Moodle_2.7_Admin_Manual_web2

MOODLE MANUAL SiteAdministrationCompiled by HowToMoodle | Moodle Version 2.7 JUST ASK US

Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

ContentsNEW USER ACCOUNTS 3 FRONT PAGE 58 Single Accounts 3 Layout: Central area, Courses or Categories? 60 User Profile Fields 5 Add New Users – Bulk Upload 9 Front page FAQs 62 My Home 63 Default home page 63ENROLMENT METHODS 15Manual enrolment 15 THEMES 65Self-enrolment 18 Theme selector 65 Themes FAQs 70Guest access 24Cohort sync 26Course meta link 27 BULK COURSE CREATION 71 Creating the text file 72PayPal 30Email-based self-registration 33LANGUAGE 37 BACKUP AND RESTORE A COURSE 76Language packs 37 Some uses of Backup and Restore 76Language customisation 38 Course Backup 76Language settings 41 Course Restore 80ROLES AND PERMISSIONS 43 Context and roles 43 Standard roles 50 Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 1

2 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

New user accountsSINGLE ACCOUNTSAn administrator or manager (or any other user with the capabilitymoodle/user:create) can create new user accounts in:Settings > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Add a new user.(To add users in bulk, see Bulk Upload users.)General Username The user will use this username to log in to the Moodle instance. It needs to be unique. This may be changed. A username can only contain lowercase alphabetical letters, numbers, hyphen ‘-’, underscore ‘_’, period ‘.’, or the character ‘@’ - unless you enable ‘Allow extended characters in usernames’ ( Site Administration > Security > Site Policies) Authentication method This specifies how Moodle will check whether the user’s specified password is correct. Accounts created by an administrator use the Manual Accounts method. Accounts created by users, using the email sign-up method, use the E-mail based self-registration method. Suspended account Suspended user accounts cannot log in or use web services, and any outgoing messages are discarded. Generate password and notify user Moodle will generate a temporary password and email the user with instructions on how to log in and change it - see next page. Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 3

Here is an example of a ‘new user email message’. The message may be changed in Site administration > Administration > Language > Language customisation. Select ‘moodle.php’ and the string identifier newusernewpasswordtext. Enter your preferred message in the Local customisation box, and clcik Save changes to the language pack. Password This is the user’s password. It is subject to the password policy in Site policies. A user can change their password by the Settings block > My Profile settings > Change password link. First Name The user’s first name is displayed along with the last name in messages, forum posts, participants list, reports and anywhere where something about the user is shows on the page. Surname The user’s surname is displayed along with the first name in messages, forum posts, participants list, reports and anywhere where something about the user is shows on the page. Email address Password reset notices, forum digests and other messages are sent to this email address from the Moodle site.4 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

USER PROFILE FIELDS Email display This setting controls who can see the user’s email address. Email format This setting can be used such that Moodle will send text-only emails to the user. Email digest type This setting set whether the user will receive an email for each new forum post in subscribed forums, or if new posts should be sent once per day in a digest, and which type of digest. •• No digest (one receives individual emails), •• Complete (a single digest daily) or •• Subjects (a single digest daily with only the post topics included). Forum auto-subscribe If a user subscribes to a forum, new posts will be sent in the digest as specified. This setting sets whether a user is automatically subscribed to forums or if a manual click on the subscription button in each forum is required. Forum tracking THis setting specifies whether new posts written since the user’s last visit should be highlighted as such. Text editor This setting specifies whether the user prefers to see the WYSIWYG Atto text editor or just a plain text box. City/town The user can enter their city or town Select a country The user can select their country. The city and country defaults can be set in Administration > Site administration > Location > Location settings. Timezone This setting is used to adjust the times of messages and assignment or quiz due dates to match the user’s local time Preferred language You can view Moodle in several different languages which you Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 5

can select here. Changing the preferred language only affects the Moodle interface, not the course content! Description Information about the user that other users can see, such as information about studies, hobbies or qualifications. User Picture This section is optional and allows users you to choose thier own profile picture. The user’s picture is displayed next to the user’s name along with any content they have posted in Moodle activities such as a forum. If the administrator has enabled it in Administration > Site Administration > Users > Permissions > User policies, a gravatar attached to an email account will appear as the profile image if a picture has not been uploaded. Interests The list of interests can be used as a way of connecting users with similar interests. Tags must be enabled on the site. Optional There are several optional fields that come with an standard install. These include: •• Web Page •• ICQ number •• Skype ID •• AIM ID •• Yahoo ID •• MSN ID •• ID number •• Institution •• Department •• Phone •• Mobile Phone •• Address The site administrator may add more custom fields or turn off any of the Optional fields.6 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

New profile fieldsAdministrators can create new user profile categories and fields in Administration > Site administration > Users > Accounts >User profile fields. Profile fields may be a menu of choices, text area, text input or a checkbox and may be required or not.New profile fields will appear on each user’s profile page unless “Who is this field visible to?” is set to “Not visible” in which caseonly the administrator can see the field. The fields can also be displayed on the signup page if “Display on signup page?” is set to “Yes” (although note that they will never be displayed if set to “Not visible”). You can set the order in which your custom profile fields appear under the associated profile category using the up/down arrows on the User profiles fields page. To create a new profile field, select the profile field format you require from the dropdown list. Common Settings All new fields must be given a unique Short Name and a Name (this is displayed on the profile page). You may also choose to enter a Description for the field for your own reference. There are also a number of configuration options common to all custom profile field types: Is this field required? This option specifies whether this is a mandatory or optional field for user accounts. Is this field locked? This option determines whether once information is populated in this field, it cannot be edited by the user. Should the data be unique? If you need the information populated in your field to be unique across the system (such as an ID number) select Yes to this option and the profile page update will perform a validation check on the data entered.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 7

Display on signup page? Depending on the authentication method in use on your Moodle site, you may have some users creating their own accounts. If you would like this custom field to appear on the registration or signup page, select Yes. Who is this field visible to? Each custom field can be given one of three visibility settings: ••Visible to everyone ••Not visible ••Visible to user The Not visible setting would typically be set by an administrator who wants to hold private data on the users. The Visible to user setting would normally be selected for a field that holds sensitive information, while the Visible to everyone setting can be used for any type of information. Specific Settings ••There are also a few field type Specific Settings requiring configuration around default value and size. Important When bulk uploading user data via .csv file, it is essential to use the correct convention to represent the new profile field. The convention is ‘profile_field_shortname’. Replace ‘shortname’ with the actual short name used for the new ••profile field. For example, if the new profile fiend name is dob, the cvs file field should read profile_field_dob. Create new a Profile Field before attempting to upload a file using that field name. Otherwise, uploading the file will result in the error “profile_field_shortname is not a valid field name”.8 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

