We’ve got a series of posts to help you prepare for the new academic year on Moodle. This is our fourth post and looks at the module dashboard in both City Course Format and Grid Format modules.

Module dashboards

In modules using the City Course Format, the Module dashboard provides easy access to Activities available in the module and Quick links to key services including Timetabling, Reading Lists and Library Guides.

Modules which use the default City Course Format will continue to display the dashboard in the centre of the module page as before. Please note that if you had edited your dashboard to change the order of the icons or to hide any icons, these changes will be overwritten in modules for the current academic year 2023-24 following the Moodle maintenance period of 16^th July. Rest assured that revealing the activity link will not make any hidden activities available to students. Also if you have all Assignments, for example, hidden on your module, then the link to Assignments will not be visible to students. The reset will only reveal links that you have manually hidden.

In modules for the new academic year, the Module dashboard will work as it has done previously. Quick links will be available to Timetable, Reading Lists and Library Guides and links to different activity types will display once you add an activity of that type to your module.

When the Grid format was introduced to Moodle, modules using this format did not have the Module dashboard.

An Activities block could be added to the module but this did not include the essential Quick links. So unless the links to Reading Lists, Library Guides or Timetable were added to a section of the module, there was no easy way for students to access them from the module.

From 16^th July, new modules using the Grid format will have the Module dashboard block in the block drawer on the right of a module. This replicates the content of standard Module dashboard and will contain both Activities and Quick links to Reading Lists, Library Guides and Timetabling. This will make it easier for students to access key content.

Modules using Grid format for the academic year 2023-24 will retain the activities block and will not have the Module dashboard block added.

You can choose to activate the Grid Format as long as all modules within a Programme agree to adopt this course format. Having different formats for different modules within a Programme will impact on module consistency and make it more challenging for students to find content.

Before applying the Grid format, review the information on limitations with this format.

Our training programme this summer will concentrate on revising Moodle basics, especially creating and marking assessments. There is a new workshop on tips and tricks to make working with Moodle 4 as efficient as possible, and one that compares and contrasts all the assessment tools available in Moodle. There will also be regular hands-on, in-person introductions to the teaching room presentation systems nearly every Tuesday and Thursday. To see details of the full range of workshops and to book, please see the LEaD training calendar.

Our next post in this series is on the Grid format and rollover.