Manage a Course
Course Admin
A. Edit Settings
1. Click Edit Settings. The site will direct you to a page with editing options where you can change your course details.
2. Click Edit Settings. The site will direct you to a page with editing options where you can change your course details.
Editing Options:
General - allows you to change your course name, course category, course visibility, course ID number and the course start date and end date.
Description - allows you to edit the description of the course and change the course image. The image will then be displayed in the course overview on the Dashboard.
Course Format - allows you to change the structure/layout of the course page whether it be:
Topic Format - the course page is organized into topic sections.
Single Activity Format - for displaying a single activity or resource on the course page.
Social Format - a forum is displayed on the course page.
Weekly Format - course page is organized into weekly sections, with the first week starting on the course start date.
Appearance - allows you to decide how many recent announcements to be appear in the latest announcement block. Also, this settings determine whether a student can view a list of all their grades for the course via grade links and whether a student can view their own activity reports via their profile page.
Files and Uploads - this setting determines the largest size of file that can be uploaded to the course.
Completion tracking - allows you to enable or disable the completion tracking. It is recommended to have this enabled so that meaningful data is displayed in the course overview on the Dashboard.
Groups - this setting has 3 options: No groups, Separate groups and Visible groups. Separate groups - each group member can only see their own group and other groups become invisible. Visible groups - each member works in their own group, but can also see other groups. If the group mode is forced, then the course group mode is applied to every activity in the course.
Role Naming - allows the displayed names for roles used in the course to be changed.
3. Once finished editing, click the Save and Display button found at the bottom of the page.
B. Filter
1. Click the Gear Icon on the top-right side of the page. Click Course administration.
2. Click Filters. After clicking, the page will show options whether to set each filter on or off as required. It is recommended to set each filter on because these are important features especially when displaying Multimedia plugins such as YouTube videos.
3. Once finished, click the Save Changes button.
C. Course Completion
Course completion shows if a course has been completed. It can show the progress a student is making towards finishing the course according to specific criteria.
1. Click the Gear Icon on the top-right side of the page.After clicking, the site will show options for the course.
2. Click the Course Completion from the options given. Once Clicked, the site will show the Course Completion Settings where you can arrange the requirements needed to finish the course.
3. The Course Completion Setting allows you to set the completion requirements whether course is complete when ALL conditions are met or ANY of the conditions are met. Course completion conditions are as follows:
General - Choose here how you wish to mark the course complete -whether you want Any or All of the requirements that follow to count towards completion.
Activity completion - Tick the boxes of the activities you wish to count towards completion of the course.
Completion of other courses - This setting allows you to make "the completion of another course" as a condition for completing the course you are currently working in. This does not block the student from your current course; it simply means that the current course will not be marked complete until the first course has been marked complete. Thus, completion of the current course is dependent upon completion of an earlier course. Just search and select one or more courses in the "Courses available box".
Date - If you tick the Enable box you can then set a date after which the course will be declared complete.
Enrolment duration - If you tick the Enable box you can then choose a number of days after enrolment upon which the course will be marked complete.
Unenrolment - If you tick "Enable" here then the course will be marked complete once the student is unenrolled.
Course grade - If you tick the Enable box, you can set a passing grade for the course. Please note that course grade in Completion status is looking at total of points (raw grade) rather than a percentage.
Manual self completion - If this is enabled then a student can mark the course complete themselves from the Self completion block. The student may then click the "Complete course link" in the block when ready. They are then asked to confirm they have completed the course and the course status will change to "complete".
Manual completion by others - Users with selected roles may mark the course as complete if their role is ticked here. The roles listed are ones for which the capability Mark users as complete in course completion is allowed. ALL means that each role must mark the course complete before; ANY means that it will be classed as complete once one role has marked it complete.
4. Once the desired settings are finished, click the Save Changes found at the bottom part of the page.
5. Bulk edit activity completion allows you to select multiple activities you wish to edit. To do this, click Bulk edit activity completion bar. Select the activities you want to bulk edit. After that, click Edit.
6. Edit the necessary changes for the activities. Once it's done, click Save changes.
D. Gradebook Setup
1. Click the Gear Icon on the top-right side of the page. After clicking, the site will show options for the course. Click Course administration.
