However, I have also updated the brief video tutorial, and since some faculty members have said it's difficult to watch the video within Moodle while also using Moodle, I've placed it here as well:

Direct Link to Video

Problem #1: The CRN was entered incorrectly.

The CRN (Course Record Number) is the unique ID assigned to your course, and it is this number that loads the students automatically into your course (the process happens once each night, late at night). It is a five digit number Fall, Winter, and Spring terms, and a four digit number in the summer. This number must be entered in the Course ID box on the settings page, preceded by the academic year -- not the actual year, but the academic year. For example, if you are teaching a Spring term course in 2013, you would continue to put 2012 in front of the CRN. We roll over to a new academic year in the summer. So in June 2013, you would enter 2013 in front of the CRN. Here's how to do it:

1. When looking at your course homepage, click Edit settings on the left.

2. In the fourth box down, the Course ID number box, enter the academic year, then the CRN, no spaces (i.e. 201212345).

3. Click Save changes at the bottom.

Have you waited long enough? Students are loaded into courses starting about a week before the term begins. The process continues throughout the term, occurring once each night, very late. If a student adds your course late, the system should eventually add him or her to your course.

To see if the students have truly loaded into the course, click on Users on the left, then Enrolled Users. These are all the people in your course.

If students are in the course but tell you they don't see it, it's likely that your course is hidden. Does it appear grayed out in your course list? That's a key sign that the course is visible only to the instructor. To fix this, here's how:

1. Click on Edit settings on the left.

2. Find the Availability menu toward the middle of the page.

3. Make sure the menu is set to "This course is available to students."

4. Save changes at the bottom.

Incidentally, this is a nice feature that allows you to determine exactly when you want students to have access to your course. If you'd rather they not get into your Moodle course before your first class day, you can hide it until then.

No worries: You've simply clicked the little white box (or boxes, if you're only seeing one topic) to the right of the topic area. Moodle allows any user to isolate individual topics. This wouldn't affect everybody, only you. Click it again and you'll see all of your topic areas.

This is almost always an error on the student's part. When an assigment is actually loaded, the file name will appear on the assignment description page. This is their proof that the file is there. What you need to tell your students is that if there is no file listed, they must try again. If the deadline has lapsed, it's up to you as the instructor whether and how you want to make an exception.

Fortunately, you can customize how you receive those notifications -- or even if you receive them at all. Here's how.

1. After you've logged in, click on My profile settings on the left.

2. Click on Messaging.

Now, by checking or unchecking the boxes on this page, you can customize what kinds of emails you'd like to receive. If you don't want to receive any emails from Moodle, simply check the box at the bottom that reads "Temporarily disable notifications."

3. Click Update and you're done.

Exciting changes afoot! We're upgrading to Moodle 2.2.3 as of September 1, 2012. This is WOU's official online learning management system, where you can share resources, engage in online discussions, and offer online quizzes in a password-protected environment. Not only will you have access to many new features (conditional release of activities, an improved text editor), but we've also customized the look and feel of it to better match the WOU brand.

Although the current version of Moodle will be used through summer term, the new version of Moodle is available now for development of Fall term classes and beyond at http://newmoodle.wou.edu.

We would have preferred to transfer all courses to the new Moodle en masse, but technical issues made this problematic. Plus this gives us an opportunity to weed out hundreds of courses (and gigabytes of data) that are no longer active. Fortunately, transferring courses seems relatively painless. If you're familiar with how the backup/restore process works in Moodle, you are welcome to do it yourself, but I am also happy to assist. Simply drop me an email with your list of courses and I'll add them to my list. If you want to do it yourself, first login at http://newmoodle.wou.edu, then drop me an email. I'll bump up your access so you can do it yourself, as well as point you to a brief video tutorial on how to do it.

F.A.Q.s

1. Do I have to copy all of my courses over now?

No. The old Moodle will remain as an archive indefinitely. The Web address will change to oldmoodle.wou.edu down the road, but we'll let you know at the appropriate time. For now, just focus on your Fall 2012 courses. Again, I'm happy to do this if you let me know which courses need to be copied.

2. Will there be training available?

Yes. There will be a number of workshops offered over the summer and into early fall, as well as updated online resources. Stay tuned for more on that front.

