Get IT Connected - Spring 2018

Notes from Winter Welcome - Getting setup & Connected with JSC IT

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z77VwzpvxaNzq7PpCr78Msaf36SFth3i/view?usp=sharing

Contact IT with any questions,
635-1415

Access to F17 & Prior Semesters

Need to access old classes for backup or students have Incompletes?  You need access to the
"OLD LEARN" Moodle
https://oldlearn.vsc.edu

Courses from Fall 2017, Summer 2017, and Spring 2017 exist at https://oldlearn.vsc.edu

*All of these courses are “Hidden” from students at this time.

If students need to access materials for these courses, faculty must:

1.       Login at https://oldlearn.vsc.edu , the login button is in the upper right, use your current VSC credentials

2.    To enable the course to “show” for students:

Course Administration-->Edit Settings --> change Visibility to “Show”

*if you need students to access…

3.       Instruct students to Login at https://oldlearn.vsc.edu to access their course

If Instructors need to make a Backup to Restore a Spring 2018 Class:

A. Login to https://oldlearn.vsc.edu and Choose: Backup, 

B. Download the .mbz file to your computer,

C. Go to Moodle 3, live production server,

D. Upload and Restore to your S18 course

Forum = No Groups

A common activity for many of you, is to create a Forum, and ask that students make the FIRST post in a Forum.

                ie: “Please introduce yourself to the class…”

Unless your forum is set to “No Groups”,  students can't make the First Post.  Instead they’ll see “You do not have permission to add a new discussion topic for all participants.”

To fix this and allow students to make the first post:

                On the forum (front page with Editing Turned On) –> Edit--Edit Settings

                Common Module Settings –> Set Group Mode to No Groups -> Save

*You can also set the Default setting for the entire course to “No Groups” by going to Gear in the Upper Right, Edit Settings, Groups, & set Group Mode to No Groups.  This way when you create a Forum or Quiz or Assignment you won’t need to worry about student access to it.

**It should be noted that this “default” setting in Moodle varies depending on how the course was created (Colleague, Sandbox, or from an Imported/Restored course).

Per usual, please send Moodle issues my way, or submit a helpdesk request to notify us ASAP of any irregularities!

Backup & Archive Moodle Classes

Its very important to understand that NVU nor VSC Backup old Moodle Courses!
VSC Policy is to keep Moodle courses only 1 year + 1 month from the start date of the course.  For courses that Instructors wish to "re-use" in a new semester = 
1. For courses WITHIN this 13 month window, you can use IMPORT to replicate the course.
2. For courses BEYOND this 13 month window, Instructors are responsible to make their own BACKUP and ARCHIVE to replicate into a new semester!
Simply put - IF you plan to re-use a course in a semester more than 1 year in the future, you must make a Backup & Archive that backup to be Restored into your future course.
Even Simpler - Backup & Archive, even if you don't think you have to!

Here's how...

Backup & Archive  in 9 Easy steps:

1. Login to Moodle – like you didn’t already know that ;-)
2. Select Gear in upper right, choose Backup
3. Select: Jump to Final Step
4. Select: Continue
5. *That’s the backup, now let’s ARCHIVE IT!!!  
6. From the “User Private backup area”, find the course you just backed up, based on the “Time” stamp, and you'll notice your course number in the title.

Select: Download

7. Depending on your browser settings, the file may download directly into your downloads folder (or another folder on your computer as designated in browser settings).  Locate this downloaded file – which ends in “.mbz”
8. *Do NOT try to open it. The file can only be opened by Restoring back into Moodle, which isn’t necessary at this time.  You need to save this file someplace “safe”.  Good places would be a backup or USB drive, a cloud storage site like Google or One Drive (preferred location).  Another GREAT place to save this file would be on your network (Z: or P: Drive).  A Poor decision would be to keep this file on your current computer!
9. Copy the .mbz file to a safe location, where we can access it, semesters in the future, when it’s time to Restore it to Moodle.

That’s it.  Take a few minutes to backup your classes.  You’ll be glad you did when it’s time to copy over a previous Gradebook setup, or Quiz or Assignment.

NOW that you’re an expert, this is the perfect time to BACKUP & ARCHIVE all of your current courses!  They will be GONE in 13 months from their start date :-(