Course

Course

Create a new course page

Site administrators, site managers, and course creators can create new courses as follows:

Go to Site administration > Courses > Manage courses and categories.
Choose the category you want you course to sit in (this can be changed later).
Click the Create new course
Complete the Course settings as described below.
Click Save Changes.

Your course is now set up.

If you are given permission to set courses up at a category level, your steps differ slightly. You can:

Click on Find Learning > Coursesin the main menu.
Click the Create course
Complete the Course settings as described below.
Click Save and display.

Your course is now set up.

Course formats

LearningZone provides you with a number of options for the general format of your course. You can choose to order your course chronologically by week, conceptually by topic, or socially with a big forum as the central organising principle. The course formats options are:

Single activity format

The course will include one activity only without any sections. Choose the type of activity that you want to appear when the course is selected. This format is suitable for courses that have just one activity.

Social format

The social format is based on a single forum for the whole course, It’s useful for less formal courses or for non-training uses such as maintaining departmental sites.

Topics format

When you create a course using the topics format, you start by choosing the number of topics you will cover. LearningZone creates a section for each topic. You can add content, forums, quizzes, and other activities to each topic section. If your course design is concept-oriented, and learners will be working through a range of concepts but not necessarily according to a fixed schedule, this is a good choice.

Weekly format

With this format, you specify a course start date and the number of weeks the course is to run. LearningZone will create a section for each week of your course, The current week is highlighted. You can add content, forums, quizzes, and so on in the section for each week. If you want all your learners to work on the same materials at the same time, this is a good format to choose.

Setting the course format

To set the course format:

Click Edit settingsin the Course Administration
Select the course format from the drop-down list just below the course summary.
- For the weekly format, set the start date and the number of week.
- For the topic format, set the number of topics.
- For the social format, set the course start date. You don’t need to worry about the number of weeks or topics.
Click Save and display.

LearningZone allows you to switch between formats if you find that a given format isn’t working for you. Simply follow the preceding instructions and select a different format. You can also add or remove topics or weeks at any time. So you don’t have to worry too much about locking yourself into a format before you really understand the system.

Course sections

Course sections are displayed in the centre of the course page.

To edit a course section

Click the Turn editing on
Click the edit icon after the section title.

If Conditional activities are enabled for the site, access to the section (including all activities and resources within it) may be restricted for learners.

The number of course sections in the centre column may be changed in the Administration block under Course administration > Edit settings or by clicking the plus or minus icons at the bottom of the course page when editing is turned on.

To move a course section

Click the Turn editing on
Click the up/down arrow or the crosshairs icon to move the section.
Drag the section to where you want to position it and let go.

The ability to move course sections is controlled by the capability course:movesections, which is allowed for the default role of trainer.

To delete a course section

With the editing turned on, click Edit then Delete topic next to the course section you wish to delete. You will be prompted to confirm your wish to delete the section and its contents.

All activities inside the section and their user data will also be deleted. This operation cannot be reversed.

To link course sections

An admin setting Always link course sections can be enabled from Site administration > Appearance > Navigation so that when a course section name is clicked in the navigation block or the central content area, it will go directly to that section.

Course settings

Course page settings control how a course behaves in terms of, for example, enrolments, availability, file upload restrictions, course name. It is the first page viewed after creating a course.

Course page settings can be edited through the Edit settings option on the Course administration menu or directly from the course categories page by clicking on the editing icon next to the course name.

General