HelpDesk wiki Moodle teaching (ecampus)

Resetting a Moodle course means that all participants and their user-specific data are removed from the course. Activities are NOT deleted, only their usage data, e.g., forum posts or assignment submissions. The course structure, including work materials and activities, remains intact. Moodle courses are usually reset at the beginning of a new semester so that they can be reused for teaching.

In this video, you will learn how to reset your Moodle course yourself.

Quick guide

To reset a course, follow these steps:

• As the course administrator, go to the course.
• In the course menu, click on “More” and then on “Reuse courses.”
• Then select “Reset” from the context-sensitive drop-down menu on the left.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and first click on “Select default.” This step is important so that you do not remove yourself from the course!
• Only then click on “Reset course.”

Video tutorial:

There is a new course filter by semester in Moodle. Students can use it to filter for all courses in a specific semester in the Moodle menu under "My courses". You will only be shown courses in which you are already enrolled. It is also possible to assign courses across semesters.

Quick guide

• Open the Moodle course.
• Click on the "Settings" tab at the top of the course menu.
• Scroll down to the "Additional fields" area.
• Select the correct semester from the drop-down menu.
• Click on "Save and display" at the bottom.

Video tutorial

There is a course filter by semester. You and the students can use the course filter to filter their courses by semester under the Moodle menu "My courses". However, only the courses in which you yourself are enrolled are displayed.
If you have selected the "Recycling" method and the department also has a sub-level by semester, you must subsequently adjust the semester.

Quick guide

• Open the course.
• Click on the "Settings" tab at the top of the course menu.
• In the "Course area" drop-down menu, select the area to which the course is to be moved.
• Click on "Save and display" at the bottom.
• To be on the safe side, check in the crumb trail at the top of the course whether the course has been moved to the correct sub-area.

Note

If the entire department or degree programme uses the recycling process, it is easiest to dissolve the semester structure in the Moodle course areas, as is the case with the "Conservation and Restoration" and "Urban Future" degree programmes. 
In this case, lecturers do not need to perform step 3 of the recycling process to move a course.

Video tutorial

Each department has different procedures for informing students where the new Moodle courses are and how they can register. Ask your decentralised Moodle supervisors which procedure is used in your department.

Experience has shown that many queries arise due to unclear transmission of access data when students are asked to register for a course themselves using a registration key. Please note the information on common problems with enrolment using enrolment keys.

Then use the following template to send your students the login details for the course. The placeholders in square brackets must be replaced.

The advantage of the “recycling” method is that you only have to create the message the first time. After that, you can use it again and again, as the access data remains the same when recycled. Therefore, save the message on your computer in the document storage.

Template

Dear students,

Our online course on the Moodle teaching platform (https://ecampus.fh-potsdam.de) provides you with important information about our course and materials. Please register for the course as early as possible. When you log in with your campus account for the first time, you must first confirm the privacy policy and terms of use. You can then register for the course as follows:
 

1. Click on the link to the course:
   
   [add link]
    
2. You can also find the course using the Moodle search function with the following short name:
   
   [add course name (short)]
    
3. The long name of the course is:
   
   [add course name (full)].
   
   Please note that only the short name is unique, as it can only be assigned once. If you use the long name in the course search, several courses with similar names may be displayed.
    
4. Log in to Moodle with your campus account if you have not logged in to Moodle before.

5. The enrolment key is as follows:
   
   [enrolment key]

   (Please copy the enrolment key with the right mouse button and then paste it into the corresponding field for the enrolment key with the right mouse button.)
    

6. You confirm the entry by clicking on the "Enrolment" control panel.

In the Moodle portal you will find videos about on-boarding for students in Moodle.

Best regards

[Name of teacher]

Advantages

• The courses are easier for students to find because the course access details remain the same throughout the semester (such as the link to the course, the enrollment key, and the name).
• Courses can be sorted more easily in the course area on Moodle, making them easier to find.
• If different student cohorts are to use the course at the same time, it is advisable to assign them to a group using different enrollment keys when they enroll. You can find out how this works in the section Self-enrolment with enrolment key in a group.

Disadvantages

• If the repeat exam cannot be offered in the same semester as stipulated in the FHP's framework examination regulations, or if the course cycle with the new students is very short (one semester), there may be overlaps between different student cohorts.

