What is Moodle?
Moodle is a free online Learning Management System (LMS). It is designed and built to support both teaching and learning for both blended and 100% online courses. You can download the software onto your own web server or enquire about our hosting services to assist you with setting up the platform.
FYI: We support Moodle version 3.4
Still on an old Moodle version and want to upgrade? Learn More about our Moodle Upgrade process.
Why Moodle?
- Open Source software
- Use anytime, anywhere, on any device
- Easy to learn and use
- Simple interface
- Drag and Drop features
- Highly flexible and fully customisable
If you are hosting Moodle elsewhere
- If Wisenet is NOT hosting Moodle for you then you only require our Wisenet Moodle Connector plugins
- If you have a different LMS? See our LMS Integration Options.
- If Wisenet is hosting Moodle for you, you can read more about Moodle below, and request for a demo session with our Moodle trainer.
How does it work?
STEP 1
Set Up and Configure
As your Moodle host, we will install the Moodle system, and the Wisenet Moodle Authentication, Enrolment and Grade plugins for you. Once complete you will be notified with all relevant details of your newly installed Moodle site.
Once you have Moodle installed you need to set up your Moodle Site. There are a number of options within the Moodle Site Administration screens. Below are the initial set up that you need to kick-start your Moodle. Feel free to watch the video along with following the step by step guide.
Important Note:
- Only Moodle Administrators can access Site Administration settings. You can adjust settings that affect your whole Moodle both in look and in functioning for all users.
- Use caution in editing Site Administration settings.
- Site Administration can be accessed in the Side Navigation and depending on your Theme, it may be on the left or the right, or you may need to click on a tab to open up the side navigation.
Edit Role Permissions
There are several user roles in Moodle and each role has different access permissions. When you understand the different user roles and access rights, you can take advantage of them and perform more advanced tasks. Roles can be added at the course level, or only for a particular resource or activity.
1. Permissions
Role permissions for a course can be changed in Course administration > Users > Permissions
Role permissions for a particular activity can be changed in Activity administration > Permissions
Learn More about Permissions in Moodle.
2. Assigning Roles
Assigning roles is done for a particular context. A 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.
3. Managing Roles
Managing overall role capabilities can be done by an administrator using Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles. This is the place to add custom roles or modify existing roles. The “Manage roles” tab, allows the system administrator to edit any one of over 350 different capabilities associated with any role.
NOTE: If you are unsure on how to perform advanced tasks with User Roles Permission in Moodle, we suggest that you leave them as default to begin with.
Set File Upload Limit
Upload file sizes are restricted in a number of ways and each one in this list restricts the following ones:
- Server level
- As your host, we set a limit on the maximum file upload size in the server environment. You will not have access to modify the maximum limit set at Server level.
- Moodle site level
- By default, your Moodle Site will have a File Upload limit of 100 MB maximum. If you require the size limit to be increased, you can do so by logging a support request and advise us the maximum limit you require and why. Please note, their may be a cost associated with this request if approved.
- Course level
- At Course level you can decide the largest size of file that students can upload to a course (no bigger than the maximum limit set at Site level which is 100 MB maximum). Site Administrators and Teachers with access to update will be able to change this in Course Settings by navigating to Course Administration for the relevant course, then click on Edit Settings, and Under Files and Uploads, select a file upload size limit relevant to your requirement.
- Activity level
- The maximum upload size at Activity level refers to each file a student uploads and this can be set manually by Admin or Teacher in Assignment Settings. On the relevant Course page, make sure that you have Editing Turned On. This will then provide you with the option to edit settings next to each activity on this Course page. Next to the relevant Assignment Activity, click on Edit and select Edit Settings. Click to expand Submission types, and change the Maximum submission size relevant to your requirement. Note that it cannot be larger than the limit set at Course level.
Grade Scales
Watch the video OR follow instructions below.
A scale is an ordered list of marks or text values, for example, Competent, Not Yet Competent, In Progress, that can be used as a marking strategy for assignment activities in Moodle. Administrators can create standard scales which are available across the site, as well as custom scales for individual courses.
Creating new scales can be done by Administrators and Teachers with editing rights. To add a new scale:
- Navigate to Course Administration
- Click on Grades, then select Scales
- Click Add a new scale
- Give your scale a name, i.e. BSB50111 UNIT A
- Optional, Tick if this is a Standard scale
- In the Scale box, use commas to separate each item, from most negative to most positive. For example if you have 5 items you can use the following example: IN PROGRESS, IN PROGRESS, IN PROGRESS, IN PROGRESS, COMPETENT.
- Moodle will only sync the total grade scale in Wisenet.
- Use the example above if you do not want to sync NYC results in Wisenet.
