Communicate with Students using Moodle Messaging

Step by step instructions

• View a list of all students in a course
• View enrolled users
• View a history of student activity
• View all your messages
• Message selected participant/s from the Participants list
• Send a group message/email
• Group filter options
• Send an email to Moodle Course participants
• Post to a specific group in a 'separate groups' forum
• Configure your message notifications

View a list of all students in a course

1. In the Navigation block, under My courses > [course name], click Participants. A list of all course participants displays.
   
2. Depending on the settings, you may need to click Show all at the bottom left of the page to view all the course participants or group members.
   
3. Filter the list by either:
   • selecting the desired participants (e.g. Student) from the Current role drop-down list, or
   • (if you are using groups in your course) selecting the relevant group from the groups drop-down list. A list of the group members displays.
     
4. Below the list, click Select all or select individual students' check boxes, and from the Choose drop-down list, select:
   • Send a message to open a page where you can enter a message, remove participants from the recipients list, preview and (in the preview page) send the message.
   • Send an email (commas separator) to send an email with your email client.  Email addresses will be separated using a comma.
   • Send an email (semi-colon separator) to send an email with your client.  Email addresses will be separated by a semi-colon.
   • Add a new note to open a page where you can add personal, course or site-specific notes for your own reference against, for example, individual students' names.
   • Add a common note to open a page where you can add a personal, course or site-specific note that applies to all participants on the list, or to selected users.
   • Download as CSV to export the filtered list as a CSV file to your computer.
     

View enrolled users

1. In the course home page, in the Settings block, under Course administration, select Users, then Enrolled users.
   
2. In the Enrolled users page, all enrolled users display. By default, only active students will display. To view suspended users (any students who have been suspended but not unenrolled) You can identify these users by removing the Status: Active filter.
   
   
   
   

View a history of student activity

1. In the Settings block, under Course administration > Reports, select the report you want to view—for example, Logs.
2. The resulting page will be different depending on which report type you selected. If you selected Logs, select report parameters from the drop-down lists.
   
3. Then click Get these logs.
   

View all your messages

To see all the messages you have exchanged with your Moodle contacts:

1. On either the Moodle My home page or any course home page, on the top right, click the drop down beside your name.
   
    
    
2. Click Messages, to open your messaging page.
   
   
    
3. On the All messages page, to view an individual message in the list, click the link the appropriate section and select a user to view message history. You may also search for a conversion using the search bar.
   
   

Send a message to selected participant/s from the Participants list

You can send messages within Moodle that will be delivered to the individual/s or groups you select from the course participant list. Follow these steps to send a message to one or more participants:

1. Within the course, in the Navigation block, select Participants. The participants list displays.
    
   
    
2. Either:
   • In the First name/Surname column, click the name of the individual you want to email. Their individual page displays.
   • Click message icon  beside their name.

or:

• In the Select column, select the check boxes for several participants you want to email.
• From the Choose... drop-down list below the participants list, select Send a message.

3. On the Messages page, type your Message and click Send message (or Preview the group message, then click Send message).
   
   

Send a group message/email using the Participants list

From within Moodle, you can send a message to multiple selected students. If individual students are online, notification of the message will pop up on-screen; if they are offline, they will be sent an email offline—this will depend on their individual messaging settings (they control these at the following location: Settings block > My profile settings > Messaging).

If you want to email all (rather than selected) students in a course, you can do so using the Send email tool or post a message to the News/Announcements forum which is setup with forced subscription.

To send a message to a group that has been created within the course:

1. In the Navigation block, select Participants. The participants list displays.
2. From the drop-down list, search the group you want to email. (Note: the Separate groups drop-down list only displays if Separate groups has been selected as the group mode on the Edit course settings page.) The group list displays.
3. At the bottom left of the list, click Select all. (You can also select individual group members to email.)
4. From the Choose... drop-down list, click Send a message.
5. On the Message course users page, type your message in the Message body box. Below the box, click Send message to send the message.
   

Post to a specific group in a "separate groups" forum

Note that you can only perform these actions if Separate groups has been selected as the group mode on the Forum settings page.

1. Within the forum, select the group from the All participants drop-down list at the top of the page.
2. Click Add a new discussion topic.
3. Complete the Your new discussion topic page and post the topic to the forum. Only the group you have selected will be able to view the post.
4. On the forum page, the group at which a group-specific post was targeted displays in the Group column.
   

Group sorting options

   You can use the group sorting feature to sort students that by their group status.To use this:

1. In the Navigation block, select Participants. The participants list displays.

2. Search for the Group filter (Ensure you have at least one group already set up)
   
    

3. You can filter by Specific groups, Students with no group (search for 'no group'), or all participants.
   
   

Configure your notifications

How you receive messages depends on how you configure your message settings. To configure them:

1. On the top right, select the drop-down arrow beside your name and select preferences followed by message preferences.
   
2. Change the settings for messages.