Moodle Dashboard

Following on from the recent redesign of the Moodle login page, and in conjunction with the design and usability improvements being made in the Moodle Enhance project, a new Moodle dashboard is being released for all users.

The Moodle dashboard is the landing page for users after they log into Moodle from which they navigate to their courses. The redesign focuses on visual improvements and user experience, presenting users with a personal view of upcoming Moodle activities from all courses, an improved calendar, and a simple course navigation design. This is the first iteration of the new design. The dashboard will be further enhanced with new features over coming months to continually improve the Moodle learning experience. We recommend resetting your dashboard to default to experience all the updated sections.

For more information, visit the Moodle Dashboard Update SharePoint page.

Managing Blocks and Dashboard View

To experience all the updated blocks, reset your Moodle Dashboard to the default view. To do this, click 'Reset page to default' with Edit mode enabled.

Clicking 'Reset page to default'

To add new blocks to your Moodle Dashboard, turn 'Edit mode' on in the header. 

Clicking 'Edit mode'

Next, expand the navigation section and select a block from the 'Add a block' dropdown.

Clicking 'Add a block' dropdown

Blocks can be moved from the navigation bar into the main blocks section by clicking and dragging the arrow icon.

Moving block

Course Overview Block

The Course Overview block can be filtered to show:

  • All (except removed from view)
  • In Progress
  • Future
  • Past
  • Starred
  • Removed from view

The courses can be displayed in the following forms:

  • Card
  • List
  • Summary

The courses can be sorted by name or last accessed date (in descending order). By default, the Course Overview block will display 8 courses, however this can be changed to 12 or 24 in the 'Show' dropdown.

Important:

All Moodle courses have a start and end date, controlled by the instructor. If not updated, the start date is the day the course was created by the school TELT Administrator, and the end date is left blank.

It is very important that the start/end dates are kept up to date, as they control whether the course exists in the In Progress, Future or Past tabs. If the end date was left blank or set in the future, it will be in the In Progress tab.

Course Overview Block

Timeline Block

The Timeline block provides an overview of deadlines for enrolled courses. Activities with a set deadline OR 'Expect completed on' activity completion settings will appear in the Timeline and Calendar blocks. Activities without deadlines or external to Moodle will not appear here. Please advise students to refer to the course outline for a holistic view of assessment due dates. Courses and activities that have been hidden or restricted from students will not appear in the Timeline or Calendar blocks.

Timeline block

Please note: the dashboard will only display a maximum of 2 weeks in the past for 'Overdue' or 'Remind me to grade by' activities. Students will not see activities on the dashboard unless they currently have access to view them in the course (i.e. If an assignment is restricted to the view of a lesson, the assignment will not appear on the dashboard until the lesson has been viewed).

The 'Expect completed on' setting can be applied to most activities in Moodle. This activity completion requirement can be used to provide an informal deadline for students to view/complete an activity. To learn more about activity completion, please visit our Set up Activity Completion in Moodle page.

The following activities will not appear in the Timeline or Calendar blocks if 'Expect completed on' settings are enabled:

  • Active Quiz
  • H5P
  • Live Poll
  • Media Collection
  • OU Blog
  • OU Wiki
  • Turnitin Assignment 2 (will appear in timeline and calendar for set assessment due dates)
  • Dialogue
  • Reading Game
  • Team Builder
  • Attendance
  • Certificate
  • Checklist
  • StudentQuiz

Starred Courses Block

The Starred courses block may be added to the Dashboard to display the courses which an enrolled user has 'starred' (bookmarked).

Starred courses block

Courses can be starred using the Course Overview Block

Clicking on 'Star this course'

Recently Accessed Courses Block

The Recently accessed courses block, displayed by default on the Dashboard displays the courses which an enrolled user has most recently accessed.

Recently Accessed Courses

Course search

Use the search bar when looking for a specific course on Moodle. This is useful when you know the name of a course, but don't have the direct link on Moodle.

This can be found by selecting Magnifying Glass icon in the header.

Course search

The search toggle can be used to either search for enrolled courses by name using the ‘Search course’ option, or search for key words site-wide using the ‘Global search’ option.

After entering keywords into the search bar, your results will show. If the course has an image, it will also be shown in the results.

Course search view

Edit course image

By default, a coloured pattern is displayed as the image for a course on the dashboard. Instructors can edit the course image in their course settings. To edit a course image:

  1. In the Settings block > Course administration in your course home page, click on Edit settings. 

Edit Settings

 

  1. Upload the image you wish to use as your course image in the Course image under Description settings. 

Course Image upload

  1. Click Save and display to save your course image. 

Save and Display

Note: Use an image size of approximately 960px x 150px for the image's size to be correctly proportioned on the Dashboard.