The Course Overview block (aka Moodle Dashboard) has been updated in Moodle 3.5.
Staff and students can still use the course overview block in the center of their Moodle dashboard to access their courses, check their progress and view upcoming deadlines.
The way the courses are displayed has changed from the previous long list, to two tabs focused on a timeline approach or a course life-cycle approach. In Moodle 3.5 instructors can add a course image in the course settings. If no image is added, a coloured pattern displays as the image on the dashboard. Please see below for more information.
The Timeline tab
The Timeline tab displays upcoming activity due dates, if due dates have been set for that activity. Activities displaying in the timeline can be sorted by dates or by courses.
Clicking on the link next to the due date of the activity, e.g. 'Answer the questions' will take the student directly to the activity page, where they can complete and submit the activity.
The Courses tab
The Courses tab displays a list of the student's in progress, future and past courses. Next to each course, if the progress bar for the course has been enabled for chosen activities by the course administrator, students can view a percentage icon indicating their progress in the course.
Important:
All Moodle courses have a start and end date, in the control of the instructor. If not updated, the start date is the day the course was created by the school TELT Administrator, and the end date is left blank.
It is very important that the start/end dates are kept up to date, as they control whether the course exists in the In Progress, Future or Past tabs. If the end date was left blank or set in the future, it will be in the In Progress tab.
A course end date of 23 November 2017 has been set for teaching courses in teaching periods up to Semester 2, 2017 so that the courses are correctly displayed in the Past tab after the Moodle upgrade.
For teaching courses starting from Summer Semester, 2018, every course will have an end date of 8 months from its start date automatically added when the course is created in Moodle.
From Summer Semester 2018, every course will have an end date of 8 months from the date it was created in Moodle. Each faculty/school will manage the end date according to their business requirements.
Percentage activity completion
As part of the Moodle 3.3 upgrade (November 2017), Moodle introduced a new course overview look. As part of the changes, the introduction of a percentage display was introduced.
The percentage display on the course overview page will only be enabled if the course has activity completion enabled.
This percentage value which users may see, relates only to the percentage of activities (with activity completion) that have been completed. The percentages do not relate to course completion or the individual grade.
Not all activities will be displayed on the Moodle dashboard. The following table summarises which activities and resources will or will not be displayed on the dashboard.
| Activity/Resource | Can display on Moodle Dashboard |
|---|---|
| Choice Activity | Yes |
| Chat | Yes |
| Blackbaord collaborate | Yes |
| Database | Yes |
| External Tool | Yes |
| Feedback Activity | Yes |
| Forum | Yes |
| Glossary | Yes |
| Lesson | Yes |
| Quiz | Yes |
| Lecture Recordings+ | Yes |
| Wiki activity | Yes |
| Workshop activity | Yes |
| Book | Yes |
| Page | Yes |
| Label | Yes |
| Turnitin | No |
| Dialog | No |
| Group selection | No |
| H5P interactive content | No |
| Media collection | No |
| MoodleRooms forum | No |
| OU Blog | No |
| OU Wiki | No |
| Questionnaire | No |
| Reading game | No |
| Scheduler | No |
| Team builder | No |
| Lightbox gallery | No |
Use the search bar when looking for a specific course on Moodle. This is useful when you know the name of a course, but don't have the direct link on Moodle.
This can be found by selecting Site Home in the Navigation block.
After entering keywords into the search bar, your results will show. If the course has an image, it will also be shown in the results.
By default, a coloured pattern is displayed as the image for a course on the dashboard. Instructors can edit the course image in their course settings. To edit a course image:
- In the Settings block > Course administration in your course home page, click on Edit settings.
- Upload the image you wish to use as your course image in the Course summary files under Description settings.
- Click Save and display to save your course image.
Note: Use an image size of approximately 960px x 150px for the image's size to be correctly proportioned on the Dashboard.