ADD NEW USERS – BULK UPLOAD An administrator can upload multiple user accounts by using a text file from Administration > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Upload users. There are many robust options for uploading information (fields associated with a user) with this method: For example: •• Enrolling users in multiple courses with course specific roles. •• Updating user information in the User profile. •• Deleting users from the site. Rather than uploading the text file, it can simply dragged from the desktop and dropped into the upload area.••Tip: It is usually not necessary to upload users in bulk with Upload users. To keep maintenance work down, first explore forms of authentication that do not require manual maintenance, such as connecting to an external database or letting the users create their own accounts (Self enrolment).Upload user processHere is an outline of the process:••Create file for uploading••Go to Settings > Site administration > Users > Accounts > Upload users••Add file to upload••Upload users preview - check settings and default user profile settings (see example on next page)••Upload users preview - click “Upload users”••Upload users results - shows list of users, exceptions made in upload and summary of number of users••Upload users results - click “Continue”••Returns to Upload users screenCompiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 9

Updating users preview Here are some of the many settings for the kind of Upload user function you want to perform on the “Upload users preview” page.10 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Updating existing accountsBy default Moodle adds new user accounts and skips existing users lines where the username matches an existingaccount. If you set “Upload Type” to Add new and update existing users, and existing user account will be updated.••Add all, append number to usernames if needed••Add new and update existing users••Update existing users onlyWarning: errors updating existing accounts can affect your users badly. Be careful when using the options to update.Additional OptionsThere are also field settings to force password change, allow renames, allow deletes, prevent email addressduplicates, standardise usernames and select for bulk operations (new users, updated users, all users).Standardise usernamesThis folds username to lowercase and strips out illegal characters. This is roughly equivalent to:$username = preg_replace(‘/[^-\.@_a-z0-9]/’, , $username);Set default user valuesYou may be able to set default user field values, if the fields were not included in the uploaded file on this page.Upload user resultsAfter accepting the preview settings by clicking on “Upload users”, you should see the the Upload users results screen.This screen will show you any exceptions or changes that were made to each user in the upload process. For example if you wereupdating user information, the updated information will be shown. If a user was not added that record will be highlighted. It willalso summarize how many users were uploaded or updated; it will show the number of weak passwords and the number of errors.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 11

File formats for upload users file The upload users file has fields separated by a comma (or other delimiter) ONLY - no space. The first line ••contains the valid field names. The rest of the lines (records) contain information about each user. Avoid special characters in field information like quotes or other commas. Test a file with only one record before ••a large upload. Remember there are other ways to authenticate users on you site or enroll users in a course. You can use a spread sheet program to create the file with the required columns and fields. Then save the file as “CSV (comma delimited)”. These files can be opened with simple text editors for verification. Valid upload file for testing Here is an example of a simple valid upload file: (Column headers on the first line of the file are only highlighted in bold in this example to distinguish it from the rest of the of the data/user details) Fields that can be included ••Test a file that contains the fields you propose to use with one user before attempting a file upload for the first time Required fields: username, firstname, lastname, email Validity checks are performed for: ••username can only contain alphabetical lowercase letters , numbers, hypen ‘-’, underscore ‘_’, period ‘.’, or at-sign ‘@’ ••email is in the form: [email protected] . ••Password field: “password” field is optional if “Create password if needed” setting is chosen (default). If included, values should meet the requirements for the site’s Password policy. To force password change for a particular user, set the password field tochangeme. If omitted, a password will be generated for each user (during the next Cron job) and welcome e-mails sent out. Optional fields To provide values other than the default include one or more of these fields: institution, department, city, country, lang, auth, timezone, idnumber, icq, phone1, phone2, address, url, description, mailformat, maildisplay, htmleditor, autosubscribe ••Country- use a country TWO LETTER CODE ••Some fields have a maximum number of characters that are allowed (notably institution should be at most 40 characters long). See hints below. ••Maildisplay, htmleditor and autosubscribe can be set from an import screen. Custom profile field names: (Optional). ••If xxxxx is the real custom user profile field name (i.e. the unique shortname), then the custom profile field name would be profile_field_xxxxx12 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

••Create the custom fields BEFORE importing. Use the standard header. The “shortname” for your custom field is xxxxx (NB the shortname must be all lowercase, otherwise won’t be recognised). The first record must include “profile_field_ xxxxx”.Example: To create a custom field “genre”, you must write a shortname “genre” in thenew field, and write “profile_field_genre” in the header of the .csv file.For custom profile fields that are a menu, use the corresponding value.Example: A custom field ‘Department’ with one of three values ‘HR’, ‘Marketing’ or ‘Training’.Just insert one of those three words (e.g. ‘Training’) as the value for that field.Special fieldsUsed for changing of usernames or deleting of usersoldusername, deletedEnrolment fields: (Optional):course1, type1, role1, group1, enrolperiod1, enrolstatus1/course2, type2, role2, group2, enrolperiod2/enrolstatus2 etc.••course is the “shortname” of the course, if present the user will be enrolled in those courses.••type refers to the role to be used for associated course enrolment. Value 1 is default course role, 2 is legacy Teacher role and 3 is legacy Non-editing Teacher.••You can use role field instead to specify roles directly - use either role short name or id (numeric names of roles are not supported).••Users may be also assigned to groups in course (group1 in course1, group2 in course2, etc.).••A group is identified by name or id (numeric group names are not supported)••You can set the enrolment duration, in days, for each course (enrolperiod1 for course1, enrolperiod2 for course2, etc.).••You can suspend users from courses by using the enrolstatus field, where 1 against a user means they are suspended (and leaving blank means they are still enrolled.)Cohort field: (Optional):cohort1Internal cohort id numbers or non-numeric Cohort IDs of existing cohorts must be used; names are not allowed.mnethostid (Optional)Existing MNetusers can be added to courses, groups or cohorts as below:••enrolling to courses: username+mnethostid+course required••adding to group: username+mnethostid+course+group required••adding to cohort: username+mnethostid+cohort required••suspending/reviving accounts: username+mnethostid+suspended requiredAll other operations are ignored. You can not add users, delete them or updatethem (such as change names or email, profile fields, etc.)Commas within a field must be encoded as &#44 - the script will decode these back to commas.For Boolean fields, use 0 for false and 1 for true.To prevent users from receiving a large number of emails from courses or forced subscription forums use themaildigest. The options for this field are 0 = No digest, 1 = Complete digest and 2 = Digest with just subjects.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 13

