader: Grab a file from a website using the URL.
  3. Display folder contents: You can choose to display the folder contents on a separate page or on the course main page.
  4. Check the box if you have subfolders and want them to be shown in the expanded form.
  5. Check the box to show the download folder button.

Save and Return to Course

  1. Click on “Save and return to course” to go back to the main course page.