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Brandeis Moodle Guides

Moodle Resources for Faculty

Overview

Moodle gives instructors flexible tools to manage students and organize group activities. 

Participant Management

  • Automatic enrollment: Students are automatically enrolled in courses by the registrar. 
  • Manual Enrollment: Instructors can enroll course assistants and assign the role of Course Editor and Grader.

Once users are enrolled, instructors can:

  • Assign roles (Learner, guest student, Course Editor, Grader.)
  • Track Grades using the gradebook.
  • Monitor activity(logins, forum posts, resource views.)
  • Send messages to individuals or groups.

Group Management

Groups help instructors organize students for teamwork, different assignments, or easier course management.

Group modes in activities:

  • No groups: Everyone works alone.
  • Separate groups: Students only see their group's work.
  • Visible groups: Students work in groups but can view other's work too. 

Common use for groups:

  • Small group discussions in forums.
  • Giving different assignments to different groups
  • Assigning different due dates to different groups.
  • Group work in wikis or glossaries.
  • Viewing grades or reports by group.

Manage Participants

Course participant roles

The majority of course participants are enrolled with the Student role via automated processes. If additional course participants who have not registered need to be enrolled in the Moodle course, Instructors may use either the Learner or Guest Participant role.

Learner

  • The permissions of the Learner role are identical to the Student role.
  • This role is suitable for anyone the Instructor has given permission to participate fully in the course prior to or in lieu of formal registration.

Guest Participant

  • Can view materials within a course
  • Can participate in Forums. This role 
  • Cannot submit work to be graded (e.g. Assignments)
  • Does not appear in the course Grader Report
  • This role is suitable for users who should participate in a limited capacity in the course.

Course assistant / management roles

There are two primary roles an Instructor can assign to confer permissions to assist in managing a course: Course Editor and Grader. These roles can be used separately or combined; see the Edit a User’s Role tab for instructions on granting additional roles. These roles are only assigned manually, within the Moodle course, and are entirely independent of any Workday-related processes or tasks.
Special note: Course Reuse functions (Backup, Import, Restore) are available only to the Instructor role. There are some less-obvious functions that also rely on these course reuse functions, such as the ability to duplicate course content. As a result, only those with an Instructor role in a course have the ability to duplicate content in that course; Course Editors and Graders do not have access to this function.

Course Editor

  • Can create, edit, and delete course content
  • Cannot view student work or grades
  • Can participate in class Forums
  • Can carry out certain administrative duties like taking attendance and uploading materials

Grader

  • Can view student work and assign grades
  • Can participate in class Forums
  • Cannot create or edit course content, including editing the settings of existing activities
    • To allow a Grader to edit course content, assign them both the Grader and Course Editor roles
  • Note: Per University policy, a student enrolled in a course via a Workday automated enrollment feed is ineligible to use the Grader functionality. If a Grader role is assigned to a Student within the course, the Student will not be able to leverage any of the Grader functionality.

 Enrolling a User

  1. Open the course in Moodle.
  2. Select the “Participants” link beneath the course header.
Annotation showing users where to add users by selecting the Participants link.
Select the participants link to access the settings page
  1. Select Enroll Users.
Add users to Moodle by selecting the Enroll Users button in Moodle
Select the Enroll Users button in Moodle
  1. Search for the specific user you’d like to edit the role for.
  2. Add the Course Editor or Grader Roll from the Assign Role drop down menu.  Select Enroll User.
Enrollment options in Moodle for new users
Enroll the user with a role and select save

 

  1. Find the specific users you’d like to edit the role for. Select the pencil icon in the “Roles” column for that specific user.  The Pencil will appear next to their currently awarded role.
  2. In editing mode, select the drop-down arrow to reveal the possible roles that you can assign.
  3. Select the role and it will appear above the search bar.
  4. Save the change by selecting the save icon.  The system will now save the edit.
  5. You'll now see that user(s) you added are enrolled with the role that you selected. 

Edit enrollment settings for a user in Moodle on the Participants Page

Press play on the GIF to see how to edit a user's role in Moodle.

Remove a user's manual enrollment.

If a user was manually enrolled into a course, they can be unenrolled.

  1. Select the "Participants" link beneath the course header.
  2. Find the specific user you'd like to manually unenroll.  In the status column, select the trash can icon.

 

Uneroll User Settings Moodle 4
Unenroll Users in Moodle by selecting the trash can icon.

Note: If you do not see a trashcan icon, the user was not manually enrolled.  This typical of students who registered for the course in Workday.  Students need to to drop the course in Workday in order to automatically be unenrolled from a course. 

 

  1. In the popout window, select "Unenroll" to confirm the manual un-enrollment.  The user will then be unenrolled from the course. 

 

Unenroll User Settings in Moodle 4
Select Unenroll again to Confirm.

Moodle requires that all users log in with an active Brandeis University Account. 

  • Persons with newly created Brandeis accounts (including new faculty members) should log into Moodle to provision their accounts, IF it has been less than 24 hours since their account was first created by ITS. Then they will be able to be enrolled into any course shell.

  • Students who have graduated or are otherwise considered inactive students (medical leave, transfer from Brandeis etc.) lose access to Moodle. Note: Alumni who would like to audit a course need to reach out to registrar@brandeis.edu for further investigation.

  • Departmental Administrators or other departmental staff need to email help@brandeis.edu with the list of courses that they need access to. It is possible to add enrollments at the Category level, to facilitate continuity of service and support. ITS staff do not manually enroll users into course shells.

  • Co-instructors must be added by the Registrar's Office in Workday (registrar@brandeis.edu). Once this is complete, they will be enrolled into the course shell in Moodle within a few hours.

  • The highest role that instructors and academic administrators can award is the Course Editor and Grader role. If you are looking to have someone enrolled in a level higher than Course Editor and Grader, please email help@brandeis.edu to determine if there's another way to provide access. Only the Registrar's office is authorized to add an instructor to a course (Moodle will inherit the enrollments found in Workday).

  • Users with the "Student" role are students who have registered for the course through Workday. These students cannot be manually unenrolled from a course shell. Instead, the student should drop the course in Workday in order to automatically be unenrolled from the course.