Prepare Your Moodle Course for the Start of the Semester

Updating your syllabus

Several items in your syllabus need attention each time you teach your course. Use this list to ensure that your syllabus is ready to go Tip: Consider using the NC State Syllabus Template created by DELTA, which includes all up-to-date policies and complies with the syllabus regulation.

• Check/update your contact information, TA name, etc. and office hours
• Update the course schedule and dates to fit the current semester’s academic calendar
• Add any new instructional materials
• Modify any course policies or language as needed
• Be sure to list all course technologies list that you are using

Checking your course in WolfWare

WolfWare is where you manage your course information and the technologies you are using in it, including Moodle.

• Ensure that the course is visible to students, and that the start and end dates are correct.
• Ensure that TA’s and any co-instructors have the right access.

Updating Moodle

• Use the Brickfield Accessibility+ Toolkit to find and fix accessibility issues
• Check the course index: Would editing titles or remove text and media area titles from the course index make it more readable?
• Update any dates included in section or module titles

Moodle Announcements

• Write an introductory announcement to send in the first week, perhaps scheduling it to send once classes begin.
• Pre-populate later announcements with text from previous terms.

You can set up forums to send automatically at a given time. Some instructors copy and paste announcements from the previous term and set them to send, but recommend adjusting them as needed before they send to account for anything new that has arisen in the course of the semester.

Course documents and introductory information

• Ensure up-to-date, working links to course resources (syllabus, etc)*
• Set status Update course and instructor information (TA name, and office hours, etc.); consider using the “Meet the instructor block” if you are not doing so already
• Update / create and correctly link any start of term student survey you are using
• Add your introductory post to an “Introduce Yourself” forum (if using)
• Course Ready users: add a Course Ready-VitalSource link to your Moodle course

*If you use a go-link for course resources like the syllabus, etc., then you only have to update where the go-link points each semester (rather than find all the links in your Moodle space and change them!)

Resources and activities

• Ensure agreement between course items and your syllabus.
• Check URL resources and links within pages, descriptions, etc. to be sure that links are not broken
• Update any dates that appear in the titles of items
• Update availability / opening / closing dates in bulk using the Dates report
• Ensure access restrictions (if using) are correct and copied over right.
• Ensure any completion conditions are correct and copied over right or set default conditions if desired.
• Move any materials you are not using to a hidden Instructor Sandbox area
• Clarify in the title if something is optional
• Individually update dates used to restrict access to items (Settings > Restrictions)*

Tip: You may want to do this module-by-module. If you release modules one at a time, you can just keep ahead of yourself.*You must manually add items that have restricted access to the Moodle calendar; otherwise they do not show up there.

Learning activities and assessments

• Ensure the Gradebook calculations and components are aligned with your syllabus.
• For any Q&A forum, repopulate the prompt that starts each thread.*
• Check and update rubrics for forums and assignments
• Ensure forum rubrics are provided to students, perhaps in the description. 
• Submit your proctoring request to the Testing Center (if using) 

*In the Q&A forum, the instructor must start the discussion with a question for each student to answer. These will not copy over from a previous Moodle course.

External tools

• Check all external tools for proper linking and date settings
• Click on each Google Assignment to ensure pieces are copied over correctly.
• Update link between your Moodle course and your Perusall activities
• Copy and relink Gradescope Assignments
• Copy WebWork problem sets
• Add a Yellowdig activity and then proceed through the set-up screens in Yellowdig, using a prior community as a template if desired.

Final Moodle Checks

• Preview the course in “Student View” to check for clarity and usability
• Check the Moodle course calendar for final check of dates

Workshop Information

• Register for Ready to Roll! The Moodle Course Tune-up

If there are no available workshops, please feel free to request an instructional consultation about this topic.