Description
At the beginning of each term, there are several items to think about as you prepare to teach using Moodle ISU. We have put together a list of questions to help guide you through the initial steps of setting up your Moodle ISU course.
This Guide Will Help You to answer the following:
Do I need to request a Moodle ISU course when the course schedule was created?
No, all courses (regardless of their schedule type) will have Moodle indicated by default as part of the Office of the Registrar’s process.
When will I be able to start work on my Moodle ISU course?
Moodle ISU courses become available as the course schedule is created at the Registrar's office and faculty are assigned. Courses that you have access to will appear in your My courses page. Using the Courses Overview sections, courses are divided by In progress, Future, and Past. Once the semester begins, your current courses can be located in the In progress area.
Note: Courses from previous semesters will be located under the Past area. They will appear with gray lettering to indicate that they are not available to students. The ITRC holds on to courses for two years and four weeks i.e Fall 2020 courses will no longer be available after the fourth week of the Fall 2022 term.
For more information, contact ITRC - (208) 282-5880 or email itrc@isu.edu
How do I request a course prior to the scheduled course offering?
If you want to begin developing your course before the Moodle ISU courses have been created, you may want to request a development course. A development course allows you to work on the content of your course, but will not enroll students.
To request a development course, see Special Course Request Form
When your Moodle course is automatically created at the beginning of the term, you will need to move the content to the course where the students are enrolled.
For more information, see Backing up and Restoring a Moodle ISU Course [Faculty] and Importing Content into a New Moodle ISU Course [Faculty]
Do you need a metacourse?
A metacourse combines several sections of the same course into one Moodle ISU course. This is helpful for instructors teaching multiple sections of the same course, cross-listed courses, and combined undergraduate/graduate courses.
For more information contact ITRC - (208) 282-5880 or email itrc@isu.edu
To request a metacourse, see Metacourse Request Form
Do you want to use content from a previous course?
Once you have set up a Moodle course, you may reuse the content in future courses using the Backup/Restore or Import process.
It is recommended that you create a backup of your course content at the end of each term. This backup can be restored into future courses as needed. For more information regarding the Moodle course archive policy for previous semester courses, see Archive Policies.
The restore process will import components from another Moodle ISU course into an existing course on the same instance of Moodle. This process is helpful for transferring content from a previous course into your current course.
For more information, see Backing up and Restoring a Moodle ISU Course [Faculty]
Similar to restore, the import process will take content from another course in Moodle ISU and move it’s contents into the current course.
For more information, see Importing Content into a New Moodle ISU Course [Faculty]
Do you have a video or distance class, and would like to have the lectures from that class encoded and linked in your Moodle ISU course?
Classes taught in an Interactive Video Conferencing Classroom (IVCC) are recorded using Zoom’s Cloud recording platform.
For more information about this process, see Interactive Video Conferencing Classroom Recording Process
What happens to my recordings stored on the Zoom cloud?
Users can keep their videos on Zoom Cloud Storage for the duration of the semester. Recordings are set to auto-delete after 365 days when initially recorded. For example, a cloud recording created on Aug 22, 2022 would be deleted on April 29, 2023 . If a user has made a recording that they want to keep indefinitely, It is recommended to move a copy of desired recordings to Google drive or other Cloud storage that is managed by the user.
Users are free to delete unwanted recordings at any point during the semester. Users will receive an email notification from Zoom <no-reply@zoom.us> 7 days before the cloud recording is going to be permanently deleted from trash.
For more information about this process, see Archive Policy Zoom Cloud Storage
Do you have any media files that you would like to use in your Moodle ISU course?
Media files, such as podcasts and similar files are large files and can make restoring course content cumbersome, as well as making your Moodle ISU course slow for your students.
Media files should be placed on Google Drive to streamline your course. For assistance in linking your Google Drive videos to your course, see Linking videos from Google Drive to Moodle ISU.
Media files can also be placed on external video storage sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. For more information regarding YouTube uploading, see Upload videos
For more information about these options, contact ITRC - (208) 282-5880 or email itrc@isu.edu
For Copyright Policy information, see our Copyright Policy
Does your content need updating?
Once your content has been moved to your new course, you will want to do the following:
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Update your Syllabus
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Check due dates on assignments, activities and quizzes, see Change dates for my Moodle Activities [Faculty]
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Check for access restrictions and groupings
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Check for outdated or broken resource links, such as links to expired articles or digital files
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Send a welcome message to your students via the Announcement Forum
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Set up your gradebook. You do not have to enter all your grade items and assignments now, but you can start to create your structure.
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Refer your students to the Moodle ISU Resources
Are you ready to add another component to your Moodle ISU course? Is there an activity or assignment that doesn't quite work the way you would like?
Check out the workshops offered by ITRC, set up an appointment by calling (208) 282-5880, or stop by our drop-in lab in room B17 in the Library.
For more information, see Moodle ISU Guides
Seek Further Assistance
For additional assistance please contact, ITRC at (208) 282 5880 or itrc@isu.edu
This work was created by the Idaho State University Instructional Technology Resource Center and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.