Quick guide "Create course":

• Click on “All courses” in the Moodle menu.
• Select the correct sub-area
• Click on the “More” drop-down menu in the top right-hand corner. Select “Create new course.”
• Enter a complete course name (e.g., module number, name of the instructor).
• Enter a short course name (abbreviation of the name with semester abbreviation, written together without spaces).
• Check the breadcrumb trail to make sure you are in the correct course subarea, the correct (subject) area, and, if applicable, the correct semester.
• Save the information in the course creation form.
• You are now in your newly created course. Next, create a registration key.

Video tutorial

Students can use the enrollment key to enroll themselves in a Moodle course. An automatic enrollment key is assigned when a course is created. Please change this beforehand.

The enrollment key for the target course differs from the enrollment key for the source course. You can use the same enrollment key in different courses, but you must set this manually.

Please note the information on common problems when enrolling with enrolment keys.

Quick guide

• Open your Moodle course.
• Click on “Participants” at the top of the course menu.
• Select “Enrollment methods” from the contextual drop-down menu at the top left.
• Click on the settings wheel on the right-hand side of the “Self-enrollment (participant)” line
• Click on the eye icon next to the “Enrollment key” field. The automatically generated enrollment key will then be displayed. You can now change the enrollment key to a custom enrollment key.
• Then click on “Save changes” at the bottom.

Video instruction

Quick guide "Importing course content":

• Open the target course.
• Click on "More" at the top of the course menu. Select "Reuse courses" from the drop-down menu.
• Now select "Import" in the contextual drop-down menu at the top left.
• Enter the short name of the course to be imported in the field next to "Search" on the left. Then click on the "Search" control panel.
• The course is now displayed. Select it with the radio button so that a blue dot is displayed in the circle.
• Then click on the "Next" control panel at the bottom.
• Click on "Skip further settings" at the bottom.
• Then click on "Next". The contents of the new course are then imported.

Notes

• After importing, you must delete the duplicate announcement forum. To do this, activate edit mode in the upper right corner. Select the three-dot menu to the right of a forum. Select the “Delete” option.
• Unfortunately, not all default settings are always transferred during import. For example, you must change the course format in the new course if you have selected a format other than the topic format.
• If you have set up activity tracking in the source course, this will not be automatically transferred to the target course. To do this, you must first activate completion tracking in the target course at the top of the course menu under Settings in the Completion Tracking section. To do this, select “Yes” from the drop-down menu.
• If you have created question collections and tests in your source course, you should check in the target course whether these still work. Especially with external question type plugins, it is possible that these are not transferred correctly and must be recreated.
• FHP-Cast videos are also not transferred automatically during import. The central IT department can assist you with this. Contact the central IT department at: fhpcast@fh-potsdam.de.
• Inform the IT department that you would like to transfer the videos from a source course (please add the link to the course) to a target course (please add the link to the course).

Video tutorial:

Each department has different procedures for informing students where the new Moodle courses are and how they can register. Ask your decentralised Moodle supervisors which procedure is used in your department.

Experience has shown that many queries arise due to unclear transmission of access data when students are asked to enrol in a course themselves using an enrolment key. Therefore, please read the information in the section Problems with enrolment keys carefully. Then use the following template to send your students the access data for the course. The placeholders in the square brackets must be replaced.

• When you organize courses by semester, you must take special care to ensure that the enrollment key is correct. This is because the enrollment key of the source course is not transferred during import. You must therefore always adjust the enrollment key in the template.
• When you organize courses by semester, the short name is also not imported. This is only assigned once on ecampus. This means that you must also adjust the short name in the message template each time.
• When you organize courses by semester, the link to the course also changes. This is only assigned once on ecampus. This means that you must also adjust the link to the course in the message template each time.
• Long names can be assigned multiple times, but it can be confusing for students when searching for a course if they get a lot of identical results. Therefore, when assigning semesters, it is recommended to also vary the long name, e.g., by adding the semester. In this case, you must also adjust the long name for the course in the template each time.

Template:

Dear students,

Our online course on the Moodle teaching platform (https://ecampus.fh-potsdam.de) provides you with important information about our course and materials. Please register for the course as early as possible. When you log in with your campus account for the first time, you must first confirm the privacy policy and terms of use. You can then register for the course as follows:
 

1. To do this, click on the link to the course:
   
   [add link]
    
2. You can also find the course via the Moodle search with the following short name:
   
   [add course name (short)]
    
3. The long name of the course is:
   
   [add course name (full)].
   
