I accidentally deleted something from my Moodle class. How do I retrieve it?

If you accidentally delete a module from your Moodle class, such as a File or Assignment, you can use the Recycle bin to retrieve that item and restore it to your course site.  The Recycle bin can be accessed by clicking on the Gear menu and selecting Recycle bin. 

Items deleted from the course will remain in the Recycle bin for 7 days.  After 7 days the items will be removed completely and can no longer be retrieved.

On the Recycle bin screen, any items deleted from the course in the past 7 days will be listed.  Please note that there may be a delay of several minutes between when an item is deleted and when it appears in the Recycle bin. To restore an item to the course, click on the arrow icon to the right of that item. 

After restoring an item, the item will no longer display in the Recycle bin and a message will appear indicating that the item has been restored to the course. On the course page, the item will appear at the bottom of the section that it was deleted from.  If this is not where the item was previously located, you can drag it back to its original location. 

My students can't see their quiz grades. What should I do?

Quizzes have some additional visibility controls not found within other modules.  Usually an issue with these settings is what prevents students from seeing their quiz grades. To access the specific visibility settings for a quiz, turn editing on and to the right of the quiz select Edit and then Edit settings from the dropdown menu.  Scroll down to Review Options.  This section allows you to control what students see and when:

Points, refers to students scores.  If you uncheck this option for a particular time period, students will not be able to see their score at that time.  For example, if Points is unchecked in the second column then students will not be able to see their score immediately upon completion of the quiz.  If Points is checked in the third column, students are able to go back to the quiz after they have exited the quiz and view their score as long as the closing time for the quiz has not been reached.  

If you have set a close time for the quiz, the last column will be any time after that time has passed.  If you don't have a close time then this column is disabled. 

Known Issues

There are several known issues relating to Moodle and other supplementary software options.  

1. Whole forum grading
   Currently, the Whole Forum Grading interface for Moodle forums displays students that have been suspended from the course.  Although these students are displayed in the grading interface, they do not have access to the Moodle course site. This issue has been reported on the Moodle website.  A tracker for this issue can be found here: https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-68437 
   
   
2. Max grade in ratings
   The maximum grade for a Moodle forum cannot be updated once ratings have been assigned for that forum.  Normally, Moodle allows instructors to change the maximum grade and recalibrate grades according to the new maximum.  At this time the maximum grade is locked and cannot be changed.  For this reason, it is important to make sure that the maximum grade is correctly set before entering any ratings for that forum. https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-56949
   
   
3. User session issues in Hypothesis (Resolved June 2021)
   Hypothesis is currently encountering an issue in which users that click on a Moodle external LTI link to some Hypothesis article are not able to access the group interface that allows students to interact with other members of the class including the instructor. This issue occurs only on websites that use the Hypothesis web app and is due to a incompatibility issue between the Hypothesis LTI app and their web app.  Hypothesis is aware of this issue and is working on a solution. As a temporary workaround, Hypothesis recommends that instructors save articles on problematic sites as PDFs, store them on their Google Drive, and then connect from Moodle to the articles on Google Drive by following these steps:
   
   
   1. Using Chrome, go to the page you want to use
   2. Click on 3 dots in upper right and select Print
   3. For destination, select Save to Google Drive and then Save
   4. I would recommend repeating the above for all of the readings and then relocate them to one folder in Google Drive with share settings set to Public, just to make the process more efficient
   5. Create an external tool Hypothesis link in Moodle
   6. After the tool is created, click on the link to Open in New Window and select Select PDF from Google Drive
   7. Choose your MC account
   8. Select the desired PDF
   
   
4. Edpuzzle Browser Issues
   Edpuzzle is currently experiencing an issue in which instructors encounter intermittent errors when using Chrome or Microsoft Edge to create Edpuzzle assignments using the Edpuzzle tool in Moodle.  This issue has been reported to Edpuzzle.  As a temporary workaround, it is recommended that users use Firefox or Safari when connecting from Moodle to Edpuzzle. 

How can I grant extended testing time to students with accommodations?

If you are using Moodle to provide online tests to students, it is still possible to provide extended time or have students take a course at an alternative time.  As with normal quizzes and tests, students should be granted extended time as indicated on that student's form provided by the SRC.  Extended time can be granted to students on any Moodle quiz, regardless of whether lockdown or video proctoring controls have been applied to the quiz. 