3. I'm getting a weird security warning when I login. Should I be concerned?

It is safe to click past this. This is temporary until September.

4. Can I start using new Moodle for summer term?

No students will be loaded on the new site until September 2012. This is to keep things as clear for our students as possible.

5. The address won't stay newmoodle.wou.edu, will it?

No. Eventually "online.wou.edu" will point to the new Moodle site, and the portal will also link directly to it.

6. I haven't used Moodle before. Is it too late?

It's never too late. This term alone, we had 419 course shells created and populated with students, but there's always room for more. Whether you simply want to put your PowerPoints online or you want to have a fully robust online course, I'm happy to help. Drop me an email to get started.

(Direct link to full size video)

1. Login to the course you want to delete.

2. Click on "Settings" in your Administration area.

3. Change the course category (found at the top of the page) to "X - Delete Courses." It's at the bottom of the list.

4. Click "Save changes" at the bottom of the page.

Once a week or so, I'll clear out the courses in this category. If you'd like to remove the course immediately from your list, do one of the following *after* moving the course to the "X-Delete Courses" category:

1. Click "Unenroll me from _____" in your Administration area.

2. If that's not available, click on "Assign Roles" in your Administration area. Click on "Teacher." Click on your name in the left column. Click the remove button.

Any questions, let me know. Spring students should begin loading into courses toward the middle of next week. Remember to include "2010" in front of your CRN for this term. Starting summer term, put "2011" in front of the CRN.

This has come up a number of times recently, so I thought I'd give you some tips on how you can see what students are doing in your course. This is especially useful when a student claims they weren't able to login or had other technical issues.

1. Click on your Participants link (usually in the upper left). Here you'll see a complete list of students, as well as the last time the student logged into your course.

2. Click on a student's name.

3. If you have instructor access to the course -- students will not be able to see this -- you will have an "Activity Reports" tab at the top. Select this.

4. As a default, usually the "Outline report" is displayed, which shows you the number of times they clicked on various items in their course, as well as the last time they looked at each particular item.

5. If you click on "Complete report," you will see every item, whether they've looked at it or not.

6. Perhaps the most useful, though, is the "All logs" link, which gives you a list of everything your student has done in the course, including the time it was done.

As a side note, you will most likely find that there is a distinct correlation between the amount of time a student spends in a course and their grade. Imagine that. :)

Any questions, let me know.

Cheers,
Scott

Here's how you do it:

1. When looking at your course homepage, click on Backup on the left, under your Administration links.

2. The next screen will allow you to select what parts of your course you want included in your backup file. As a default, the backup file will include everything -- including student content (grades, forum posts, etc.) -- unless you tell it otherwise.

3. When you've got everything set the way you want, scroll to the bottom and click Continue. The next screen will show you a list of what it's going to do. After reviewing it to make sure it's what you want, click Continue again.

4. Depending on the size of your course,* it could take a few minutes for Moodle to generate the backup file. When it's finished, it will show you a message that reads, "Backup completed successfully." Click Continue.

5. You will be shown the "backupdata" folder in your Files area. Any backups you've created will be listed. From here, you can click on a file to save it to your own computer or click on "Restore" when you're ready to restore a backup over an existing course or to a new course. One note: The restore process defaults to a new course shell unless you tell it otherwise.

* Some large courses (such as those containing video files) have had issues lately with Moodle's backup tool. We're working on resolving this.

Here's a quick tip that might prove helpful. Did you know that everyone with a PawPrint account at WOU -- meaning all students, staff, and faculty -- have access to their own Web space?

It's called the P: drive, or your public_html area. It shows up when you login on campus, or via Remote Desktop. Anything you save into your P: drive is automatically available on the Internet.

How does it work? It's simple. Just save a file into your P: drive, then open your Internet browser and type your Web address:

http://www.wou.edu/~username09

Of course, you'd replace "username09" with your own PawPrint login. If you don't have an index.html file, then your browser will just list the files in your P: drive. Anyone can then open or copy these files -- though no one can change the originals via the Web.

You can also create real Web pages of course, but this is an easy way to share files with others without having to use a Web editor.