Encoding file format On the initial Upload user screen, you may select the file encoding format from a pull down list. These include UTF-8 (the default), ASCII, ISO-8859-1 to ISO-8859-11 or any one of over 36 formats. Spreadsheet If you use a spreadsheet program such as Excel to create your .csv file, check the resulting output in a text editor before you upload it. It is possible to get trailing commas on each line from an empty field if you have added and deleted columns of information prior to saving the final file. Also check the character encoding. A csv file is a simple text file (ASCII or Unicode) that can be used to upload user accounts. Excel translates passwords that begin with - (minus) or + (plus) as zero. Even when saving as .csv and saying “Yes” to “Keep this format, and leave out any incompatible features.” Check for this before uploading, as a zero halts the upload process. If you use a formula in Excel to create fields (for example, the concatenate function to create a user name), then remember to copy the cells with the formula and use special paste with values checked to make them into an acceptable data for a csv file. The upload will also fail if you have trailing spaces at the end of your data fields. Often, this can not be removed with a simple Find “ “ and Replace with “”. If information has been copied from web sources than it is possible to include non- breaking spaces which will prevent your upload from being completed correctly. To find these invisible spaces, use the Find and Replace function in Excel. In the find field, hold alt and type 0160. Leave the replace field blank. Country The country should be written as a two letter code, in capitals. For example, use BE for Belgium or NL for the Netherlands. Using “be” or “nl” as a country code will result in a database error. Tip: If you are having trouble working out the two-letter code for a country, you can consult the list of country names and code elements available on the ISO Website. A common error is to use UK for United Kingdom; it should be GB. Field size limits Some fields have maximum character lengths. Typically the file will import to the preview list screen but not finish the process. Turn on debug to see the fields that are too long. Common fields to cause problems are “Institution” which is limited to 40 characters, and “City”, also limited (20 characters). The error will be “User not added - error”. Valid fields All the fields that are valid are listed below, except for any custom fields you may have created. firstname, lastname, username, email, city, country, lang, timezone, mailformat, maildisplay, maildigest, htmleditor, ajax, autosubscribe ,institution, department, idnumber, skype , msn, aim, yahoo, icq, phone1, phone2, address, url, description, descriptionformat, password, auth, oldusername , deleted, suspended, course1, course2, course3, course4 Enroll users to Cohorts (system groups) You can enroll users to any Cohort (system level group) by using only the “username” and the “Cohort ID”. Here is a sample CSV file: username,cohort1 teacher1,system-teachers teacher2,system-teachers teacher3,system-teachers Make sure you set “Upload type” to “Update existing users only” (So you are not asked to add firstname, lastname and email fields too)14 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Enrolment methodsCourse enrolment is the process where authenticated site users can be registered as course participants.Authenticated user roleWhen users log in, they are automatically assigned the role of authenticated user. A user will have additional roles as wellas the authenticated user role according to where they are in Moodle, such as a teacher or a student in a course.By default, authenticated users have permission to edit their own profile, send messages, blog and do other things outside of courses.Depending upon which enrolment methods are enabled for the site (by an administrator in Administration > Site administration> Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins), some or all of the following enrolment methods are available within a course:MANUAL ENROLMENT••The manual enrolment plugin has to be enabled by the site administrator. It should normally be enabled as certain other enrolment plugins, such as self-enrolment, require it.••This enables users to be enrolled manually in Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolled users.••It allows the teacher of the course to manage individual or collective enrolment to their course themselves. If a new student arrives unexpectedly with just a login to the site, they may be enrolled by the teacher into their course without any input from an administrator.Check for manual enrolment in your course••In a course, go to Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods••Make sure ‘Manual enrolments’ has its “eye” opened.Editing manual enrolment settingsManagers can edit the manual enrolment method in the course and set the default enrolment periodand default role in Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 15

It is possible also for students or teachers to be notified when enrolments expire. Select: •• From the dropdown “Notify before enrolment expires”, select either “Enroller only” or “Enroller and enrolled user”. •• From the dropdown “Notification threshold”, select a time. Enrolling users - Method 1 ••Go to Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolled users. Click the ‘Enrol users’ button at the top right or bottom left of the page •• Use the ‘Assign roles’ dropdown if you wish to change the role. Select enrolment options as appropriate: ••The enrolment option ‘Recover user’s old grades if possible’ is not ticked by default and is easy to miss. ••An administrator can set the checkbox ticked for all courses on the site by enabling the setting ‘Recover grades default’ in Administration > Site administration > Grades > General settings. ••Browse or search for the user. ••Click the Enrol button opposite the user. The user will indent in the list and the enrol button will disappear, indicating that the user is enrolled. When you have finished, click the ‘Finish enrolling users’ button (or simply close the enrol users box). The user will then appear in the list of enrolled users.16 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Enrolling users - Method 2••Go to Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods••Click the ‘Enrol users’ icon in the edit column opposite manual enrolment••Select users from the not enrolled users list, using Ctrl + click to select multiple users••Click the add button to add the users to the enrolled users listCompiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 17

Editing individual enrolment start and end dates Enrolment start and end dates may be edited for individual students as follows: ••Go to Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolled users ••Click the edit icon in the enrolment methods column for a particular user. ••Edit dates as required, then click the ‘Save changes’ button. Administration settings ••The manual enrolment plugin may be enabled or disabled site-wide in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins. ••Site-wide settings, including default settings for manual enrolment in new courses, may be set via Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manual enrolments. ••Enrolment expiration action - specifies what happens when user enrolments reach expiration date. Please note that option “Unenrol user from course” purges grades, group memberships, preferences and other user related data from the courses. ••Hour to send enrolment expiry notifications - specify hour for sending expiration notifications. ••Add instance to new courses- if this is enabled, then whenever a new course is created, manual enrolments will automatically added to new courses. ••Enable manual enrolments - this specifies if enrol instances are enabled by default in new courses, it is strongly recommended to keep this setting enabled. ••Default role - this sets the default role, which is normally student and may be altered by a teacher in a course. ••Default enrolment duration - this sets the default length of enrolment in new courses. ••Notify before enrolment expires - specifies if teacher or optionally students should be notified before the expiration. ••Notification threshold - specify how many days should be users notified before the enrolment expiration. SELF-ENROLMENT ••This allows users to enrol themselves into a course, either directly by clicking “enrol me in this course” or via an enrolment key (“course password”). The teacher does not then have to manually add students. ••More than one instance of the self-enrolment method can be used so that when users enrol themselves they are assigned different roles e.g. certain users can be assigned the role of student and other users can be assigned the role of non-editing teacher ••The self-enrolment method also allows for users to enrol themselves into groups by using a group enrolment key. ••The enrolment plugin needs to be enabled by the site administrator in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins and has to be enabled within the course. The manual enrolment plugin has to be enabled in the same course as well.18 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Course settings Check self-enrolment is enabled In a course, go to Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods and ensure the “eye” is opened for self-enrolment.Adding an enrolment key to a courseA course enrolment (or enrollment) key is one method of restricting self-enrolment to a smaller group.The default setting is not to set a key and allow anyone to enrol themselves into the course.An enrolment key is often used as a simple method of having someone else beside the teacher determine if a particular studentcan self enrol in the course. The idea is that one or more people will supply the course key to authorized people. Sometimes thisdistribution is private email, postal mail, on the phone or even verbally in face to face meetings such as a class or counselor’s office. ••In the course administration block, click Users>Enrolment methods ••Make sure self-enrolment is enabled (has its eye open) and then click the edit icon on the right: ••Add your enrolment key in the box provided. (Click Unmask to see what you are typing.) ••Click Save changesSetting a group enrolment key••It is possible also to enrol students into the course and also directly into groups by use of a group enrolment key.••To do this, you first need to add the course enrolment key as in the section above.••If you do not set a master course enrolment key for the course, then anyone can enrol without a key and users will not be put into groups.••Users in groups do not need to know the master course enrolment key, only their own group enrolment key.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 19

