The instructor has the ability to change certain options under course settings. Some settings are populated automatically with information when the course is created at Site level and therefore cannot be changed.
The detailed explanation of the Course settings is described below.
Course full name - It is displayed on course lists on front page and on the Dashboard.
Course short name - Is used in instances where the Course full name is not suitable due to being too long, such as Navigation block.
Course category - Helps users to easily search and find their courses.
Course visibility - Determines whether students have access to the course. The course can also be made visible by changing the Course visibility to ‘Show’.
Course start and end date - Course dates determine where a course will be placed on students’ course overview, which is: ‘In progress’; ‘Future’ or ‘Past’.
Course ID number - This number is not displayed anywhere on SUNLearn.
The Course full name and Course short name should match the information on the Student Information System (SIS). The Course short name cannot be edited.
A lecturer has an option to enter a course summary, which will be displayed on the course overview page. The lecturer can also upload an image to their course. This image will be displayed at the top of the Course page and on the Dashboard.
The image uploaded on the Course summary file will be centred when displayed on the dashboard and Course page.
Format - The Edwiser Course Format is SU’s official SUNLearn Format
Hidden Sections - It is recommended to keep Hidden sections invisible from students.
Choose layout - This is the layout the course will be displayed in. The card layout is recommended.
Course Layout - The course layout has been set for the whole course to be displayed on one page and not split over several pages.
Set the section/activities summary maximum length - Maximum summary length for activities and sections in the course.
Choose default sections view - Section views can either be expanded or collapsed
Force theme - The theme for the university is the Edwiser RemUI.
Force language - An instructor can force English as the course language
Number of announcements - The number of recent announcements that will be displayed on the announcement block.
Show gradebook to students - For students to be able to view their grades, this setting must be set to ‘Yes’
Show activity reports - When this option is enabled, the students will be able to view their own activity reports from their profile page.
Instructors can further restrict the upload file size when creating specific activities.
There are different completion requirements for different activities, therefore it is recommended that an instructor completes the criteria for Activity completion tracking settings on specific activities.
Depending on the type of activity, there are different completion requirements. For example, a Page might have the requirement to require view; a Quiz might have the requirement to require grade while a Forum might have the requirement to require posts/discussions/replies.
There are generally three activity completion settings:
Do not indicate activity completion - This will not show checks(ticks)next to the activity
Students can manually mark the activity as completed - Students press the check (tick) to change it.
Show activity as complete when conditions are met - The selected completion criteria must be met before the check(tick) will change style
When this option is turned on, students have to view the activity in order to complete it. In most cases, clicking the link is enough to 'view' the activity.
You should usually not turn on the 'view' condition if you have other requirements - this makes extra work for the server and it's unlikely that a student could meet any other conditions without viewing the activity.
When this option is turned on, students have to get a grade on the activity in order to complete it. For example, a quiz would be marked completed as soon as the user submits it. It does not matter how well the student did. Getting any grade will mark the activity completed.
It is possible to distinguish between 'pass' and 'fail' grades so that the activity becomes 'completed, passed' or 'completed, not passed' instead of just 'completed'. These results show a different icon and alternative text.
To set this up, you need to specify the pass value for this activity's individual grade:
- Go to the course gradebook by clicking the 'Grades' link on the course administration block.
- From the 'Choose an action' dropdown, pick 'Categories and items'.
- Click the Edit icon next to the grade item for this activity.
- Turn on 'Show Advanced'.
- Type a grade value (e.g. 5.0) in the 'Grade to pass' box.
Once you have done this, anybody submitting the quiz will receive either the pass or fail completion icon. If the quiz can be taken multiple times, the completion icon will automatically update whenever the grade does.
There is one limitation: this only works if grades are immediately visible to students. The grade must be neither permanently hidden, nor hidden until a certain date. If a grade is hidden then only the standard 'completed' state will be displayed - even once the hidden date has passed.
The date is not shown to students and is only displayed in the Activity completion report.
This setting is seen in forums. For the forum to be classed as "complete" the student must either start a discussion or reply to a discussion. The number of posts they must make can be specified in the box.
This setting is seen in forums. For the forum to be classed as "complete", the student must start a discussion topic. The number of posts they must make can be specified in the box.
This setting is seen in forums. For the forum to be classed as "complete" the student must reply to a discussion. The number of posts they must make can be specified in the box.
If at least one person has completed an activity, completion options are 'locked'. This is because changing these options may result in unexpected behaviour. For example, if somebody has ticked an activity as manually completed, and you then set it to automatic completion, the activity will become unticked - very confusing for the student who had already ticked it.
What happens when you unlock
- Once you unlock options and then click 'Save changes', all completion information for the activity will be deleted and, if possible, regenerated according to the new settings.
- If the new completion option is manual, everyone will be set to 'not completed' regardless of any previous setting.
- If it is automatic then, depending on the options chosen, the system may or may not be able to construct a correct current value for everyone.
- The 'viewed' requirement will not work - even if a student has viewed the activity before, it will not be marked completed until they view it again.
- Most other options will be recalculated successfully.
If you change completion options while a student is logged in, they may not see the changes for some minutes.
To use activity completion, the feature needs to be enabled for the site by an administrator as follows:
- In Settings > Site administration > Advanced features check the "Enable completion tracking".
Settings > Course administration > Edit settings and look for the Student progress section.
You must select at least "Enabled, control via (course) completion and activity settings".
The option to create groups can be enabled if:
- An instructor wants to filter activities and gradebook so they can be displayed as per group settings.
- The course is being shared with other instructors. Creating class groups will filter activities and gradebook so instructors don’t see the students from their colleagues’ classes.
- An instructor wants to allocate a particular activity, resource or topic section to just one class or specific users, this will restrict others from seeing it.
The default is set at No groups.
A group or grouping can be used on two levels:
- Course level: The group mode defined at the course level is the default mode for all activities defined within that course. To use groups you need first to set a group mode.
- Activity level: Each activity that supports groups can also have its own group mode defined. If the course setting “Force group mode” is set to “Yes” then the option to define the group mode for individual activities is not available. If it is set to “No”, then the teacher may change the group mode.
There are three group modes: ‘No groups’; ‘Separate groups’ and ‘Visible groups’
- No groups - The course does not contain any groups.
- Separate groups - Each group can only see their own group, others are invisible.
- Visible groups - Each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups.
Force group mode - It is recommended to set the Force group mode on ‘No’. If the group mode is "forced" at course-level, then this particular group mode will be applied to every activity in that course. This will override any activities that may have a special group setting.
Default grouping - This setting is always set to ‘None’
Role renaming is an option for facilitators but it is not recommended. For example, an instructor may change Facilitator role to "Lecturer" at course level. These new role names will appear within the course such as on the participants’ page.
It is not recommended that instructors rename roles at course level as it may confuse some students.
Tags are keywords that identify content that relates to the tagged words.
Lecturers can create new tag words if the required word does not exist in the standard tag list, or may use existing standard tag words.