   Please note that only the short name is unique, as it can only be assigned once. If you use the long name in the course search, several courses with similar names may be displayed.
    
4. Log in to Moodle with your campus account if you have not logged in to Moodle before.

5. The enrolment key is as follows:
   
   [enrolment key]

   (Please copy the enrolment key with the right mouse button and then paste it into the corresponding field for the enrolment key with the right mouse button.)
    

6. You confirm the entry by clicking on the "Enrolment" control panel.

In the Moodle portal you will find videos on how to on-board students in Moodle.

Best regards

[Name of teacher]

Advantages

• The advantage of this method is that older courses and new courses can overlap in terms of time.
• Courses can be created in different semester areas.

Disadvantages

• The semester method requires a lot of maintenance.
• The semester method is very error-prone, as not all settings are applied automatically. For this reason, there is an increased need for support for queries from students and teachers.
• Videos in FHPCast are not usually imported. Teachers must request this manually from Central IT.
• The semester method is very confusing for students if no system is introduced with regard to the hierarchical levels in Moodle, the naming, and the enrollment keys.
• The semester method is more time-consuming for teachers to implement than the recycling method.
• During import, there may be problems with question collections for tests, especially if they contain external plugins.

FHP course creators can create new courses on ecampus. FHP course creators are automatically enrolled in the courses they create with the role of course administrator with extended rights. This role can only be assigned at the course area level and not at the course level. As a rule, teachers at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences already have this right. If you are a teacher and cannot create courses in the online exams area, you must apply for this right.

This role is particularly suitable for teachers who are also authors of Moodle courses.

Obtain role

If you have already been working as a lecturer at the FHP for some time, you probably already have the role and do not need to do anything.

If you are unable to create new courses, please contact your decentralised Moodle administrators. They can assign you the role. To do this, you must have already logged in once with your campus account on exam. Use this email template:
"I have been working as a lecturer at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences in the department [name of department] since [date] [until]. I am planning to conduct online exams on Moodle exam. Please assign me the global right as FHP course creator on ecampus."

External lecturers from the departments who do not have an FHP Campus account can also only have a temporary Moodle account on ecampus. They should contact the decentralised Moodle supervisors of the departments or the Dean's Office. The application for the temporary Moodle account is then made via the decentralised Moodle supervisors of the departments or the Dean's Office. By e-mail to: moodleadmin@fh-potsdam.de

Use the following template to apply:

"[First name, surname] will take part in the following Moodle course from [date] to [date] as an external lecturer in the department [name of department]:

• [short name of the Moodle course]
• [Link to the Moodle course]

Please set up a temporary Moodle account on ecampus for this period.

Once the external teacher has received a temporary Moodle account, course administrators can add them to a Moodle course with extended rights as course administrators.

Areas / registration FHP course creator
Teachers are registered globally for all areas on ecampus by the decentralised Moodle administrators.

Rights FHP course creator

• Can create new courses.
• Can delete newly created courses within 24 hours of creation.
• Can move courses to course areas.

Assign roles FHP course creator
FHP course creators cannot assign rights to other people in your Moodle courses. However, since you are automatically registered as the course administrator with extended rights in the courses you create, this role gives you extensive rights to enroll other people in a Moodle course.

Short description Course owner with extended rights:

The role of course owner with extended rights is primarily intended for teachers who want to develop, run and manage a course with Moodle. You can also add other course owners with extended rights or simple course owners to your Moodle course. This role is particularly suitable for teachers who are also the creators of a Moodle course.
Note: This role has many of the same rights as the "Trainer" role in the Moodle documentation. There you will find extensive help on using Moodle, which is constantly updated by the Moodle community.

Areas/ Enrolment Course leaders with extended rights:

As a rule, enrolment in a course with this role takes place automatically when a course is created if the person has been enrolled in a course area with the FHP course creator role.

Rights Course owner with extended rights:

Have almost all rights within a course.

