Moodle Administration

The majority of standard Moodle functions, including module

 Pushing modules 1
editing and rollover are covered by the Moodle: Essentials training
guide. This document covers options available to the “School  Merging modules 2
Administrator” role. This role is designed for administrative staff  Manually-created modules 2
within schools who are involved in the management of modules in  Manual enrolments 3
SDS, and therefore have the necessary information and contacts to  Meta and cohort enrolments 4
make decisions about Moodle modules.

Module and delivery management: The DA pages

Moodle’s Connect interface can be found as a link to the “DA pages”
[Departmental Administrator] in the hamburger menu on the left of the
Moodle front page (Figure 1). This can only be accessed by those with the
“School Administrator” role in a category.
Connect lists all modules and deliveries appropriate to you, according to your
academic school. The following options are available:
Unprocessed – Shows all deliveries marked as running for the current Figure 1 - Link to Moodle's
Connect interface
academic year in Module Session Running in SDS, which have not been
created yet as Moodle modules.
Processing – Shows any changes you have recently requested, such as merges, pushes and
deletions, which have not yet finished processing. Once processing has finished, the delivery moves
to…
Scheduled – Shows any changes you have recently requested, such as merges, pushes and
deletions, which have not yet happened.
Created in Moodle – Shows all deliveries which have been created as Moodle modules.
Failed in Moodle – Any changes which have gone wrong appear here.

The default view is “Unprocessed”, but you can select additional views by clicking the toggles. To show all
statuses quickly, simply switch off “unprocessed”. To search the current view for a specific module, enter
the module code in the search box. You can select a delivery or module just by clicking on it, and your
selection is retained even when you change the search term, so you can easily select two
modules/deliveries with completely different module codes.

“Pushing” modules
To push a module means to create one Moodle module from one unprocessed
SDS delivery. You can push several modules at once by selecting them and clicking
the “Push to Moodle” button in the actions box (see Figure 2). This request will
then be processed and scheduled, and the modules will be created in Moodle
shortly.
Exceptions:
 If you select only one delivery then the button instead says “Edit to
Moodle”, and you will have the option of changing the name and synopsis.
 If one of the selected deliveries matches an existing module or delivery
with the same SDS code (for instance, in the case of Autumn and Spring-
Figure 2 - The DA pages
running deliveries), you will be asked to “edit” these to Moodle instead. As actions box
Moodle does not allow modules to have the same short name, you will be
UELT Moodle: Administration (August 2019) 1
 prompted to enter a three-character identifier for the new module. You can choose any identifier
for the module but examples are “CAN” for Canterbury deliveries, “AUT” for autumn deliveries etc.
This will help you to discern between these modules when rolling over next year.

Merging modules
Sometimes it is preferable to merge two deliveries into one module, for instance, where a module is
taught in both Medway and Canterbury but with the same teacher or content.

Note: it is not recommended to merge deliveries with different start dates, as this may lead to
confusion over deadlines. Instead, rollover the content of the Autumn-term delivery to the
Spring-term delivery when appropriate.
 To merge two unprocessed deliveries, select them both and then click “Merge to Moodle” in the
Actions box. The editing window will appear, enabling you to edit the name and synopsis as
appropriate.
 To merge two existing modules, delete both modules (see below), then refresh the page (F5 on
your keyboard) and merge as above.
 Where existing modules have content, decide which module will be retained (by viewing each
module, found in the Created in Moodle view) and delete the other, then merge as above.

Note: merging in this way does not allow you to change the name of the module, so you will
need to edit the module’s settings (see next section) to rename it, and update the title in the
top section of the module.
A “merged” module (see Figure 3 below), has an additional icon to expand its contents to display the
linked deliveries. Deleting the module will unlink both deliveries, whereas unlinking a single delivery
will remove the enrolments from that delivery but leave the module and other linked deliveries intact.