••Users not in a group can use the master course enrolment key as usual ••Change the setting Use group enrolment keys to Yes ••Save the changes and then in the Course administration settings, click Groups>Create groups ••Add an enrolment key to the group. This will be the key they type in to access the course. (The course enrolment key is simply there to keep others out) Administration settings Making an enrolment key required in every course By default, enrolment keys are not set. However, if the administrator wants to ensure all teachers set enrolment keys, this can be forced in Administration>Site Administration>Plugins>Enrolments>Self-enrolment. This means that self-enrolment settings will not become effective until the teacher adds an enrolment key. Note: It does NOT provide a site wide enrolment key. Using the password policy for enrolment keys To ensure that teachers use secure keys that follow your site’s password policy, check the box in Administration> Site Administration> Plugins> Enrolments> Self-enrolment Giving users a hint of the enrolment key ••By default, for security reasons, Moodle will not give any clues as to what the enrolment key is. Checking the box in Administration>Site Administration>Plugins>Enrolments>Self-enrolment will provide the first letter of the enrolment ••key if needed. Tips ••If the enrolment key for a course “gets out” and unwanted people self enrol: ••Change the key, but currently enrolled students will not need the key again. ••Unenrol the unwanted users via Enrolled_users in the course administration block. ••Changing or placing a key does not impact currently enrolled students, nor does it impact students who may also be enrolled by an enrolment plugin. ••Guests may (optionally) be required to supply the enrolment key (as specified on the Course Settings page). They will be required to supply the code every time they enter the course. ••The “No” or “Date range” options in the “Course available” setting effectively disables the enrolment key feature, even if it is set. Course administration settings The following settings may be changed by clicking the edit (hand/pen) icon to the right of the self- enrolment option in Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods: Setting the enrolment period Tick the “enable” box to the right of Enrolment period and then choose your dates. Enrolment duration Set the amount of time a user enrolment is valid, starting with the moment the user enrols themselves. If disabled, the enrolment duration will be unlimited.20 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Notifying users when their enrolment expiresIt is possible also for students and/or teachers to be notified when enrolments expire by selecting either “Enroller only” or“Enroller and enrolled user” from the dropdown “Notify before enrolment expires” and a time in “Notification threshold”.Editing individual enrolment timesIt is possible to edit the date and hour of an individual’s enrolment from Administration>Course administration>Users>Enrolledusers by clicking the edit icon in the enrolment methods column for the user in question.This then brings up a screen where the date and time can be modified.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 21

Unenrolling students who haven’t been active on the course Choose from the dropdown to the right of “Unenrol inactive after...” Deciding the maximum number of users in your course Type the maximum number of users you want in your course in “Max enrolled users”. When this limit is reached, nobody will be able to self-enrol. If you leave the number at 0 then there will be no maximum number. Allowing only cohort members to self-enrol If you have cohorts set up, then you can restrict self-enrolment to particular cohorts. Select the name of the cohort from the drop down box. A member of the cohort can self-enrol as normal A non-member gets a message telling them they are not able to self-enrol.22 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Sending a welcome message to new usersIf enabled, users receive the following message via email when they self-enrol in a course:Welcome to {Course name}If you have not done so already, you should edit your profile page so that we can learn more about you: {link to profile page}If you want to send a different message, simply type it in the custom welcome message text box.Note: An administrator can customise the message for the whole site.Site administration settingsThe self-enrolment plugin may be enabled or disabled throughout the site invAdministration> Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins.Shared settings for all coursesThe page Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Self-enrolment contains options for defaults that an administrator can set:••Require an enrolment key - if this box is ticked then all courses with self-enrolment enabled will need to have an enrolment key. The setting won’t save until the teacher adds a key - something to be aware of as this can cause confusion:)••Use password policy - tick this box if you want enrolment keys set by teachers to follow the password policy of the site.••Show hint - tick this box if you are prepared to allow the first letter of a key to be given as a “hint”••Enrolment expiration action - specifies what happens when user enrolments reach expiration date. Please note that option “Unenrol user from course” purges grades, group memberships, preferences and other user related data from the courses.••Hour to send enrolment expiry notifications - specify hour for sending expiration notifications.Default enrolment settings in new coursesThese can be set in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Self-enrolment but teachers in individual courses can alter them to suit their needs:••Add instance to new courses - if an administrator selects this, then any new course created will include the self- enrolment plugin••Enable self-enrolments- if this is enabled then users by default can self enrol into a course.••Use group enrolment keys - the setting for group enrolment keys in a course will be set to “yes” by default••Default role assignment - normally, when users self enrol, they have the student role. If necessary that role can be changed by default here - for example - if your Moodle has a dedicated role you wish to use instead.••Enrolment duration - this sets the default enrolment length for new courses (but again, may be altered by the course teacher.)••Notify before enrolment expires - specifies if teacher or optionally students should be notified before the expiration.••Notification threshold - specify how many days should be users notified before the enrolment expiration.••Unenrol inactive after- this sets the default time after which a student will be unenrolled if they haven’t accessed the courses. (Teachers may change this)••Max enrolled users - adding a number here will specify the maximum number of users who can self-enrol into new courses. Teachers in the course can change this. If it is left at 0, there will be no maximum.••Send course welcome message- if this box is checked then newly enrolled users will receive a welcome message by default.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 23

