Moodle Help Guide

The format of your course determines some of the look and organizational options of the main page of your course.

By default, courses are created with the Flexible Sections format. In this format, you have the most flexibility in determining the organization of your course. You can add subsections to sort subtopics beneath your main topics, and click the sections of your course open and closed, as well as choosing a current section to highlight for your students.  You can find more information about the Flexible sections format here: Flexible Sections course format | Moodle.org

For each of your course sites, you can also choose to switch to one of the additional formats below, if you like:

• Weekly Format: Your course will automatically have a section for each week of the term with the dates listed. Relevant readings, assignments, etc. can be placed together within each week's section. Use the pencil icon to change the section titles if desired.
• Topics Format: offers more flexibility about how to group your materials. You can group them by theme or topic, or group them by type of activity (readings, forums, assignments, etc.) No matter which way you choose to organize your course, make sure you make it easy for students to relate the different modules of the course to the overall schedule for the term. Use the pencil icon to change the section titles.
• Single Activity Format and Social Format appear in the list, but they're very specialized and we do not recommend them for use with regular curricular Moodle courses.
• Collapsed Topics Format: You can organize course information into topics, and those topics will appear as closed sections until you or students click to open them.

No matter which format you use, you can re-title the sections by clicking on the pencil icon to the right of the current title when editing is turned on.

To change which format your course is using, follow these instructions:

1. Click on "Edit Settings" under the Gear Icon (to the right of the course title)
2. Scroll down to and click on the "Course Format" section.  In the list of options that appears, find and click on the "Format" drop-down menu to select the course format that you'd like.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Save Changes"

If you're new to Moodle, it may not be immediately clear to you how to add resources or set up coursework. To get started with the activity selector, view the quick video below:

Moving Items: To move any item in your course, first turn on editing in the upper left corner, and then use the crosshairs icon to the left of the title of the item to drag and drop it to the correct location.

Renaming Items: To rename an item, first turn on editing in the upper left corner, and use the pencil item to the right of the title of the item to rename it. You may occasionally have to explicitly save your changes, depending on what you are editing.

Hiding Items: To hide an item, first turn on editing in the upper left corner. Click on "Edit" to the right of the title of the item, and choose "Hide" from the dropdown menu.  The title of the item will be colored a lighter grey, and you'll see a label that says "Hidden from Students".

Restricting Access to Items: You can also restrict access to items depending on certain factors, including a delay by date or time, student group membership, student name, or course completion progress.  To set up an access restriction, first turn on editing in the upper left corner. Click on "Edit" to the right of the title of the item, then choose "Edit Settings" from the dropdown menu.  On the settings page, scroll down to the "Restrict Access" section, and use the "Add Restriction" prompt to set up the appropriate conditions.