Moodle Course Types

Award courses are the most common type of course in Moodle, and are an online space where you can provide learning and teaching activities and resources for students who are officially enrolled in your UNSW courses.

To obtain the teaching instance of your course, ask the TELT Administrator in your faculty or school to create it in myUNSW and release it to you, using the instructions on the page Create a Moodle Teaching Instance and Release it to Instructors.

TELT Administrators can begin creating courses for their academics from approximately 2 months before Orientation Week.

Award Course Un enrolments

Due to the changing nature of circumstances students may face, students may decide to change programs, drop/swap courses etc. Moodle has a specific way it handles users which have unenrolled from a course. As a result, should a student un enrol from a course, they will;

1. Lose visibility of the course in their Moodle course listing
2. Lose access to the Moodle course

Moodle will, however, retain a student's name/details in a Moodle course enrolment listing, however, it will appear greyed out. This is to ensure any previous course contributions aren't lost. This removes the risk of potential disruption in the ongoing learning & teaching within the course. 

Furthermore, data is kept due to historical archiving and record keeping purposes. 

There are two types of official non-award courses, based on whether the course is intended for student or staff participants. SCAR courses are for staff participants.

SCAR courses (like OH&S) are created in the official PIMS system, before being created in Moodle overnight. The completion of these courses by staff result in their completion status being passed back to MyUNSW for formal recognition.

SCAR courses are managed by the Capability and Development unit within UNSW HR.

These course types are generally not available to UNSW faculty/schools/departments to utilise for their own courses, due to interface restrictions and/or inability to support at scale.

There are two types of official non-award courses, based on whether the course is intended for student or staff participants. NCAR courses are for student participants.

NCAR courses (like ELISE) are created in Learning Management via MyUNSW, before being created in Moodle overnight. The completion of these courses by students result in their completion status being passed back to MyUNSW for formal recognition.

These course types are generally not available to UNSW faculty/schools/departments to utilise for their own courses, due to interface restrictions and/or inability to support at scale.

A standard sandpit course is a course that you can set up to:

• add activities or resources to test and practise with
• build a course before your teaching instance has been set up.

For guide on how to create a Sanpdit course please visit the Sandpit Course Creation page. 
If you need to add users to your sandpit at a later date please request the addition of self enrolment keys by completing the Moodle Self Enrolment Course Request form.

What is a self-enrolment sandpit?

In certain cases you may require a course in Moodle for activities that support education but are not directly related to a student's progression throughout his/her degree, or not directly related to a staff member's progression throughout his/her career. Such courses are usually set up as sandpit courses with self-enrolment keys. As the name suggests, users enrol themselves in these courses by entering a password (an 'enrolment key') upon receiving the course URL from you.

Examples of such a scenario include sites with general support or training resources, or a site to organise social activities to build community.

When should a self-enrolment sandpit not be used?

Sandpit courses exist in Moodle alone, they do not exist in any official system of record, are not directly visible to UNSW auditing, and will not be backed up long-term. For this reason it makes them unsuitable for official activities due to the inability for UNSW to meet appropriate business policies, or to meet governing data retention restrictions covered by laws such as the NSW State Records Act.

It can be hard to determine what counts as an official activity that needs to be tracked. A general rule of thumb is that if the course is required to track staff grades, student grades, or activity completion, or could otherwise impact a staff member's/student's status at UNSW, it requires tracking in an official system such as MyUNSW. Hence these courses are not appropriate.

If you wish to use a self-enrolment sandpit but have concerns that it will not meet the criteria mentioned here, please book a virtual Consultation with the ETS team.

How does self-enrolment work?

Typically you would specify two enrolment keys, one for the instructor and one for the students. For self-enrolment courses, an instructor is a user who can edit the course and add activities or resources. A student is a user who can participate in the course and access the course activities and resources.

You can create a self-enrolment sandpit course or request self-enrolment keys to an existing sandpit course by following instructions on the  Sandpit Course Creation and Enrolment Key Request page. Requests will normally be processed within 5 business days.

For instructions on how to access a self-enrolment course using self-enrolment keys see Enrolling in a self-enrolment course.

Enabling guest access allows users without a zID to view your course materials within Moodle. These users will be able to access content anonymously but will not be able to participate in activities that require an identity within Moodle. For example, Assignment submissions.

UNSW staff may use this form to request guest access to an existing sandpit course. You should first be enrolled as an instructor to the course or be a TELT Administrator.
Guest access for courses requires approval from your Head of School or Organisational Unit. You will be required to upload email approval from your relevant Head of Organisational Unit. (Email Attachment)