• Create, edit and delete activities and materials
• View the processing status and results of submissions and tests
• Assign assessments
• Move courses (only if you also have course area rights as an FHP course creator)
• Change course name (full)
• Change course name (short)
• Create and change enrolment key

Assign roles to course organisers with extended rights:

The role of course owner with extended rights is primarily responsible for enrolling other people in a Moodle course. You can enrol and disenrol people in a Moodle course with the following roles or assign these roles:
 

• Course owner with extended rights
• Course leader
• tutor
• Course tutor
• Participant

Brief description of the course organiser:

The role of course owner is primarily intended for teachers who develop and run a course with Moodle. It has fewer rights in a Moodle course than the "Course owner with extended rights" role. For example, the role cannot change course names or add people with higher roles such as "Course owner with extended rights" to a course.
As a rule, course owners are enrolled in a Moodle course at course level by "Course owner with extended rights".
Note: This role has many of the same rights as the "Trainer" role in the Moodle documentation. There you will find extensive help on using Moodle, which is constantly updated by the Moodle community.

Areas / Enrolment of course leaders

Course leaders can only be entered at the Moodle course level by course leaders with extended rights or higher rights.

Rights of course leaders:

Have almost all rights within a course.

• Create, edit and delete activities and materials
• View the processing status and results of submissions and tests
• Assign assessments
• Move courses (only if you also have course area rights as an FHP course creator)
• Change course name (full)
• Change course name (short)
• Create and change enrolment key

Assign roles to course organisers:

The Course owner role can help enrol other people in a Moodle course for which they have permissions. You can enrol and de-enrol people in a Moodle course with the following roles or assign these roles:

• Course leader
• tutor
• Exam invigilator
• Participant

Brief description of course tutor

This role is suitable for external teachers, for example, who can assign assessments but should not have extended editing rights such as course leaders in the course.

Areas / Enrolment

The role of course tutor can only be assigned at the level of Moodle courses by course leaders or higher roles.

Course tutor rights

• Can see activities that are not visible to students, but not hidden blocks.
• Can see the completion status and results as well as assessments for the activities "Task" and "Test" and can also give assessments themselves.

Assign roles Course tutor

Cannot assign roles.

Short description Participant:

The Participant role is the default role for students in a Moodle course.

Areas/ enrolment student

Students can only be enrolled at the Moodle course level by course leaders or higher rights.

Participant rights:

• Can perform activities and view materials and blocks.
• They cannot make any changes to the settings of course content and can only see their own work status and the assessments of tasks from course leaders that only affect them.

Assign roles to participants:

Cannot assign roles in a course.

Brief description Participant with extended rights

This role is suitable for students who should also be able to help shape the course itself, beyond the activities. This gives students a lot of rights in the course. The role should therefore only be assigned deliberately.

Areas / enrolment Participant with extended rights

The role of participant with extended rights can only be assigned at the level of Moodle courses by course managers or higher roles.

Rights Participant with extended rights

• Students with these rights can also delete and change the course content of teachers in the same course.
• Can create activities, materials and blocks themselves like teachers.
• Can participate in activities and view materials and blocks.
• Cannot see the processing status, results of the activities "Task" and "Test".
• They cannot see assessments of assignments by course organisers and cannot see the assessments in H5P.

Assign roles Participant with extended rights

Cannot assign roles.

Brief description of tutor

This role has almost all the same rights as course administrators. It is suitable for students who are employed as student assistants in the department to support teaching activities. Therefore, this role should only be assigned deliberately. Students also have access to assessments and test solutions. It is therefore important that they are bound to confidentiality by contract with the university.

Areas / Enrolment Tutor

The role of participant with extended rights can only be assigned at the level of Moodle courses by course managers or higher roles.

Rights participant tutor

• Students with these rights can also delete and change the course content of teachers in the same course.
• Can create activities, materials and blocks themselves like teachers.
• Can participate in activities and view materials and blocks.
• Can view and edit the processing status and results of the "Assignment" and "Test" activities.
• They cannot view or edit assessments of assignments, tests and H5P exercises like course leaders.

Assign roles Tutor

Can assign the role of participant.

Self-enrollment with an enrollment key is the most common method used to enroll students in a Moodle course. In this process, the course access data is sent to the students by the instructors. Students enroll themselves in a course using an enrollment key that they have received from the instructor. In the video, you will learn how to create or change an enrollment key.

Quick guide

• Open your Moodle course.
• Click on "Students" at the top of the course menu.
• Select "Enrolment methods" from the contextual drop-down menu at the top left.
• In the "Self-enrolment (student)" line, click on the settings wheel on the right.
• Click on the symbol with the eye next to the "Enrolment key" field. The automatically generated enrolment key is then displayed. You can now change the enrolment key to an individual enrolment key.
• Then click on "Save changes" at the bottom.

