The course home page is the main page of any Moodle course. It's where the topics or weekly modules are displayed, and the related lists of resources and activities. The Moodle Enhance Project updated the look and feel of courses; introducing new features such as quick links and activity hubs.
Our resources will help you orient yourself with the course home page by outlining the main features. Additionally, dedicated course settings, releasing Moodle courses to students, and viewing courses as students are covered.
You'll also get a few ideas about how you might shape the course you create, and support your students' encounter with that course.
What's on the Course Home Page
The course home page is split into key areas storing specific content.
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Release or Hide the Course from Students
Moodle Courses must be released to students via the administration bar on top of the course home page. To release a course or check if students have issues opening a course, ensure that 'Course visibility' is set to "show" within the course settings. To hide a course, simply change this setting back to "hide".
Only course admins and instructors can make changes to the course settings.
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Add customised course banner
Academics can add a course banner to uniquely personalise the course.
It is recommended to use a high-resolution image with the '.png' file type for the course banner. If the image does not fit as intended, the banner will need to be re-added with a cropped version of the image to fit the course page as desired.
The recommendedguide for the picture dimensions needed is 9:1 width to height for the best visualisation. Thefile size should be maximum1 MB to minimise the loading time.
Supported file types include: '.gif', '.jpe', '.jpeg', '.jpg', '.png', '.svg' and '.svgz'
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Use the Bulk Editing Toolbar
The bulk editing toolbar can be found when editing mode is enabled. It can be used to edit multiple sections or Moodle items at once. Editing options include: move, indent, hide, disable from course page, duplicate and delete.
To ensure stability to the bulk editing toolbar, do not select more than 10 items at any given time.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Set up the Quick Links
TheQuick Links section (icons at the top of the course - section 0) and customised iconsareused to deliver key course information in a moreintuitive way.Theicons are rendered via special keywords in thenameof the Moodle activities/resources placed in this top section (i.e. the icons are not tied to particular activities/resources). Keywords and icons are given below in thequick links library.
The following list describes thestandard quick linksincluded by default.If you do add additional elements, we ask thatno more than 10 quick links(2 rows of 5 elements) are visible to students at any one time.
- Announcements and Forumsis a Moodle page resource that automatically summarises all Moodle forums (apart from "Open forums")in your course.
- Virtual Classroomis a Blackboard Collaborate (External tool) link in the template. If you do not use Collaborate, feel free to delete this and, if applicable to your course, replace (use a Moodle URL resource) withyour preferred synchronous video platform, but make surethe relevant icon appearsby including in the name one of the associatedkeywords from the library.
- Course Outlineis a Moodle file resource to deliver this document as a PDF. Again, feel free to replace withyour preferred or faculty/school-requireddelivery format (URL, LTI),but again, make surethe relevant icon appears by includingthe associatedkeyword(s) in the name.
- Course Scheduleis a Moodle page resource with a fully customisable HTML table, including the capability of delivering an interactive timetable with hyperlinks to specific course resources.As before, feel free to replace withyour preferred delivery format,but make surethe relevant icon appearsby includingthe associatedkeyword(s) in the name.
- Student Lifeis a Moodle page resource fully customisable with course, school andfaculty specific support resources. Make surethe icon appears,if applicable to your course, by includingthe associatedkeyword(s) in the resource name. NB Institution-level support is available in the Header > Help dropdown menu. Student Life is for support below this level. Your faculty support team may have added relevant content to this in the course shell template site prior to the course rollover.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide.
Set up the Hubs
The placement and names of the two standard hubs are essential to meet the Moodle Enhance minimum standard and future automation plans and should not be changed. However, the elements within the hubs (while strongly recommended) can be adapted to suit specific course needs.
The second template element is the General Course Resources Hub (section 1) with its standard location immediately under the Quick Links (section 0). Among other general course resources which you may want to relocate here (full flexibility is allowed), this section is meant to deliver in a centralised way theGetting started information,General course materials,Communication channels, Course evaluation, including institutional surveys.
The third template element and highly appreciated by students, is the Assessments Hub (section 2) with its standard location immediately under the General Course Resources Hub (section 1). This standard section is meant to deliver in a centralised way a Summary table of assessments, Links to grades and special considerations, Assessment briefs and submission tools. If your submission boxes are better placed in line with the (e.g. weekly) learning content or in independent sections, make sure that instructions and, if desired, hyperlinks to them are available in this Assessments Hub.
View Course as a Student
Visit our dedicated page on student viewto learn how to view your course from the student's perspective. This is important to have an idea on how course content will appear to students.