4 Ways to Save Time When Building Your Moodle™ Courses

If you build courses in Moodle™ then this post is for you! Here are some time-saving techniques to use when building your Moodle™ courses.

1) Configuring the Gradebook

• Set up your gradebook before starting to add activities. Doing this eliminates having to organize them all into categories later. Instead set it up first and align your activities to the gradebook as you build each one.
• If you’ve already created a course and need to organize the gradebook, select multiple activities at once in the Categories and Items tab by using the checkboxes and then use the Move drop-down menu to select the appropriate category.

2) Working With Files

• Bulk upload graphics into your Private files area using a ZIP folder of files.
• Drag and drop files into the Files area rather than using the Add button.
• To access your private files more quickly, add the My Private Files block to your course while building. Then you can click the Manage My Private Files button in the block at any time to add more files.
• Make use of the Recent Files repository to reuse images you use frequently.

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3) Configuring Completion Tracking

• Determine if you will track the completion of activities before building the course. If the feature will be useful to you, you can enable it within the course settings before adding items to the course.
• As you create items, configure the activity completion settings.

4) Creating Content

• If you’re creating a series of courses, consider creating a course template outlining your course framework.
• Duplicate activities with similar settings. When building a course, we often use similar settings for an activity in order to maintain consistency in the user experience and grading strategies. This is when the Duplicate feature comes in handy. Simply create the activity/resource once, duplicate it, customize it, and move it. For example, create a quiz resource and configure all of your desired settings. Duplicate that quiz for the given number of quizzes in your course. Then go into each quiz individually and configure the question bank.
• Drag and drop items onto your course front page. You can add File resources quickly by dragging and dropping files from your computer onto the front page of the course. Drag and drop a ZIP folder of files to the desktop to create a Folder resource. Drag and drop a SCORM package to create a SCORM activity.
• Create advanced grading forms for assignments, and reuse your own forms for new ones.
• Instructors and site administrators should work closely together to determine the default settings for activities. Site administrators can update default settings for activities by navigating to Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Activity Modules > Manage activities. Each activity has a Settings link for configuring the default settings.
• When reordering chapters in a book resource, you can click the arrow icon multiple times without waiting for it to refresh. For example, click it quickly three times to jump up three spots.

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