Moodle Help Guide

Ensuring course readings are readily available to all students without being too costly is a prime concern for faculty and for LITS.  However, there are copyright considerations to keep in mind.

In general, fair use arguments can be made when limited amounts of copyrighted material are used for educational purposes, the audience for which is limited to students enrolled in a particular class (by providing access to the materials in a password-protected environment, such as Moodle), and offered in formats that are not susceptible to further copying/downloading.  Providing links to online materials (rather than copying them) is also a safe call because no copies are being made.

Please refer to the LITS Copyright Guide for best practices.

Dragging and Dropping Files Directly to Your Course

1. Go to your course and turn on editing via the button at the upper left.
2. Browse to the file you wish to add to your course. Click the file you wish to upload and drag it directly to the course week/block you want to add it to. You can also select and drag multiple files at once. To select multiple files, on a PC use Ctrl + Click, on a Mac use Command + Click.

If you drag-and-drop a zipped/compressed file, Moodle will ask you how you want to handle the zipped file:

• "Unzip files and create folder" unzips the files, and creates a folder containing them in the course week/block where you dragged the zip file.
• "Create file resource" keeps the file compressed, so that students can download the zipped file in its entirety. The individual files contained in the zipped file will not be viewable from the Moodle course screen.

Using “Add an Activity or Resource”

If you prefer not to use the drag-and-drop feature, use this method to upload files.

1. Go to your course and turn on editing via the button at the upper left.
2. Click the "Add an activity or resource" option, which opens a new pop-up window.
3. In the “Add an activity or resource” window, select File (located under the “Resources” section) and then click the "Add" button.
4. In the “Adding a new File” screen, use the Name box to enter a name for the file you'll be uploading, then scroll down to the "Select files" box.
5. Click the "Add" button, select the Upload a file option, and click "Choose File" or "Browse" to select the file from your computer.
6. Fill in the “Save as” information, which will appear on your course screen.
7. Click "Upload this file".

If you have a great number of files, it may be more useful to upload your files into a folder resource. In that case, we recommend first creating a folder to organize your files, and then uploading new files into that folder.

• Go to your course and turn on editing via the button at the upper left.
• Under the week/section that you wish to add a folder, click the "Add an activity or resource" option, which will open a new pop-up window.
• On the “Add an activity or resource” window, select the Folder option and click the "Add" button.
• Type a “Name” for the folder, which will display on the main course screen. Also add a “Description” of the folder (optional).
• In the "Content" section, you can create additional subfolders of this new folder by clicking the "Create Folder" button at the top of the Files box.

To add files to your folder(s):

• Upload your files directly by clicking the Add button at the top of the Files box, OR
• Drag and drop the files you want from your computer into the Files box.

Click "Save and return to course" to submit your changes and return to your course screen.