Notes

• In some departments, the enrolment keys are predefined. Please contact your decentralised Moodle supervisor.
• In the settings above, you can also set a specific period for enrolment that differs from the course period.
• You can also limit the number of participants in the settings.

You can also combine self-enrolment with automatic enrolment in a group.

The process

• Click on "Students" at the top of the course menu. Create groups.
• Activate the group enrolment function in self-enrolment.
• Assign individual enrolment keys for each group.
• Provide the students in each group with the general access data for the course. The students receive a group-specific enrolment key.
• During self-enrolment, students are then automatically assigned to the corresponding group.

Further instructions

• Create and manage groups (Moodle documentation)
• Set enrolment key for a group (Moodle documentation)

Participants can usually remove themselves from a course. 

Quick guide

• Open the course.
• Click on the “More” tab at the top of the course menu.
• Select “Unsubscribe from course ‘xyz’” from the drop-down menu.

If this option is not displayed, you cannot unsubscribe from a course yourself. This may be because it is not possible in the course area in general, or because you were enrolled in the course using a different method. In this case, please contact the course administrators by email to request removal.

One of the most common reasons why students have login problems is that the enrolment key is transmitted in continuous text. As a result, it is easy for the password to be copied with the gap in front of it or punctuation marks that do not belong to the enrolment key. Here is an example:

Negative example: The password is "Symposium2024".

Transmitting an enrolment key in a continuous sentence often leads to many error messages. This is because it requires contextual knowledge. How are students supposed to know that the inverted commas are not part of the enrolment key or the full stop at the end of the sentence? The number "0" could also be read as a capital "O". An additional hurdle is that the enrolment key is not easy to mark and copy. Due to careless mistakes, gaps and punctuation marks can quickly be copied here that do not belong to the enrolment key. Moodle uses the word enrolment key. It is therefore helpful for students if you stick to the terminology. This is because the enrolment field is also named as such.

Please consider the following tips when submitting the enrolment key:

• The enrolment key should be on a separate line.
• To make the enrolment key stand out better, the line before and after it should be empty.
• Only the pure enrolment key should appear in the line, just as it should be copied into the enrolment field.
• There must not be an invisible gap before and after it, which could be marked by mistake.
• There must not be a punctuation mark at the end, even if it would be grammatically correct.
• The word enrolment key should be used instead of password, as this corresponds to Moodle's terminology and makes it easier for students to find the field into which they need to copy the enrolment key.
• The enrolment key should contain unique characters that cannot be confused. For example, the lowercase l is problematic because it looks exactly like the capital I or sometimes looks like a 1 in English. The upper and lower case O is also problematic as it can be confused with the number 0. Special characters such as goose feet are also problematic.
• There should be no gaps within the spelling key.
• For example, the centre bar can be used to set off words. Care should be taken to ensure that a long dash is not used by mistake.

Here is an example of a suitable form of transmission.

Positive example:

The enrolment key is as follows:

Symposium24

(Please copy the enrolment key with the right mouse button and then paste this with the right mouse button into the corresponding field for the enrolment key).

Notes:

• The rules for providing the short name of the course are similar to those for the enrolment key.
• As a rule, only people with an FHP campus account can log in to Mooodle teaching (ecampus) and Moodle exams (exam). The password for the campus account should of course be as complex as possible and comply with the FHP password guidelines. For this reason, the terms enrolment key and password should not be used synonymously, as they refer to different processes.

Error messages occur when logging in, especially with the course lifecycle method semesterisation. This is because a new course is being created. The content of an older course is imported into the new course. Unfortunately, the enrolment key is not transferred.

When enrolling for the semester, you must change the enrollment key each time in the new course if you want to use a specific enrollment key.

You must also adjust the enrollment key information in your message template for students.

Tip: If you, as a teacher, want to make sure that most students are enrolled in your Moodle course, plan time for this during the first introductory session. Prepare a presentation slide containing all the important access data, such as the link to the Moodle platform (e.g., ecampus.fh-potsdam.de), the short name of the course, the link to the course, and the registration code. Briefly show students how to find the course and how to register. Project the access data using a projector or whiteboard. Give students 15 minutes to register for the course. If they encounter any problems, students can ask questions directly and also help each other.