Self-enrolment method options ••One course may contain multiple self-enrolment methods. User may be enrolled once in each instance only. ••Custom instance name - specify custom enrolment method name. ••Enable existing enrolments - if disabled all users enrolled via this plugin cannot access course. ••Allow new enrolments - disable if you do not want to allow students to self enrol in the future. ••Enrolment key - specify key required for enrolment. ••Use group enrolment keys - optionally use group keys for enrolment too. ••Default assigned role - specify role to be assigned to suers during enrolment, this can be manually after user enrolment. ••Enrolment duration - specify enrolment length, this can be manually after user enrolment. ••Notify before enrolment expires - specifies if teacher or optionally students should be notified before the expiration. ••Notification threshold - specify how many days should be users notified before the enrolment expiration. ••Unenrol inactive after- specify time after which a student will be unenrolled if they haven’t accessed the courses. ••Max enrolled users - adding a number here will specify the maximum number of users who can self-enrol into this course. ••Only cohort members - optionally restrict this enrolment method to members of specified cohort. ••Send course welcome message- if this box is checked then newly enrolled users will receive a welcome message by default. ••Custom welcome message - specify custom message if necessary. GUEST ACCESS Guest account Moodle has a built-in “Guest account”. Visitors can log in as guests using the “Login as a guest” button on the login screen and enter any courses which allow guest access. In addition, logged- in users can enter any courses which allow guest access without being required to enrol. This feature can be handy when you want to let a colleague in to look around at your work, or to let students see a course before they have decided to enrol. Guests ALWAYS have “read-only” access - meaning they can’t leave any posts or otherwise mess up the course for real students. Guests cannot: ••Post in forums ••Edit wiki pages ••Participate in a chat ••Take quizzes ••Submit assignments ••Add glossary or database activity entries or comments ••Receive any scores or grades (because of the read-only access) If you want guests to be able to take quizzes, or any of the other activities listed above, and have considered the security implications, you can create a visitor account, say with username = password = visitor, for everyone to share. ••This allows those with the guest role to view the contents of a course. ••Users with the “guest role” may be visitors who do not have an account on your Moodle, or users who do have an account (“authenticated users”) but who would just like to explore your course.24 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

••This might be used, for example, if a Moodle site serves as a website where certain courses contain publicly available information, or else with a commercial Moodle site where courses with guest access can offers a “taster” of the kind of courses which may be purchased.••It is possible to add an enrolment key so that only those guest users you wish to grant access can enter the courseCourse settings for guest access••In Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods, first ensure that you have added “guest access” as an enrolment method, and that it has its eye open.••Ensure that self-enrolment is also enabled.••In Administration > Course administration > Edit settings, scroll to “Guest access”••Set the drop down to “Yes”••If you wish guests to use a password to access the course then add it here.Site settings for guest access••In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins, ensure Guest access is enabled (has its eye open).••In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Manage authentication set the Guest login button to Show if you want the button on the Front page.••Also Guest accounts can be logged - check the Administration> Site administration > Server > Clean up > Log guest access settingDefault settings for guest accessClicking on Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Guest access brings up the screen where anadministrator can set defaults for guest access in courses. Guest access can be turned on by default in all new courses.You can also:••Require each course with guest access to have a password for guests. (Note: this can confuse teachers who are not aware of the requirement.)••Use or ignore your Moodle’s standard password policy for guest access passwords.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 25

••Offer if needed the first letter of the password as a hint. Auto-login guests ••In Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > User policies, you can tick the box so that visitors are automatically logged in as guests when accessing a course with guest access (i.e. they don’t have to click the “login as guest button”. ••In Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Authentication > Manage Authentication, you must have “Guest login button” set to “Show”. ••In Administration > Site administration > Security > Site policies you can check “Open to Google” setting so that the Google search robot will be allowed to enter your site as a Guest. In addition, people coming in to your site via a Google search will automatically be logged in as a Guest. COHORT SYNC A cohort is a set of users which has been added either to the site as a whole or to a particular category and which can then be made available in a course through the cohort-sync enrolment plugin. ••All members of a cohort to be enrolled in a course in one action, either manually or synchronised automatically. ••Only an administrator or a manager can use this plugin. ••The Administrator will first need to enable the Cohort-Sync enrolment plugin site wide (Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments) and then add it to the required Course: (Administration> Course administration > Users > Enrolment Methods). Enrolling a cohort in a course To enrol a cohort into a course the Cohort-Sync Enrollment plugin needs to be added by an administrator or manager to the enrollment methods for the course. At this stage the Cohort-Sync instance for the course is edited and the appropriate Cohort selected. The role to which the Cohort users are assigned is also selected at this point (typically Student). Adding a cohort to a group The cohort members can also be added to a pre-made group at this stage. If any members are added or removed from the cohort, they are automatically added or removed from the group. Note that such members cannot be unenrolled manually from the groups screen and there will be information about their cohort below their name on the group screen.26 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Visiting the Administration > Course administration > Users > Enrolled Users page will show users enrolled ••via the Cohort-Sync plugin. Notes: •• By default, a teacher cannot add this plugin to their course. It needs to be configured by an Administrator or a user with the Manager role. •• The user should be a site-level Manager, not at the category or course level, otherwise the user will not see the option. •• If you want the user with the Manager role at the category level to see this enrol option, then you must add some cohorts on the category level, not on the site level.The required capabilities for setting up a cohort-sync are:••moodle/course:enrolconfig in the course context••moodle/cohort:config in the course context••moodle/cohort:view in the same context as categoryThe required capabilities for manually enrolling cohort members are:••the same as cohort sync••enrol/manual:enrol in course context••moodle/course:enrolreview in course contextCOURSE META LINKA course meta link allows users in another course to be automatically enrolled into your course as well. Anexample is a course for “Staff Only” and a course for “Support and Help”. If the “Staff Only” course is addedto the “Support and Help” course with the course meta link plugin, then every time a new member of staffjoins the “Staff Only” course, they will also be automatically enrolled in the “Support and Help”.Teachers can only select from courses in which they are teachers when using this method. The Course metalink plugin needs to be enabled at the site level by the site administrator and at the course level.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 27

Metacourse examples A child course and a meta course with no association (link) A child course associated with (linked to) one meta course One child course associated with (linked to) two meta courses28 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Course settings for Course meta link •• In a course, go to Settings > Course administration > Users > Enrolment methods. •• Click the dropdown menu under the enrolment methods and select ‘Course meta link’. ••In the screen that comes up next, select from the dropdown box the course you wish to bring enrolments from. ••••Then click ‘Add method’. Notes: •• A teacher in a course will only be able to choose from courses they are teachers in elsewhere. •• To add more courses, add another instance of the course meta link.••The users from the child course will now be enrolled in the current course - see the numbers in the screenshot below:••When new users are enrolled to the child course, they are automatically brought into the current meta course.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 29

Site administration settings for Course meta link The Course meta link plugin may be enabled or disabled throughout the site in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins. The page Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Course meta link contains default options. The page can also be accessed by clicking the Settings link on the course meta link section of Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins. By default all role assignments from child courses are synchronised to meta courses. However, the “Roles that are not synchronised to metacourses” setting enables administrators to exclude particular roles. Enabling teachers to add meta links An administrator can enable teachers to add course meta links as follows: ••Go to Site Administration > Users > Permissions > Define Roles. Select the Teacher Role and click on the Edit button ••Scroll down to Course Meta Link as shown in the images below: The default setting is “Not Set” When the Edit button is clicked, the panel changes to “Allow” and a checkbox. Change to “Allow” by a click on the checkbox. ••Scroll to the bottom of the page to save your changes. PAYPAL ••This allows users to pay for a course. The PayPal enrolment plugin needs to be enabled site wide by the administrator in Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins ••The plugin also needs to be added to a course by the administrator or a manager. ••The course teacher can select a cost (and currency for their course) along with other course-specific requirements. Course settings for Paypal ••In a course, go to Administration> Course administration>Users>Enrolment methods30 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