To grant extended time for a Moodle Quiz, follow these instructions:

1. Enter the Moodle course site
2. Click on the quiz you want to add an override for
3. Click the gear menu in the upper-right corner and select User overrides
4. Click Add user override
5. In the Override user field, select the student’s name from the list of course participants
6. Under Time limit, enter the appropriate amount of time required
7. Click Save

User overrides can also be used to modify the following for individual students:

• The window of time in which the student can take the quiz
• The number of attempts a student is allowed to take a quiz

Some quizzes are facilitated using the Moodle Assignment module.  To allow extended time for a test that is facilitated through the Assignment module, follow these instructions:

1. Enter the Moodle course site
2. Click on the assignment you want to add an override for
3. Click the gear menu in the upper-right corner and select User overrides
4. Click Add user override
5. In the Override user field, select the student’s name from the list of course participants
6. For Due date, modify the due date to allow for the appropriate amount of time
7. Click Save

How can I shuffle the order of my quiz questions?

 If you want to shuffle all the questions in your quiz, so that each students gets the same questions but in a different order:

• From your main course page, click the name of the quiz.  When you're on the landing page for the quiz, click the gear menu and choose Edit quiz
  
  
  
  
  
• On the Edit quiz screen, just check the Shuffle box
  
  
  

You can also divide your quiz into sections.  Shuffling questions is done on a per-section basis.  For example, you can choose to have a section of warmup questions whose order are shuffled, followed by a section of advanced questions that are shuffled.  Doing so prevents advanced questions from appearing too early in the quiz.  Alternatively, you can have sections of questions that are shuffled and other sections that aren't shuffled:

• At the beginning of any page, click the Add menu and choose a new section heading
  
  
  
  
  
• This will add a Shuffle box at the top of the new section that you can click to shuffle the questions in that section.  If you want to give your section a title, click the pencil icon (seen next to "New heading" below), enter your title, and hit the Enter key when finished.
  
  
  
  
  

How can I add or remove extensions in Chrome?

In Chrome you can access your extensions by following these steps:

1. Click on the 3 dots in the upper right corner of any Chrome window
2. Select Settings from the list of options
3. Select Extensions on the left side of the screen

Extensions can be disabled or enabled by clicking the slider.  If the slider is blue, the extension is enabled, and if it is grey then it is disabled.

 

Disabling an extension temporarily removes that extension's functionality from Chrome.  This is helpful if you only want to use an extension some of the time or if you are doing troubleshooting to see if an extensions is problematic in some way. 

If you want to remove an extension completely, click on the Remove button below that extension.

If you would like to search for new extensions, you can visit the Chrome Web Store. Simply use the search interface to locate extensions that perform specific functions that are useful to you.  Once you find an extension that you want to install, click on the Add to Chrome button. 

Keep in mind that many extensions are created by third party developers and their quality and reliability do vary.  Extensions with higher ratings and more users are generally more reliable than those with lower ratings and/or fewer users. 

How can I update all of the due dates for my course quickly?

You can use the Dates Report to set multiple due dates at once.

To set due dates for individual assignments follow these steps:

• Click the gear icon in the upper right corner of screen

• Select More from the list of options

• Under Reports click Dates

• Using the Activity type dropdown menu, select Assignments

• Click Expand All

• Choose a due date for each assignment. If the due dates for an assignment are grayed out, you will need to click on Enable to the right of the due date to enable this option. Be aware that if you copied the assignment from a previous offering of the class, the year may need to be updated in addition to the month and day.

• The Allow submissions from and Cut-off date may remain disabled

• Click Save changes

You can use the Activity type dropdown to select and update dates for other module types such as quizzes and Turnitin Assignments also.

How can I view my Moodle course as a student?

There are times when you may find it helpful to see your Moodle course the way it looks to your students.  To activate student view, click on your profile picture in the upper right and from the dropdown menu select Switch role to...

From the list of options, select Student.  Depending on your role in the course, you may see different options than the ones displayed below. 

You may now view and interact with your course much like a student would.  In the upper right corner above your name you will notice that the word Student appears while you are in this mode. 

Once you are done viewing the course as a student, click on your profile picture again and from the dropdown menu select Return to my normal role.  You will not be able to view and interact with Moodle the way you normally do. 

How can I show a video to my students over Google Meet?

For the best picture and sound quality, post a link to the video in the chat window of Google Meet and ask your students to click the link, view the video, and return to the Google Meet afterwards.

However, if your students watch a video and you want to show clips from that video during lecture, you can take advantage of a feature Google recently added to Meet that allows you to share a video with your students.  You can use this feature for longer videos, but the quality of the video may be degraded by the students' internet connections.

You'll need to be running Chrome in order to take advantage of this:

1. Open your video (without playing it yet) in a separate tab.  You might want to do this before the meeting begins, just to have it ready.
   
