All ITS Blogs

Availability: course, gradebook, item, section, block

Notes

By default our Moodle courses are closed to students until the teacher changes the availability setting. The video below demonstrates how to change course and gradebook availability, and also how to hide various elements on the main course page. Teachers will also find options for timed release of materials in the settings for individual activities and resources.

Downloads:
https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/departments/ITS/Academic%20Computing/Moodle/moodle2-public-video/who-sees-what.mp4
https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/departments/ITS/Academic%20Computing/Moodle/moodle2-public-video/who-sees-what.webm
https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/departments/ITS/Academic%20Computing/Moodle/moodle2-public-video/who-sees-what.ogv

To modify the course or gradebook availability

1. In the Settings navigation on your main course page, click on “Edit settings”
2. Set the dropdown options for course or gradebook availability as desired
3. Remember to save your changes by clicking the button at the bottom of the page

To hide or reveal items on the main course page

1. Turn editing on
2. Toggle the “eye” icon for the relevant item, section or sidebar block
3. Grayed out items are hidden from students

Wesleyan has launched the newly redesigned ITS Training & Documentation website. You can view the site by visiting http://www.wesleyan.edu/training/.

Wesleyan has launched the newly redesigned WesStation website. You can view the site by visiting http://www.wesleyan.edu/wesstation/.

Wesleyan has launched the newly redesigned ITS website. You can view the site by visiting http://www.wesleyan.edu/its/.

Wesleyan has launched the newly redesigned Construction Services website. You can view the site by visiting http://www.wesleyan.edu/construction/.

ITS is going to be performing major system maintenance on two Saturdays, January 5 and 12, beginning at 8:00AM.  The work on our data storage systems is designed to be non-disruptive and should not have an impact on our community.  In the event that there is an impact to services, we will notify the community via email, Facebook and Twitter.

Wesleyan has launched the newly redesigned Immigration Services website. You can view the site by visiting http://www.wesleyan.edu/immigration/.

The Internet performance issues with our primary service provider were resolved this evening.  ITS restored the service back from our backup provider.  We learned that the problem was due to a fiber cut in New Jersey that affected a large number of their customers.

We are experiencing performance problems with our Internet access.  We are currently working with our provider to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

One of the most common uses of Moodle is to share PDF files. When a user clicks on a PDF file link, Moodle sometimes tries to open its own PDF reader within the user’s web browser. Unfortunately that approach causes problems for a number of users. In order to improve that experience we have changed the default file display method on Moodle 2 to “Force download.” The change will apply only to new file resources, and it can easily be overriden. In the settings for the file look for the “Display” drop-down:

Using the new default “Force download” will ensure the widest accessibility to your PDF files. For certain other file types, video or images for example, you may prefer to use one of the other display options in order to allow users to view the media in their browser. In that case “Automatic” may be the best choice.