••If you do not see PayPal, use the pull down menu “Add method” and select PayPal.••Make sure PayPal has its “eye” opened:Setting a price for your course••In Administration>Course Administration>Users>enrolment methods, click the edit/hand/pen icon to the right of the Paypal option.••Give a name to this enrolment method if you wish in “Custom Instance name”. (You don’t have to!)••Ensure that “allow Paypal enrolments” is set to “yes”••In “Enrol cost”, type in the cost of your course and in “Currency” choose your currency.••Usually you would leave the “Assign role” as “student” unless you have a very special reason for allowing your users to enrol as, say, editing teachers.••Choose an enrolment period, or start and end dates if desired.••Click the “Save changes” button.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 31

What the new user sees When a new user clicks on your course link, having made a login to your Moodle, they will see this screen, inviting them to go to PayPal to purchase access to your course. Administration settings If you wish to allow users to make their own accounts on your site then set up Email based self-registration ••Go to Administration>Site Administration>Plugins>Enrolments>Manage enrol plugins and enable (open the “eye” of Paypal). ••Click the blue Settings link to the right of the PayPal enrolment link. Here are the default settings and default settings for new instances in a course: ••Add the email of your Business PayPal account. The email settings are case sensitive and must exactly match that in PayPal. ••Choose whether to notify students/teachers/admin. ••Choose whether (or not) to allow the Paypal enrolment plugin by default in new courses ••Choose a default cost and currency. (This may be overridden in individual courses) ••Choose a default role assignment. (This means the role that a new user will automatically be given in a course when they purchase access. Usually this would be “student” unless you have a special reason for choosing another role.) This may be overridden in individual courses. ••Choose the default enrolment period. This may be overridden in individual courses. What to set up at Paypal.com ••Create a Paypal account ••Not required but recommended for selling: Upgrade your account to “Premier” status and get “Verified” ••Set the Encoding to UFT-8. In Paypal, go to “Profile > Language Encoding” (under the Selling Preferences column) and set your website’s language (like select “Western European Languages (including English)” as it is the only English version). Then click on the “More Options” button and set the Encoding to “UTF-8”, select “Yes” to use the same encoding for data sent from Paypay to you, and save. ••Optionally setup IPN in Paypal to interact with Moodle. Log into Paypal, go to “Profile > Instant Payment Notifications (IPN)”, click “Turn On IPN”, click the “Edit settings” and enter a URL that references your IPN file in your Moodle installation (for example: http://<domain name>/moodle/enrol/paypal/ipn.php) What the user sees ••If you have allowed users to create their own accounts then when they click to login, they will be presented with a screen Is this your first time here? It will give them instructions for making an account (which may be customised in the authentication common settings in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Authentication > Manage32 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

authentication) and once their account is confirmed via email they can click on a course which can be purchased and pay for it via Paypal. PayPal courses will have a dollar sign icon next to them:••Once payment is made both the user/student and the teacher/admin should have received emails from Paypal confirming the purchase.Changing the dollar symbolThe default currency symbol for Paypal is a dollar sign. If you are using GBP or Euros or another currency,you can change this by creating your own customised icon with your choice of currency.Make it 16x 16 pixels and call iticon.gif Upload your new icon via FTP to your moodledirectory>enrol>paypal>pix. Your icon.gif will override the dollar sign.Make sure you refresh your page to be sure of the changes.Email-based self-registrationEMAIL-BASED SELF-REGISTRATIONThe email-based self-registration authentication method enables users to create their own accounts via the ‘Create new account’button on the login page. They then receive an email at the address they specified in their account profile to confirm their account.••An administrator can enable email-based self-registration in Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Authentication > Manage authentication.••In addition to enabling the plugin, email-based self-registration must be selected from the self-registration drop- down menu in the common settings.••Notes:••Enabling self-registration results in the possibility of spammers creating accounts in order to use forum posts, blog entries and so on for spam. Minimize this risk by limiting self-registration to particular email domains using the setting at Administration > Site administration > Plugins> Authentication > Manage authentication. Alternatively, enable self- registration for a short period to allow users to create accounts; then disable the method.••The Email-based self-registration authentication plugin must be enabled to allow users who previously self-registered to login. Selecting Email-based self-registration as the self-registration method allows potential users to self-register.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 33

Login page with ‘Create new account’ button Enable reCAPTCHA element New account form with CAPTCHA element A CAPTCHA is a program that can tell whether its user is a human or a computer. CAPTCHAs are used by many websites to prevent abuse from bots, or automated programs usually written to generate spam. No computer program can read distorted text as well as humans can, so bots cannot navigate sites protected by CAPTCHAs. Spam protection may be added to the email- based self-registration new account form with a CAPTCHA element - a challenge-response test used to determine whether the user is human. In addition to enabling the reCAPTCHA element, email-based self-registration should be set as the self registration authentication plugin and reCAPTCHA keys should be set in the manage authentication common settings.34 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Email confirmation messageAn automated email confirmation message is sent to the user using the support contact email address.You can change this text in Administration > Site administration > Language > Language customizationby choosing the appropriate language pack. Select ‘moodle.php’ from ‘core’ and search for thestring identifier name ‘emailconfirmation’ and editing it with a local customization.Support contactAn administrator can specify a support name, email and/or support page in Administration > Siteadministration > Server > Support contact for including in the confirmation email.••Tips:••Check your user list regularly for spam, suspect names, emails or users in the system but not enrolled in the course••Disable Blogs unless actually using them. Some spambots know how to post there.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 35

••Enable some sort of login failure notification in Administration > Site administration > Security > Notifications so you can see who is having login issues ••Check Administration > Site administration > Reports > Spam cleaner from time to time ••Potential users may not receive the account confirmation email due to it ending up in the spam folder, being refused by the remote server, an invalid email address entered etc. Such accounts may be confirmed manually by an administrator.36 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

LanguageLANGUAGE PACKSOver 100 language packs are available for an administrator to install on a Moodle site viaAdministration > Site administration > Language > Language packs. Select the languages you require from the list of available language packs (1). Then click on the “Install selected language pack” button (2).Multiple language packs may be selected for install by holding down the Ctrl key whilst clicking on thelanguage packs. Installing many (20+) language packs has almost no impact on Moodle performance.All language packs, apart from English, are stored in moodledata/lang folder.Parent language packsCertain language packs contain only the modified language strings from their parent language, rather than acomplete set. Therefore, it is necessary to install the parent language pack too. These language packs are:••de_du, de_kids and de_comm (which requires de)••es_ar, es_es (which requires es)••fr_ca (which requires fr)••en_us, en_ar, en_kids (which requires the default en)Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 37