Figure 3 - Display of a merged module in the DA pages

Manually-created modules
In some cases, you may wish to create a module that is not linked to SDS. To do this:
1. Go to the relevant category by clicking the “All modules” link in the left hand hamburger menu on
the Moodle home page, then clicking on the category, e.g. “School of History”.
2. All the modules within this category will be listed on the resulting page. Scroll down to the bottom
of the page (or hit the “End” key on your keyboard), and click the “Add a new module” button.
3. Complete the resulting form. The only required fields are:
 Module title, which should be brief but descriptive.
 Supporting information, which the elearning team will use to decide whether Moodle is the
best place for the information. If you have already discussed your requirements with the
team, refer briefly to that conversation instead.

UELT Moodle: Administration (August 2019) 2

 4. Click the “Save and return” button at the bottom of the page. Your request will be sent to the
elearning team who will approve or reject it within a few days.

Please note that the module will not be available to students and will have no enrolments,
other than existing category enrolments.
The person requesting the module is given the Convenor role in the module, and can then enrol more staff
and students as required.

School-wide modules
Many schools value the ability to have a single module, or several modules, available to all students within
the school, or in a particular stage or section within the school. This facilitates cross-programme
communication with and between students, and enables administrative resources to be shared, much like
an intranet but with Moodle’s familiar interface. To create such a module, you first need to create a non-
SDS-linked module (instructions above), then use the meta-enrolment or cohort option to add the users.

Enrolment
Category enrolment
Users can be assigned roles within a category to enable them to view or update all modules within the
category. You can also assign other users the role of School Administrator so that they have the same
permissions as you. To assign a role at category level:
1. Navigate to your category by either:
o Clicking “All modules” in the left hand hamburger menu on the Moodle home page, then
selecting your Faculty then School from the resulting lists.
o Choosing a module, then using the breadcrumbs below the module title to browse to your
School.

2. You are now in the category for your School. Use the context menu (cog
icon) at the top right and choose “Assign roles” (Figure 4).
3. The available roles are displayed, with a description of each. Select the
appropriate role.
4. In the Search box below the Potential Users column, type the surname of
the person you wish to assign. Note: staff cannot usually be found by
username, as Moodle only searches their name and email address. In
addition, they must have logged into the relevant year’s Moodle at least Figure 4 - Category enrolment
options
once to be findable.
5. Select the required user and click the “Add” button.

Manual enrolment
The roles you can assign within a module depend on your own role, so teachers can only enrol students,
convenors (and support staff) can enrol teachers and students, and you can enrol convenors, teachers and
students. To manually enrol a user in a module:

UELT Moodle: Administration (August 2019) 3

 1. In the appropriate module, choose Participants from the left hand
hamburger menu, then from the context menu (cog icon) in the top right of
the screen select “Enrolled users” (Figure 5).
2. A list of currently enrolled users will be displayed. Figure 5 - Manual
enrolment
o You can assign an additional role to an existing user by clicking the
Assign roles icon found on the right-hand side of the “Roles” column.
3. To enrol a new user, click the Enrol users button near the top of the page. A pop-up box will
appear.
4. In the Assign role drop-down list, select the appropriate role, e.g. ‘Student’.
5. Optionally, set any relevant enrolment options.
6. Search for the user by surname in title case, e.g. ‘Smith’ (students can also be found by username,
but staff cannot, as this search only searches for name and email address).
7. Click on the user in the list that follows. Their name will appear in blue at the top of the window.
8. Click the Enrol selected users and cohorts button when you are done.

Meta and cohort enrolments

Manually-created modules do not take enrolment information from SDS/SITS. There are three commonly
used methods to enrol students on these modules.
 Manually enrol students, one by one (as discussed above).
 Meta-enrolment. This links a manually-created module’s enrolments to an SDS-linked module's
enrolments. More than one SDS-linked module may be linked to one manual module.
 Cohort enrolment. Cohorts are produced automatically by Moodle as users login, building separate
lists of all users in a School, all staff in a School, all students in a School, all undergraduates and all
postgraduates in a School.
Both meta and cohort enrolment are dynamic. As new users are added to the SDS-linked module, they will
be meta-enrolled onto the manual module, too. Cohorts automatically grow as users login to Moodle, and
those users will be enrolled onto any manual module that links to the cohort.

