With Spring 2014 classes set to begin on Tuesday, January 21, we have some information to help make sure you are ready for the start of the semester:

• Most Moodle courses open to students on Friday, January 17
• Make sure your TAs have access to Moodle
• How to request your Spring 2014 on-campus Moodle courses
• How to reuse a previous Moodle course
• Where to get help with Moodle

Moodle Courses Open on Friday, January 17

Most Spring 2014 Moodle courses will be available to students on Friday, January 17, starting at approximately 12:00 p.m. If you are not ready for students to see your course, you can hide individual elements of the course or hide the entire course.

For more information, see:

http://www.oit.umass.edu/moodle/important-settings

For questions or help with when your Moodle course opens, please contact the Instructional Media Lab (413-545-2823 or instruct@oit.umass.edu).

TA Access to Moodle

Your TA must be listed in SPIRE as a Teaching Assistant in order to have access to your Moodle course. By default, TAs automatically receive access to Moodle in the role of Non-Editing Teacher, which allows them to access student resources and activities, and read and grade student submissions.

For more details on this process, see:

https://www.oit.umass.edu/moodle-ta-access

For questions or help with giving your TAs access to Moodle, please contact the Instructional Media Lab (413-545-2823 or instruct@oit.umass.edu).

Request Your Spring 2014 Moodle Course in SPIRE

To request Moodle for your Spring 2014 on-campus course(s), log in to SPIRE at https://www.spire.umass.edu with your OIT Account NetID and password. In the Menu, go to Faculty Home > Moodle Course Request. You will go through a series of screens that will gather information about your course. For more details, see:

https://www.oit.umass.edu/support/spire/request-a-moodle-course-through-spire

Note: On-campus courses for the College of Nursing will not be listed as eligible for Moodle in SPIRE. (Instructors teaching in this college require approval to use Moodle.)

For questions or help with requesting a Moodle course in SPIRE, please contact the Instructional Media Lab (413-545-2823 or instruct@oit.umass.edu).

Reuse an Existing Moodle Course

You’ll need to request a new Moodle course each semester you teach a class. Once a new empty Moodle course “shell” has been created, you can use the Moodle Import feature to move content from the course you would like to reuse into the new course shell. For step-by-step instructions, see:

http://www.oit.umass.edu/support/moodle/reuse-a-moodle-course-using-import

You can import a course you taught in a previous semester that is still on the Moodle server, or a course belonging to another instructor if you have their permission to copy it.

For questions or help with reusing an existing Moodle course, please contact the Instructional Media Lab (413-545-2823 or instruct@oit.umass.edu).

Moodle Help and Resources for Instructors

To learn more about Moodle or to get help, you can:

• Review our support documentation at: http://www.oit.umass.edu/moodle

•  Contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@oit.umass.edu |413-545-2823) with a question, or to set up a time for a one-on-one consultation.