Fall 2023 Course Requests Open in SPIRE April 19
Fall 2023 course requests open in SPIRE on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
Summer 2023 course requests are currently available in SPIRE, so you can get an early start on your course building.
If you haven’t done so already, you can still request your Spring 2023 Moodle course in SPIRE. Don’t forget that each semester you will need to request Moodle for the courses you are teaching.
For step by step instructions on requesting a Moodle course, see:
If you request a Moodle course after the first day of classes, you will need to manually make your course available to students once you are ready.
Moodle Tip of the Month: Use Groups to Support Group Work
Did you know Groups in Moodle let you do more than just grade group work in Assignments? Groups in Moodle let you create spaces for online group collaboration in Wikis and forums, in the database activity, and more. You can even let students self-select their groups, or Upload a group list into Moodle.
Planned Downtimes
There are no planned downtimes outside of regular maintenance windows for April 2023.
Scheduled routine maintenance windows for UMass Amherst Moodle in the Cloud are Thursdays 11pm-12am (ET). Regular maintenance is a necessity for a stable, secure, and improving service. Many of these maintenance windows will not actually have the site unavailable for more than a few minutes, but it is still not advised to plan activities or set due dates during maintenance windows.
You can check the status of Moodle, Zoom, and other supported teaching technologies on the IT Services Status for Remote Teaching and Learning page.
Moodle Help and Resources for Instructors
To learn more about Moodle or to get help, you can:
- Review our Moodle Support Articles.
- Contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@umass.edu) with a question, or to set up a time for a one-on-one consultation.
- Request a consultation with an Instructional Designer.
- Join our Instructor Support Zoom room between 10am and 3pm to meet with a staff member.