Meta-enrolment
There are two ways to add meta-enrolments. The first adds everyone enrolled on the academic module(s),
staff and students, onto the manual module. The second enables you to exclude a role, so you might
exclude teachers, adding only students to the manual module.
Method 1
 On the Moodle front page, from the left-hand hamburger menu, click
Meta Enrolments (Figure 6).
 The next page shows a list of modules to which you have access – type
into the filter box to limit the list shown (it will take a few seconds for
the filter to take effect when the page first loads).
 Click on a module to manage its meta-enrolments. You will see a list of
any current meta-enrolments. Figure 6 - Meta enrolments

 Click Add enrolments. The next page will take a few seconds to load fully.
 Select a module or modules to be linked – a tick will appear to show the modules selected, as in
Figure 7 below. The number of users on the source modules appear to the right of the module
code/title.

UELT Moodle: Administration (August 2019) 4

 Figure 7 - Adding enrolments from other modules using meta-enrolment

 Click Save, at the bottom right.

Method 2
If you wish to exclude a role, so it is not enrolled onto the manually-created module, use the enrolment
methods link, from within the module. This method is also useful if you do not have access to the meta-
enrolments link in method 1.
 In Moodle, open the manual-created module.
 Click on the edit menu (cog icon) and choose more. On the page that follows, click on the users tab
and then choose enrolment methods.
 Using the drop-down under Add method, choose Meta+
enrolments (Figure 8).
 Type into the box under 'Link course(s)' – this search may
take a few seconds to update.
 Click on the course you want to take enrolments from.
 Repeat the search to link other courses as necessary.
 Below the search box, select a role to exclude from
enrolment (they will remain enrolled on the original
course).
 Hold the ctrl key while clicking to select multiple roles. To Figure 8 - Excluding roles in Meta+ enrolments
exclude students you need only include the 'Student
(SDS)' and 'Student' roles. The most common staff roles are 'convenor', 'teacher' and 'support staff'.
 Click Add method.

UELT Moodle: Administration (August 2019) 5

Cohort Enrolment
A cohort must be linked from within the module.
 In Moodle, open the manual module.
 Click on the edit menu (cog icon) and choose more. On the page that follows, click on the users tab
and then choose enrolment methods.
 Using the drop-down under Add method, choose Cohort sync.
 A form opens (Figure 9). First, give this synchronisation a name –
based on the cohort to be included.
 From the drop-down list, choose a cohort. Scroll down to your School
and choose the appropriate one from the list. This may include:
o Schoolname (all users, staff and student, from that School)
o Schoolname – pgrstudent (postgraduate research students)
o Schoolname – pgtstudents (postgraduate taught students)
o Schoolname – staff (all staff other than temp usernames)
o Schoolname – tempstaff (staff on temp usernames)
o Schoolname – ugtstudent (all undergraduates)
o If no one from a particular group has logged in, that cohort
will not exist – e.g. if no staff with temp usernames have
logged in to Moodle, the cohort will not be created.
 Use the drop-down to assign a role. Be careful not to give an editing
Figure 9 - Setting up cohort enrolment
role (e.g. Teacher) to students.
 Click Add method.

Troubleshooting
If you find that anything is not working in Connect, first refresh the page (F5) and try again. If this still does
not work then contact your FLT.
If there are other features you would like to see in Moodle, or improvements to existing features, please
contact your FLT.

Help and support

For general help using Moodle, contact your Faculty Learning Technologist (FLT). If you are having
problems accessing Moodle, contact the Helpdesk on 01227 82 4888, or email [email protected]. Other
training guides are available on the E-Learning website.

UELT Moodle: Administration (August 2019) 6