What's on a Moodle Course Home Page?

Click these links to find out about:

• Breadcrumbs
• Course summary
• Help button
• Blocks
• Page formats
• Resources
• Activities
• Linking to external applications

Breadcrumbs

These display at the top of the page, below the page banner. They show you the route you took to reach this page (e.g. My home > My courses > [course name]). Use these breadcrumbs to return to earlier pages.

The General (course summary) section

The course summary section is the topmost section of the Moodle course home page, above any weeks or topics. Generally it contains a description of the course, the News forum (used for course announcements) and an image. This section always displays, so when you are designing your course think carefully about what you want students to see there.

To edit the course summary section:

1. Click Turn editing on.
2. Click the Edit summary icon  within the section.
3. On the Summary of General page, you can add a Section name if you want to (de-select the Use default section name check box to do so), and provide a Summary of the course, as well as restricting access to the course to a grouping, or to users who have met specified conditions.

Help button

  This button displays beside many field names in Moodle. Click it when you want more information about how to complete a field, or about the consequences of the different choices in a drop-down list.

Blocks

These display down the left-hand side of the page, just as on the My home page.

To add a block to a page:

1. Click Turn editing on at the top right of the page.
2. In the Add a block block, select the block you want in the drop-down list.

The new block will display in the blocks column.

To rearrange blocks on a Moodle page:

1. Click Turn editing on at the top right of the page.
2. Click and drag the block to its new location in the blocks column using the  Move icon. Release the mouse button to place the block.

To hide and show a block:

All blocks can be hided, so that it is not visible on the course page.

• To hide a block, click Turn editing on at the top right of the page . Inside the block you want to hide, click the settings icon and select "Hide ... block".
  
• To show a block, click Turn editing on at the top right of the page . Find the block you would like to show, click the settings icon and select "show ... block".
  

Page formats

By default, a new course home page is presented in Topics format. This format consists of an introductory section (the course summary section) and an additional section for every topic in the course.

Below is a short video about the common and recommended course formats used at UNSW.

Grid format accessibility—We have identified that the Grid format is not readable with the JAWS screen reader. The Grid format developer is working to resolve this issue. Until it has been resolved, you should:

• avoid setting up new courses using Grid format
• if existing courses are delivered in Grid format, change the format to Collapsed Topics, Topics or Weekly format.

A separate page has been created, all about choosing the most appropriate format for your course.

In summary, the available formats, in the order in which we recommend them, are:

• Collapsed Topics—Solves the issue of the "scroll of death" when a course has many topics or weeks. Users can toggle all topic sections open or closed, using the arrows that display below the course summary section: . The course summary section is open by default, but users can view other sections individually, using the icon at the left of the section title to open or close the section. You can display one or more sections at any given time. The sections revert to closed when you log out. You can make adjustments to the Collapsed Topics display using the instructions later on this page.
• Topics format—This format is identical to the Weekly outline, but with the dates removed. It allows you to organise content by theme or topic.
• Grid format—(See note above—do not use Grid format at the moment) Hides all weekly-format or topic-format sections, replacing them with a grid of icons (one per section) with short titles. Users click an icon to view its corresponding week or topic, which displays superimposed on the course home page. Although easy for students to navigate, this format does not allow instructors to drag-and-drop activities or resources between sections, as is possible in the weekly-outline or topic-outline formats.
• Weekly format—This format is identical to the Topics format, with the dates displayed. It allows you to organise content by week.Be mindful of mid-semester break, study period, exams etc.
• SCORM format—The course is presented as a package of web pages, graphics, Flash animations, quizzes or other elements. (SCORM—Sharable Content Object Reference Model)
• Social format—The course is presented as an open forum.

To change page format:

1. In the Settings block, click Edit settings.
    

2. On the Edit course settings page, expand the Course format section and select the new Format from the drop-down list.

3. If you wish to display the sections of the course on multiple pages, at Course layout select Show one section per page from the drop-down list.

4. Click Save changes. The course home page displays in the new format.
   
   
    

Visibility of page sections

In a Weekly format or Topics format course home page, you can reduce the number of topics or weeks that are visible on the course home page. 

1. To hide a topic or section, next to the topic, click Edit and select  Hide topic from the dropdown. 

2. To redisplay the week or topic, click Edit next to the topic and select  Show topic from the dropdown.

You can also increase the number of sections that display by selecting the Add topics button at the bottom of the page and entering the number of sections you wish to add in the dialog. 

Change a page section title and add a description

To change the title of a week/topic section on the course home page, and add a description:

1. Click Turn editing on. 
2. In the relevant section, click the Edit summary icon .

3. On the Summary of [default section name] page, select the Custom check box and enter a new name in Section name field.

4. Enter a description for the topic/week in the Summary field.

5. Click Save changes.

Collapsed Topics settings

In Collapsed Topics format, you can adjust the layout and colour of the course home page elements by, in the Settings block, selecting Edit Settings. The Edit course settings page displays. Click Course format to open that page section.

When setting the page structure (in the Structure drop-down box), your choices are:

• Topic—Sections display as topics, in section number order.
• Week—Sections display as weeks in ascending week order from the start date of the course.
• Current Week First—Same as Week, but the current week displays at the top, with previous weeks in descending order below. In editing mode, this structure is the same as Week.
• Current Topic First—Same as Topic, except that the current topic is shown at the top.
• Day—Sections display as days in ascending order from the start date of the course.

You can make the course page even shorter by having the collapsed topics display in more than one column.

You can give the week or topic section toggles course-specific colours in the Toggle fields. For example, the settings chosen below...

...result in the colours shown here:

Resources

A "resource" is any type of non-interactive digital content that you add to your Moodle course. The current types of resources available are:

When you want to add any of these to a course home page section:

1. Click Turn editing on.
2. In the relevant section, click Add an activity or resource.
3. In the Add an activity or resource pop-up menu, click the Resources tab and click the resource you want to use. Help information for that resource displays in its cell.
   

Activities

An "activity" is an item of interactive content created using one of the many Moodle tools (e.g. assignment, chat session).

When you want to add an activity to a course home page, click Turn editing on , then in the appropriate section select Add an activity or resource. In the resulting pop-up activity chooser, click the button for the activity you want.

Add a link to an external application

To add a link from the course home page to an external application:

1. Add an HTML block:
   • Click Turn editing on at the top right of the page. 
   • In the Add a block block, select HTML from the drop down list. The (new HTML block) block will display in the blocks column.
   • Click and drag the block to the position in the column where you want it to display.
     
     
      
2. In the (new HTML block), click the Actions icon and select Configure (new HTML block) block from the drop-down list.
   
              
    
3. On the Configuring a (new HTML block) block page:
   • Enter a Block title (e.g. "MapleTA Quiz").
   • Type some text into the Content box, e.g. "Go to the quiz".
   • Select the words you typed and click the Insert/edit link button . Complete the Insert/edit link window and click Insert.
     
     
      
4. In the Content box, enter brief, clear instructions about:
   • whether students will need to log in to the external application
   • how they can return to the Moodle course once they have clicked out of it using this link.
     
     
      
5. Complete the rest of the page as necessary and click Save changes.
   
              
    
6. Test the link.