It is very helpful for students, teachers, and staff if the responsibilities, processes, and rules for the course lifecycle are clarified in the department. This set of rules should be communicated in the department at the beginning of the course of study or employment to ensure successful onboarding. It is advisable, for example, to post these rules on the department's website or in an interdepartmental information portal on Moodle. If a department consists of several degree programs and each degree program has different rules and processes, these must also be easily accessible and understandable for students, teachers, and staff.

Particularly in the case of the “self-enrollment” method, the department should clarify and define how students obtain their enrollment access data, from whom, how, and where.

Tip: If you, as an instructor, want to ensure that most students are enrolled in your Moodle course, plan time for this during the first introductory session.

• Prepare a presentation slide containing all important access data, such as the link to the Moodle platform (e.g., ecampus.fh-potsdam.de), the short name of the course, the link to the course, and the registration code.
• Briefly show students how to find the course and how to register.
• Project the access data using a projector or whiteboard.
• Give students 15 minutes to register for the course. If they encounter any problems, students can ask questions directly and also help each other.
• First-semester students in particular are very grateful for this. Encourage a culture in which students learn to help each other.

If you have the appropriate rights through your role, you can add individual participants or other roles to your Moodle course. To do this, participants must be registered in Moodle with their campus account. On ecampus, this is usually done automatically via the campus account of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Quick guide

• Open your Moodle course.
• Click on the "Participants" tab at the top of your Moodle course menu.
• Click on the blue field "Enrol users".
• A pop-up window will now open.
• Click on the "Search" field on the right under the heading "Select users".
• Enter the name of the person you want to enrol.
• Users will now be suggested to you.
• Select the desired person with a click.
• By default, people are enrolled in Moodle courses as "participants". This means that they have no editing rights. If you want to enrol the person as a participant, you can therefore leave the default selection.
• If you want to enrol the person with a different role, click on the drop-down menu to the right of "Assign course role".
• Then click on the role.
• At the end, click on the "Enrol selected users and global groups" field to confirm.
• The new course leader is now enrolled in your course and you can see him/her with his/her role at the bottom of the list of participants.

If you have the appropriate rights through your role, you can add individual participants or other roles to your Moodle course. To do this, participants must be registered in Moodle with their campus account. On ecampus, this is usually done automatically via the campus account of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Quick guide

• Open your Moodle course.
• Click on the "Participants" tab at the top of your Moodle course menu.
• In the row of the person you want to deregister, click on the recycle bin symbol in the "Status" column on the right.
• You will now be asked in a pop-up window whether you are sure you want to remove the person from the course. Confirm the process by clicking on "Deregister".

A forum for everyone works like a noticeboard in the course. Anyone in the course can post a message. Any other person in the course can reply to it.

It makes sense to set up a second forum for students in the course to exchange information. You could also set up a forum for exchanging content and a forum for technical questions. However, bear in mind that the more forums you set up, the more forums you will have to moderate. You can set up a forum so that students only receive messages if you actively subscribe to them or if they have written a post in a thread themselves.

Another way of channelling the daily flood of messages by e-mail is in the individual profile settings. Under Profile settings > Set profile, you can set the notification from forums so that all messages from all Moodle courses in a Moodle instance are sent together as one daily email. The settings only apply to your own Moodle profile. A daily subscription makes sense for Moodle teaching (ecampus) and Moodle transfer (ocampus). For Moodle exams, the default setting with immediate delivery of messages is recommended.

Under Profile settings > System messages, you can also set which activities messages are subscribed to by e-mail for your own account. For forum messages, it makes more sense to leave the email notification activated and minimise it via the daily subscription. Otherwise, students will miss important messages about the course.

Instructions:

• "Using forums", Moodle documentation
• "Configuring profile settings", see section "Setting up forums" and "System messages", academic moodle cooperation (amc)

Teachers and students often complain about the flood of messages they have to deal with every day. You can control this yourself in Moodle. Set up a one-off notification per day in your profile. You will then receive all messages from all Moodle courses in which you are enrolled summarised as a collective message.

Set up a fixed time slot during each working day in which you read and reply to the messages. This creates structure and you can process many messages in a short time without being constantly available. However, you must bear in mind that this will slow down communication by one day. Students can also set their notifications so that they receive a daily summary. For important dates, you should therefore send the message 1 - 2 days in advance. You should therefore enter your e-mail address for students in the course so that they can write to you at shorter notice.