2. When you're ready to play the video, mute your microphone.  The audio from the video will come directly from the tab, and any sound from your mic will make the audio from the video cut out.  (Obviously, feel free to unmute if you need to make commentary on the video and you don't mind preempting its audio.)
3. In Google Meet, click Present now and choose A Chrome tab from the menu.
   
4. Choose the tab with the video, make sure Share audio is checked, and click the blue Share button.
   
5. Switch to the tab with the video.  You'll see a message saying that you're sharing it in Google Meet.
   
6. Play your video.  If you click the "full screen" option, it will take up the entire tab and make the video easier for your students to see.
   

How do I make Respondus Lockdown Browser and/or Monitor available for a course?

Lockdown Browser is activated for a course by adding the Respondus Lockdown Browser block to your Moodle course. In your Moodle course, turn editing on and in the lower left corner (all the way down) click Add a block and select Respondus Lockdown Browser. The block will appear in the upper right corner of your course.  As the instructor, you don't need to anything on your computer to facilitate the use of Lockdown Browser.

In the Respondus LockDown Browser block click on Dashboard.  Any Moodle quizzes you have will be listed and will work with Lockdown Browser. They do not have to have been created with the Respondus 4.0 software.  Click on the arrow to the left of the quiz you want to add Lockdown to and select Settings to apply Lockdown Browser or Lockdown Browser and Respondus Monitor to a test. 

How can students ask questions during a quiz using Lockdown Browser?

If you want students to be able to ask questions in Lockdown mode, you can use the Moodle chat feature. 

The steps in purple allow you to set up individual chats so that students can't see each other's questions. If you don't mind the students seeing each other's questions and your answers, you can skip these steps.

• Go to Participants
• Click on the gear icon and select Groups
• Click Auto-create groups
• For Auto create based on select Members per group
• For Group/member count enter 1
• Scroll down and click Submit

The create the chat do this:

• Click Add an activity or resource and select Chat
• Give the chat a name.  The rest of the settings can remain as the defaults except for Common module settings
• Under Common module settings, change Group mode to Separate groups 
• Scroll down and click Save and display 
• Right click/CTRL click Click here to enter the chat now and select Copy Link Address

To connect the quiz to the chat do this:

• In the quiz, paste the previously copied link.  It can be within a "description" item in the quiz (this is one of the question type options) or within the body of a question
• With the link URL selected, click the link button:
  
  
  
  
  
• When the Create link window comes up, paste the URL (again) in the Enter a URL box if it isn't already listed there. Select checkbox for Open in new window

Your chat and quiz are now ready to use.

If you already have groups in your course and you're following the instructions above to create individual chats:

• Create a grouping
• Add the one-student groups you created above to the grouping
• When you set up the chat, under Common module settings, change Group mode to Separate groups as above but also set Grouping to the name of the grouping containing your one-student groups.

How can I check to see if a student has logged into Moodle or viewed a particular resource that I have posted?

There are a variety of ways that you can check student activity in Moodle to get a better sense of student engagement with the posted content. 

Last access to course

If you are interested in finding out when students last accessed the course's Moodle site, you can see this information on the Participants page.  

Using the left navigation menu, select Participants

To the right of each student's name, under Last access to course it will indicate how long it has been since the student last viewed the course (e.g. 3 days 5 hours)

Activity Logs

Activity logs will provide you with timestamped records of when students accessed specific items within the Moodle course. 

1. From the main course page, click the gear icon and select More 
2. Select Reports>Logs.  From here, the logs can be narrowed down by student, activity, and/or date. 

Activity Completion Report

This report will tell you who has completed each item based on its completion settings (set on the Edit settings page for that item)

1. From the main course page, click the gear icon and select More 
2. Select Reports>Activity Completion

I am trying to upload a large file to Moodle and it won't let me! What should I do?

Large files, such as video files, cannot be uploaded to Moodle directly.  Instead, they should be stored in Google Drive and then added to Moodle as a URL link or embedded within a Moodle Page.

Directions for uploading files to Google and linking to these files in your Moodle course can be found in these tutorials:

Uploading and Sharing a Video in Google Drive (can be adapted for other file types)

Embedding Videos and Other Content into Moodle

How can I allow a student to take a quiz at a different time than it is scheduled?

To add an override, follow these instructions:

1. Enter the Moodle course site
2. Click on the quiz you want to add an override for
3. Click the gear menu in the upper-right corner and select User overrides
4. Click Add user override
5. In the Override user field, click on the arrow and select the student’s name from the list of course participants
6. Beside Open the quiz select the desired alternate start time for the quiz
7. Beside Close the quiz select the desired alternate end time for the quiz

User overrides can also be used to modify the following for individual students:

• The length of time that students have to complete the quiz
• The number of attempts a student is allowed to take a quiz