For Instructors New to the Moodle Environment:

If you want a new Moodle course shell, just email me, Scott Carter, at carters@wou.edu. Please give me the full title, the CRN, and your preferred enrollment key (course password). When the course has been created, I'll email you to let you know. You will have "teacher" access to your course, meaning you're all set to start working on it. When it's ready, all you have to do is give your students the address (http://online.wou.edu) and let them know that they login with their Pawprint credentials (in other words, their network/email login).

For Instructors Familiar with the Moodle Environment:

If you get to the point where you'd like to create your own courses without waiting on me, then I'm happy to give you "course creator" access. Just contact me (caters@wou.edu) and we can discus it.

Assuming I've given you this access, here's what you do:

1. Login to WOU Online (http://online.wou.edu).

2. Under "My Courses" on the left, click on the "All courses" link.

3. Scroll to the bottom and click "Add a new course."

4. On the Settings page, change the category to the appropriate category for your course.

5. Type the name of your course. If possible, follow this protocol: Let's say your name is John Jones. If the name of your course was ENG104: Introduction to Literature," the CRN was 12345, and you were teaching it in Fall 2007, then you type the following as the full name: "ENG104: Introduction to Literature (Fall 2007, Jones, CRN12345)". Short name would be ENG104_Jones_12345". We realize that this method may not fit all circumstances, but if you have questions, just contact me. We're trying to keep the courses as organized as possible.

6. Since students are now automatically loaded into the courses by CRN, you need to enter a CRN in the Course ID field preceded by the academic year. Don't enter the letters "CRN." Just enter the number. The students are added each night for the first two weeks of the term.*

If your CRN was 12345, then you would put the following in the Course ID field: 201012345

*Please note: You must continue to put 2010 in front of the CRN until Summer 2011. We are in the 2010 academic year until then.

7. The rest of the options are customizable, and you'll have to experiment with them -- though if you're unsure what an option does, it's best to leave it alone. However, you still need to assign an enrollment key. Even though students are loaded automatically by CRN, you need an enrollment key to prevent anyone in the system from getting into your course. Enter that towards the bottom of that same Settings page.

Any questions, please contact me.

Below is a short video (three minutes) demonstrating how to create a course if you have been given course creator access. Please note: The video has not been updated to include the recent change requiring you to put the academic year (2010) in front of the CRN.

(Direct link to full size video)

1. Don't forget to enter the CRN for your course. This should be entered in the Course ID box in your Settings menu.

2. Students are now automatically loaded by CRN. You no longer need to give them the enrollment key. This will happen at 2 a.m. on Monday and then every night for the next two weeks. When they login, they will simply see the courses pop up on their WOU Online homepage. They just click the course link and away they go. Important: If you do not enter a CRN, your students will not be automatically added to your course.

3. You must still enter an enrollment key (also found in the Settings menu); otherwise any student in the system will be able to enter your course.

4. The Online Classes page has been updated to help students. If they're having trouble getting in, please direct them to this page:
http://www.wou.edu/provost/online/

The script which adds students from Banner will most likely run nightly for the first week of the term. Students won't need to enter the enrollment key, or course password; instead, they'll just see the course show up under "My Courses." Still, it's a good idea to have an enrollment key to prevent unregistered students from getting access to your course.

2. We've added a patch which allows instructors using Examview to import questions into Moodle, which wasn't working before now. If you're using Examview (which is a separate program you have to purchase), please contact me.

3. If you're interested in adding video to your Moodle courses, we've added several Flip Video cameras for checkout in the Technology Resource Center. These cameras record directly into mpeg format, which can make creating Flash videos -- the easiest way to put video files in your online courses -- much faster than it was with the MiniDV cameras. The only drawback is that these cameras can only hold up to an hour of video before the file(s) must be downloaded. The quality, however, is excellent.

If you have questions on any of this, or would like to learn how to create videos for your Moodle courses, please contact me.

Best,
Scott Carter
Instructional Technologist
503-838-8848 | carters@wou.edu

Requirements:

1. A WOU network account (also called your PawPrint)


2. Access to your P drive (public_html)


3. Access to Dreamweaver


4. Internet access

Note: You don't have to have a copy of Dreamweaver on your own machine. You can access it via Remote Desktop, which will be explained in the course.

Ready to get started? Email me at carters@wou.edu and I'll send you instructions.