You should only set the reduction of messages on ecampus and ocampus. We recommend leaving the default setting on exam. This is because it is important that you receive all messages about exams immediately.

Instructions

• Click on your profile in the top right-hand corner of the Moodle menu.
• Select "Settings" from the drop-down menu.
• In the "User account" section, click on "Set forums".
• Now select the following options from the drop-down menus:
  • Email summary > Complete (daily email with all forum posts)
  • Subscribe to forum > Yes, subscribe to forum in which I post
  • Use experimental nested topic view > No
  • Forum tracking > Yes, highlight new posts in colour
  • When sending messages to the forum > Mark the post as read

Collect messages

Click on the image below to enlarge it.

The image shows a collective message from a Moodle course that has arrived in Outlook by e-mail. You can see from the email address in the image that the message was sent from a no-reply address. It is therefore important that you do not click on the "Reply to all" function if you want to reply to it. This message will end up in the digital nowhere.

You will see a crumb trail above the message. There you can see that the message was sent from the course "Infoportal Digitale Lehre" in the forum "Ankündigungen". If you want to go to the course from which you received the message, click on the course name "Infoportal Digitale Lehre".

Normally you cannot reply to announcements. Below the message you will normally only find a link to the discussion in the forum from which the message originated.

If you see the option "Reply" below a message, this means that you can also reply to the topic directly in the forum by clicking on it.

This is possible in forums that are enabled for commenting, e.g. student forums.

This is possible for announcement forums for which you yourself have the course organiser rights.

Save text modules of recurring messages in a document. You can then reuse these every semester. This saves a lot of conceptual working time. It also helps the students. This is because quality assurance and revision of information and messages is simplified.

For this reason, we offer you as lecturers the service on this page with text templates for important messages to students, e.g. for self-enrolment. If you use these, you can be sure that students receive all important resources and information. These messages are continuously adapted to processes and the links are updated. It is therefore worth adopting the latest version for the announcements forum each semester.

If you use a text editor such as Word, you can also use the helpful spell checker.

The forum is an important tool for you to establish social interaction with students and motivate them to participate and interact. As there is no physical meeting, digital communication must build a bridge here. It is therefore helpful for you to have didactic knowledge of e-moderation. You don't have to master this right from the start. If you are new to using Moodle, you can skip this accordion section. This is because you have already received the most important didactic tips for getting started with the forum from the video and the other accordion tabs. If you already have a little more experience with Moodle, you can get started with the topic using Gilly Salmon's 5-step model. This describes different phases of online socialisation during a digital course. The model can help you to make the introductory phase of the course more interactive and learner-centred. This is because interactivity in the digital space - as in the seminar room - is created primarily through communication.

Literature on the internet:

• Sonja Klante and Angelika Gundermann (2018): "Das aktive Online-Lernen und -Lehren - Das Stufenmodell von Gilly Salmon", EULE/wb-web, Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 Download text as PDF.

Literature in our FHP library:

• Salmon, Gilly (2011): E-Moderating

Self-study course on the Internet:

• "E-Moderation: accompanying and supporting students in online teaching" as a Moodle course: ed. Steirische Hochschulkonferenz, version from 24.08.2020, licence: CC BY-SA 4.0, download text as PDF.

If you do not yet have much experience with the didactic use of Moodle, you can skip this section for now and come back to it later if necessary.

Option 1: Use one forum for notifying several groups

If you, as the course organiser, want to notify different groups in a forum, you must first activate this function in the forum settings under "Further settings" for forums.

Option 2: Use one forum per group, to which only the group has access

As variant 1 can quickly become confusing, you can also set up a separate forum for each group. This is done via the prerequisites of the Forum activity. It makes it easier for you to maintain an overview, as each forum is only assigned to one group. This form of communication is suitable if you want to reach different groups in a course for organisational reasons, e.g. different academic years or courses. You can then use this form of forum like an announcement forum for a specific group.

Make sure that you set up "separate groups" under the course settings. This will keep the Moodle course clear and friendly for students. After all, a course page with lots of activities to which students have no access at all quickly looks unfriendly.

Instructions

• Using groups in forums in the Moodle documentation
• To create and use academic moodle cooperation (amc)groups. This allows you to implement both of the above variants.
• Further tips for setting up forums, e.g. academic moodle cooperation (amc)

If you do not have much experience with Moodle, you can skip this accordion section. It is perfectly sufficient to use the announcements forum first. If you wish, you can also set up a forum for exchange with the students or for the students themselves. It is more important that you continue to set up your course for the time being. You can then come back to this section here in a later semester to try something out.