Language pack updates To update installed language packs, except English and any local language packs, click the ‘Update all installed language packs’ button in Administration > Site administration > Language > Language packs. The English language pack is updated automatically each time the site is upgraded. It is a good idea to update language packs monthly. LANGUAGE CUSTOMISATION Words or phrases (in any language) used on the site may be easily changed by an administrator using the language customization feature. For example, you may want to change the word “Course” to “Unit”. The process consists of 4 steps: ••Check-out the strings ••Filter the strings you wish to customize ••Customize the strings ••Save and check-in the strings Instructions Go to the Administration > Site administration > Language> Language customisation page. Pick the language to customise from the pull down list. Click on the “Open language pack for editing” button. This may take some time ••to process. When the language pack has loaded, click the “Continue” button. If you get the “Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 180 seconds exceeded” message, you will have to press the button ‘Check out string into translator’ several times to get the operation completed.38 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Click (or Ctrl + Click) the files from the “Show strings of these components” list to select them. The files are grouped.For example, you will find theassignments strings under “mod”(1) and moodle.php under “core”.After selecting the file(s), it is possibleto use the “Only strings containing”filter along with other filters.For example, entering “teacher”allows you to look only at thestring text that contains that term(2) in the file(s) you selected.Then click on “Show strings”(3).Make your changes in the appropriate “Local customisation” box (4). Click “Apply changes 39and continue editing” (5) if you want to use another filter or edit other files.••Click “Save changes to the language pack” (6) to save all of the changes you have made. Tips:••Do not see any string changes? Did you remember to use the “Save changes to the language pack” button? Did you refresh your browser so that it is not looking at a cached page? Did you edit the language file that is actually being used on your site, course or by the user?••Are you unable to find the string you wish to change? Tick the ‘Show origin of languages strings’ checkbox in Administration > Site administration > Development > Debugging then visit the page containing the string you want to customise. Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com

Using filter strings Customized only Check this field to display only those strings that are already present in your xx_local pack. Help only Check this field to display only help tooltips, that is the texts used when clicking the yellow question mark icon. Modified only ••Displays only the strings that are modified in the current session. Notes: ••The term ‘customized’ means strings that are saved on disk in your xx_local pack directory. ••The term ‘modified’ represents the changes made since the last check-in string into the language pack. Customized strings (already saved in a file) are highlighted with green. Modified strings (not saved in a file yet) are highlighted with blue. ••You may want to use this option look at your current work before you check it in. Only strings containing Insert a phrase that must appear in the string. For example, if you put a word ‘student’ ••here, you will get only those strings that contain this word. The ‘Only strings’ filter can be used for a total search for a term used in your Moodle site for the selected language pack. String identifier If you know the string identifier (it is the first parameter of the get_string() function), type it here. For example, the names of activity modules are defined in strings ‘modulename’. Finding where a particular string is saved can be difficult sometimes. The administrator can start a debugging function: Site administration> Development> Debugging and choose “Show origin of language strings”. Then if you append “?strings=1” (or “&strings=1” if there is already a parameter) to the end of the page URL, beside each string will be shown something like “{rememberusername/admin}”. The last part says which php file uses the string, so this one is in admin.php. If there is nothing after the /, look in moodle.php. The first part, before the /, is the string identifier. Use combination of filter settings to get the required set of strings. Click button ‘Show strings’ for potential editing. Input your own translation. The strings that pass all the conditions defined ••in the filter are displayed in a table. To replace the standard translation, put your own into the ‘Local customization’ field. If you want to delete your current customization , just delete the content of the ‘Local customization’ field and click the “Save and continue editing”. The modifications that are going to be removed a customized string are highlighted in red. If you made changes to a field previously “Save and continue editing” it will be highlighted in blue. Click “Save and continue” button before you change the filter settings and show a new set of strings. Saving your work into files As necessary, you may repeat the “show strings”, “local customization” and “Save and continue” process. When you have made all the changes you want to make, click “Save and check in strings into files” to process all changes made in the translator database to your local language pack. Writing the modifications into files During the check in, the contents of the translator database are dumped into files in moodledata/lang/xx_local/ directory. Click “Save and check in strings into files” to process all changes made into your local language pack.40 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

••This operation removes the directory first and then re-creates it with the actual data. Therefore it is 41 reasonable not to touch the files directly after you have checked out them into the translator.LANGUAGE SETTINGSUser profile settingsA user can set their preferred language for the site inAdministration > My profile settings > Edit profile.Course administration settingsA teacher can force the language of their course inAdministration > Course administration > Edit settings.The capability moodle/site:forcelanguage may be allowed by theadmin for users who need to override this language (for example,when testing problems in a course in a language they do not know.)Site administration settingsLanguage settings for administrators are in Administration > Site administration > Language > Language settings.Language auto detectBy default, Moodle detects a user’s languagefrom their browser setting. However,language auto-detection may be disabled sothat the default site language is used instead.Default languageThis sets the default language for thesite. This setting can be overriddenby users using the language menu orthe setting in their user profile.Note: If a preferred language is set inyour browser, this will override thedefault site language (unless languageauto-detection is disabled).Display language menuThis sets whether the language menu isdisplayed on the login page and the homepage. If this is turned off, the only placeswhere a user can change the languagesetting is in their user profile or in thecourse settings if they are a teacher. Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com

Languages on the language menu If you want to limit the number of languages from which students and teachers can select, enter a reduced list here. Language selection priority This figure shows the Moodle priorities when selecting languages: Cache language menu If enabled, the list of available translations is cached. The cache is automatically refreshed when you install or delete a language pack via the in-built language packs management tool. If you install a new language pack manually, you have to use Purge all caches feature to refresh the cached list. Cache all language strings Caches all the language strings into compiled files in the data directory. If you are translating Moodle or changing strings in the Moodle source code then you may want to switch this off. Otherwise leave it on to see performance benefits. Sitewide locale It’s generally best to leave this setting empty, as it’s set through each language pack. Excel encoding Leave as default (Unicode) unless you have a particular reason for wanting Latin encoding.42 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Roles and permissionsA role is a collection of permissions defined for the whole system that you can assign to specific users inspecific contexts. The combination of roles and context define a specific user’s ability to do something on anypage. The most common role examples are those of student and teacher in the context of a course.CONTEXT AND ROLES••In Moodle, apart from the site administrator, users do not normally have a global, site-wide role. In other words, even though you may be a tutor offline, when you are in Moodle you could have a tutor role in the course you teach in but a student role in another course where you are studying for a diploma. There are a few exceptions but this is generally the case.••Because of the way Moodle works, assigning roles is done for a particular context. Site and course are examples of two different contexts. When you create a new role or tweak a pre-existing role via Administration > Site Administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles, you are asked in which context(s) you want the role to be assigned:System context••Administration > Site Administration > Users > Permissions > Assign system roles••Any roles assigned here apply to the whole Moodle site. It makes sense therefore that only roles that need this functionality can be assigned here. The Manager role and Course creator role are examples of two such roles. Assigning a teacher or student here would result in their being able to teach/study in every single course on the site, which is not usually desirable.••If you really feel your Moodle needs to have teachers or students assigned in the system context, go to the teacher/ student role in Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles and check the “system” box. Then search for and allow the capability moodle/course:viewFront page context••Administration > Site Administration > Front Page > Front Page roles••Those with a role in the system context do not need to be assigned a role here as well.••However you might want to allow a teacher to manage items on the front page; in this instance, you would assign them the role on the Front page.Course Category context••See Category enrolments••Users may be enrolled in the category to save enrolling them in each individual course in that category.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 43