- If you would like only two options in your scales (Competent, Not Yet Competent), type it as: NOT YET COMPETENT, COMPETENT
- Optional, give your scale a detailed description
- Save changes
For every unit that should get updated, create a grade category in your Moodle Courses
- Go into the relevant Course and under Course Administration click on Gradebook setup
- Click the Add category button near the bottom of the page
- The Category Name should be the same (identical) to the Unit Code and this is mandetory, i.e:
- If you are trying to update ‘Unit A’ the Grade Category name should be Unit A
- If you are trying to update ‘Unit A’ and ‘Unit B’ the Grade Category name should be Unit A;Unit B
- For Aggregation method, choose either Mean of grades or Simple weighted mean of grades
- For Grade Type choose Scale
- For Scale choose the grading connector scale that you created in the Site Admin
- Leave everything else as default and click Save Changes
NOTE: The code should be the same as the code of the unit that should be updated.
- Under the Select Column, tick the activities you want to link and group to the relevant grade category
- Under Move selected items to, choose the grade category
- Click Continue
NOTE: You may have as many values as you like e.g. Pending Completion, RPL, but please note that only the total outcome will be synced in Wisenet and they are the National outcome of Competent and Not Yet Competent.
- For a grade scale value of ‘Competent‘ it will update the outcome in Wisenet to:
- 20 for Australia
- 2 for New Zealand (SDR outcome only)
- For a grade scale value of ‘Not Yet Competent‘ it will update the outcome in Wisenet to:
- 30 for Australia
- 4 for New Zealand (SDR outcome only)
Select and Install Moodle Theme (Optional)
Themes control the look of the overall site and it also generally include a settings page that allows the administrator to quickly control common configuration settings for branding such as adding custom colors or your organisation’s logo. On the Theme Selector page, you can assign a default theme for your site and separate themes for older legacy browsers, small screen mobile devices and larger screen tablets. The process for setting a theme is always the same.
Configure your Moodle Enrolment Plugin
As part of your Moodle hosting services, Wisenet has completed the plugin installation and you only need to now proceed with the configuration/set up.
Setting up your Moodle Integration should be a one time process. To reach the milestone of streamlined automation, some complex setup is required. Follow from Step 2 in the link below comprehensively.
Custom and Third-Party Plugins
Moodle provides you with a directory of custom plugins that you can try and install if required. You may also purchase and install third-party plugins compatible to your version of Moodle.
Wisenet does not install custom and third-party plugins for you, however, as your Moodle host, if you encounter installation issues with a custom plugin that is in Moodle directory or a third-party plugin that you have purchased, we can help you with installation. Simply log a support ticket and provide us with details of the plugins and what issues you are facing with the installation process. For third-party plugins, you need to provide us with the purchased files.
While we may help you with the installation process, what we do NOT help with, are:
- To configure the plugins
- To troubleshoot issues with the plugins
For any configuration and troubleshooting of custom and third-party plugins you will need to contact the plugin developers.
STEP 2
Basic Course Set Up on Moodle
Please note that Wisenet is NOT responsible for your Moodle content, however we can provide guidance with some best practices for setting up Courses and Course Categories in Moodle.
IMPORTANT: Things to consider before setting up a course in Moodle
1. How do you want your Learners to access units/modules?
- If you want your Learners to be enrolled into only one unit at a time, then create each unit as a course.
- If you want your Learners to be enrolled in clusters / units of study, then create each cluster / unit of study as a course.
- If you want your Learners to be enrolled into the entire course but have restricted access into units, then create the entire qualification as a course. Then, apply restrictions to each topic/assessments. See Restrict access settings
2. How do you want to organise your Courses? See Course categories.
- Note: If you are creating your units as courses, then create your course/qualification as the category. You can also create your faculty as the category and course as your sub category.
3. What is your delivery strategy/format? See Course Formats
4. Do you have trainer resources that require to be hidden within a course? See Enabling Stealth Activities
STEP 3
Integrate Moodle with Wisenet
The Moodle Integration uses a secure connection to Wisenet to synchronise your Learner and Enrolment data. It allows you to link Wisenet and Moodle to simplify the ELearning Enrolment, Access, and Grading processes.
Get started by:
- Linking Wisenet Courses to Moodle
- Setting up Grade Categories
- Learn more about the full functionality of Wisenet Moodle Connector
NOTE: About Learner and Trainer Enrolment into Moodle Courses
- Once you have linked your Moodle courses to Wisenet, all Learners within the Moodle course will be automatically synced(enrolled) into their respective Moodle course
- Trainers/Assessors/Teachers/Other staff will NOT be automatically synced (enrolled) into a Moodle course. They will need to be manually added to Moodle and manually enrolled into their respective Moodle course(s). Learn More? How to Add and Remove Moodle Teachers and Course Managers