Didactic application scenarios

Here are a few examples of how you can use a forum didactically:

• assess, review a situation
• test hypotheses
• negotiate
• Set and discuss agenda topics
• formulate questions for a term paper
• Publish a picture on a topic, e.g. on your own desk, as a conversation starter to get to know each other
• Summarise the core theses of a scientific text. (The text can be attached as a file by the teacher. Or the students prepare a presentation together. They search for suitable literature on a sub-topic on the Internet. They summarise the core theses in the forum and refer to the source on the Internet using scientific citation rules).
• Summarise and reproduce the most important arguments from a video (you can add or link to the video in the forum settings or in a topic. If you want to use the video repeatedly with other student cohorts in the Moodle course, it makes more sense to upload the video in the course itself. This is because forum entries are deleted when courses are recycled and semesterised).
• Students prepare an expert interview with the help of a forum.

Interactivity in the forum:

Interactivity and a lively exchange within a forum does not normally happen by itself. This must first be learnt. On the other hand, the certain inertia of communication in a forum is also an advantage when dealing with floods of messages. If the same task were carried out using a messenger, teachers would probably be busy moderating around the clock.

Here are a few tips:

• The task should be formulated very clearly. A deadline should be specified.
• More complex tasks should contain several consecutive work steps. The individual work steps should be formulated clearly and simply. For each work step, it is described who has to do what, by when, how much and in what way and for what purpose. If necessary, information is given on permitted and prohibited aids.
• The learning objective of the task should be stated. The expected learning objectives and learning outcomes are stated. Bloom's learning objective taxonomy can be used for this.
• Let the students know exactly when you will provide feedback so that they know that the forum is used asynchronously and that you are not available around the clock.
• Develop a netiquette for the exchange in forums together with the students.
• If necessary, ask someone else from the course to moderate certain forums for certain weeks. Your tutors can also support the online moderation of the forums.
• You can link tasks. In the first phase, students can write a post themselves. In a second phase, they have to respond to 2 - 3 topics from other fellow students.

Literature on the Internet

• Gundermann, Angelika, revised and updated by Kilian, Lars, 2nd edition (2024):"Lernziele und Lernergebnisse", ed. DIE.

Self-study courses on the Internet

• "Arbeitsaufgaben bzw. -aufträge formulieren" as a Moodle course: Ed. Steirische Hochschulkonferenz, Version from 28.08.2020, Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Download as PDF.

Advantages

• Social interaction in the digital space between teachers and students
• Asynchronous, threads also available if you join later
• Through forums, students can receive personal feedback from lecturers or other students and learn to give constructive feedback themselves.
• Pull factor, also reaches students by email and leads back to the course
• Messages can be scheduled in advance, e.g. for regular weekly plans
• Technically very low-threshold
• Threads can still be corrected a few minutes after posting.
• Standard activity, expected to be stable with annual updates and upgrades
• versatile editor for integrating media and HTML code or other resources via link
• versatile attachments with media
• Multilingual content with multi-language filter. However, HTML knowledge is required for this.
• Collaborative work, e.g. through group forums
• Can be used in didactic scenarios, e.g. for teaching science communication
• Data protection available. The activity remains the same when recycling or semestrating, with the general task. However, the individual threads and comments are deleted.

Disadvantages

• Asynchronous, no real-time communication
• Message flood, with very many messages
• Threads cannot be saved.
• Files not structured. Forums are not suitable for the structured transmission of many files. This is because they tend to function discursively. The latest messages are displayed at the top of the forum. If several files are to be transmitted in a clearly organised manner, you should not use a forum, but the Moodle activity directory.
• Expiry time of the messages towards the end of the course, for long-term knowledge that should be retained even after recycling or semesterising a course, use other activities such as: File or Book.
• Giving personal feedback requires a lot of time. In addition, you can use the activity Test for your own relief. The development of self-tests with automated feedback requires very good knowledge of Moodle. The development is somewhat challenging at first, but is worthwhile if you use courses as a template again and again. You should allow enough time for the development and have sufficient prior knowledge of Moodle. Depending on the complexity and scope, it makes sense to have your own academic staff or a student assistant to support you.