Course context Enrol users ••Go to Administration > Course administration > Enrolled users ••Click the “Enrol users” button and click those users you wish to enrol The dropdown menu at the top shows roles for which you are allowed to enrol. Typically they are those users with lower roles than you. See Enrolled users for more details. Block context ••(Within the block) Administration > Assign roles ••You may wish to assign roles to a block if, for instance you want specific people to see the block but for it to be hidden from others Activity Module context ••(Within the activity settings) Administration > Locally assigned roles ••An example of this is assigning a student the teacher role locally in an individual activity like a forum so they can moderate their classmates’ posts while still retaining the student role in the rest of the course. User context ••The most common use of this is for the Parent role. ••When the Parent role is created via Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles the “user” context box is checked. ••To assign a parent the role in the context of their child (so they can see their child’s grades etc) click the child’s profile and then go to Administration>Roles>Assign roles relative to this user ••See Parent role for more information. The assign roles page lists the names of users assigned to each role (unless there are more than 10 users, in which case this is stated). Hierarchy By assigning a role to a user in a certain context, you grant them the permissions contained in that role for the current context and all lower contexts.44 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

The list of contexts in hierarchical order is as follows:••System (no parent)••Front page (parent = system)••Course category (parent = parent category or system)••Course (parent = category or system)••Module (parent = course or system)••Block (parent = course or system)••User (parent = system)Roles can be inherited. For example if a user is assigned a Teacher role in a specific course category then the user willhave this role in ALL courses within the category. Tip: use the override feature in a specific context for exceptions.Roles will only work if the role assignment is made in the correct context. Some examples: a Teacher role should be assigned to auser in the course or course category context, a Forum moderator for a particular forum should be assigned in that specific forum.Assigning someone the role of Site Administrator••Although this is a system role, the site administrator role cannot be assigned via Administration>Site Administration >Users>Permissions>Assign system roles because it would be too easy to mistakenly enrol or unenrol administrators and be left with nobody in charge of your Moodle.••For this reason, administrators are assigned via a special page: Administration> Site Administration> Users> Permissions> Site Administrators and you are asked to think twice before you give someone this role. Select the name from the right and move it over to the left:••The original (primary) administrator cannot be deleted.Hidden rolesIf you want to provide users with access to the course, but don’t want them to be visible in the participants list, use the Otherusers link in the course administration menu (Administration > Course Administration > Users > Other Users). Assigning roleshere provides course access, and editing rights according to the permissions set for the role assigned without actually enrolling••the user in the course. This is similar to the functionality of the “hidden user” check box in previous versions of Moodle. By default, the only role which can be assigned to other users is the manager role. To enable other roles, such as teacher to be assigned, the capability moodle/course:view should be allowed for the role.Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 45

Enabling teachers to assign the role of teacher By default, teachers are only allowed to assign the roles of non-editing teacher, student and guest. To enable teachers to assign the role of teacher: ••Access Administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles. ••Click the tab “Allow role assignments”. ••Click the checkbox where the teacher row and column intersect. ••Click the “Save changes” button. Beware of assignments that don’t make sense There are many role assignments that do not make sense as the underlying functionality does not exist. Just because you give someone the “right” to do something does not guarantee that the interface or facility actually exists within the context that you have assigned that right. For example, you can assign a user the right to create new categories in the category context. However there is no interface within Moodle to do that (category creation is only available at the system level). Multiple assignments A significant part of the roles infrastructure is the ability to assign a user into multiple roles (at the same time). The capabilities of each role are merged to produce the effective set of capabilities. For example, a user could be both a Teacher and Student in the same course. You should be careful to ensure that if you change a user’s role that you remove them from any other roles as required as this will no longer be done automatically. Permissions Moodle allows specific roles to be able to change other specific role capabilities (permissions) based on the context. For example, a teacher in a course may want all students (users with a student role) to be able to edit all forums in that course. Or a teacher may want all students in a specific forum to be able to edit that forum. If you want to give a specific student the ability to edit a specific activity, see Override permissions. Course and activity permissions Role permissions for a course can be changed in Administration > Course administration > Users > Permissions and for a particular activity in Administration > Activity administration > Permissions. Click the Allow icon (+) opposite a capability to give permission to additional roles or the Prevent icon (X) to take away permission.46 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip

Block permissions Block permissions can be changed by: ••Turn editing on in the course ••Click the assign roles icon (a face and mask) in the header of the block •• Scroll down to the settings block and click the Permissions linkChecking permissionsThe check permissions feature provides a method to view all roles both in the current context and highercontexts and capabilities for a selected user based on their role assignments. These capabilities determinewhether or not the selected user is allowed to perform associated tasks within the system or course.A teacher can check permissions for their course in Administration > Course administration > Users > Permissions >Check permissions and for a particular activity in Administration > Activity administration > Check permissions. Compiled by www.HowToMoodle.com 47

An administrator can check system permissions in Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Check system permissions.The capability “Review permissions for others” (allowed for the default roles of manager, teacher and non-editing teacher), controls whether a user can check permissions. Capability overview report An administrator can generate a capability overview report in Site Administration > Users > Permissions > Capability report. The report allows the administrator to select a capability and one or more roles. The report will show the role and its permission level for that capability and whether that capability had been overridden for the role where in the site. For example, it might show that the gradereport:user view capability for a student role is set at the system level as “Allow” and for Course 1 it is set to “Prohibit”. It is possible to select more than one capability with more than one role and have an overview of all. Override permissions Overrides are specific permissions designed to override a role in a specific context, allowing you to “tweak” your permissions as required. Overrides may be used to “open up” areas by giving users extra permissions. For example, an override may be used to enable students to rate forum posts. Overrides may also be used to prevent actions, such as starting new discussions in an archived forum.48 Key: Teacher view Student view Admin setting Tip