2. Under the Course Administration tab, click Gradebook Setup from the options given. After clicking, the page will show the Gradebook Setup page.
D.1 Add Category
1. To add category, click Add Category at the lower part of the site.
2. On the Grade category page, click Show more to make all the page sections visible, then:
Enter a Category name.
Complete the Aggregation specifications, using the Help button to help you make your choices. These fields determine how the category total will be calculated. Weighted mean of grades, Simple weighted mean of grades and Sum of Grades are the most commonly used methods of aggregating marks for a course.
Select Weighted mean of grades, then in the Weight column enter each category's weighting in relation to the final course grade. Note: 30.00 = 30%. Make sure the weightings add up to 100%.
Select Simple weighted mean of grades or Sum of Grades, then in the Max. grade column enter the maximum mark each category can earn. Make sure the Course total is a figure you can work with.
3. Under Category total, click Show more at the bottom of the page section, then:
Enter a Category total name (e.g. "Quiz total")if you are likely to put several assessments into the category
Enter Item info and an ID number if necessary.
4. Complete the Grade type and associated fields as appropriate, clicking the Help icon for assistance if you need it.
5. Select the Grade display type and Overall decimal points, if you are not using the defaults for those fields.
6. Select whether to hide or lock the grades, adding a release date if necessary. (Hiding a grade keeps it invisible to students, and prevents it being counted in calculations.)
7. Once finished, click Save changes.
8. Here is an example of what an organized Gradebook should look like.
D.2 Add New Grade Item
You can also add simple grade items. Meaning they are not attached to any particular resource, so you can use these however you wish. You should use them for things like Participation grades for example.
1. To add a new grade item, click Add grade item at the lower part of the site.
2. On the Grade item page:
Click Show more to make all the available fields visible.
Enter an Item name.
Add Item info about the grade item. This information will not display anywhere else.
Set an ID number so that you can identify the activity when it is included with others in a custom mark calculation. If you're not defining custom calculations methods, you can leave this field blank.
Select the Grade type. Your choices are None, Value (a numerical value with a maximum and minimum), Scale (an item in a list) or Text (feedback only). Only Value and Scale may be aggregated.
If you selected Value or Scale, complete the Scale, Maximum grade, Minimum grade and Grade to pass fields as appropriate.
Select the Grade display type (Real (actual grades), Percentage and/or Letter grades can be shown).
If you selected Real or Percentage, select the Overall decimal points you want to be displayed.
Select whether you want the marks Hidden from students. If necessary, at Hidden until, click Enable and add a release date.
Select whether you want the marks Locked so that they cannot be updated by the related activity. If necessary, at Lock after click Enable and add a locking date.
Under Parent category, to include this item in an existing Grade category, you may check the checkbox for Extra credit for additional category. Click the Help button beside the checkbox for more information about this.
3. Click Save changes.
D.3 Add a category with activity score not included in total
1. In the Category total section set the Maximum grade to 0.
2. Add the assessment which do not need to be included in the total into this Category. All activities within this Category will be worth 0% and not added to the final score.
3. Click Save Changes.
E. Outcomes
Outcomes are specific descriptions of what a student has demonstrated and understood at the completion of an activity or course. Each outcome is rated by some sort of scale. Other terms for outcomes are 'Competencies' and 'Goals'.
1. Click the Gear Icon on the top-right side of the page. After clicking, the site will show options for the course. Click Outcomes.
2. To add a course-level outcome:
Click the Edit outcomes link in Course administration > Outcomes
Click the Add a new outcome button
Complete the form then click the 'Save changes button.
Running an Outcomes Report
The outcomes report in Course administration > Grades > Outcomes report helps teachers monitor their students’ progress using outcomes. It lists site-wide outcomes and custom outcomes used in the current course, their overall average. It will show the name, course and site wide average, the activity, the average values and the number of “grades” given.
The outcomes report is a table with 6 columns:
Short name – the short name of the outcome used in this course.
Course average -shows two values representing the average scores given to students for each outcome used in this course.
Site-wide – Whether the outcome is a site-wide outcome or not.
Activities – This lists the activities that use this outcome in this course. A new row is created for each activity, and the activity name is linked to the activity’s page.
Average – the average score for each activity using the outcome in this course.
Number of Grades – The number of grades given to students for each activity using the outcome.