Tag: people

Finding your way around

This section introduces the course homepage and explains how to navigate your way around the course website and the course materials. When you access a course, you can see your course material. There is a user menu to set your preferences and complete your personal profile, and a collapsed menu drawer. See below for details of each.

Please note: The screenshots below are illustrative only. Your course may not include all the blocks shown here in the menu drawer, and may include others not shown here.

Your course homepage

Your course homepage will be the main page you use to access the course materials, activities and other features of your course. You can scroll down to access the materials for each unit or module.

If you are studying a short course, the main course material for you to study each week is indicated by the book icon. You may also see forums, chat sessions, polls, surveys, InfoMaps and any other activities or resources you will use during your course.

User menu

Selecting the user icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen gives you access to the user menu, where you can upload a profile picture, change your notification settings and preferences.

Menu drawer

You will be able to access advanced tools and functionalities in the Menu drawer. To see it, you can click on the thumbnail with an arrow in the top right-hand corner of your screen menu drawer icon.

When the Menu drawer expands, you will be able to scroll up and down to see a number of blocks as described below.

Please note, the blocks available in the drawer may be different depending on which page you are on, and which course you are studying.

The Navigation block
You can move around your course materials via the Navigation block.

Clickarrow icon to expand the relevant section and click any of the links to navigate to that section or feature of the course. From here you can move from one unit to another, without going back to the course homepage.

You can also use the breadscrumb trail in the website header, below the course name. Click on your course title in the top banner at any point to return to the course homepage. You can also use your browser’s back and forward buttons.

Other blocks
Below the Navigation block, you will see a number of other blocks. These provide essential tools and resources to help you study online. Your course will contain some or all of the following blocks. For example, the search forum, recent activity, and activity shortcut blocks.

Search forums

To search the forums, enter the text you are looking for in the box and then click the spy glass icon. For a more specific search, click Advanced search. Remember the search facility only searches the discussion forums, not the course materials.

Recent activity

This displays a list of recent activities within the course, together with a link to the item and a full report of all recent activity. The number and nature of the items displayed will depend on the amount and type of activities included in the course.

You may find this block particularly useful to see if any new postings have been made in the discussion forums since you last logged in.

Activities

This lists the different activities available in your course. Clicking on a link will display a list of all available activities of that type.

The most commonly used activities are Forums and Assignments. Forums are a central part of an online course so for more details on how to use the forums see the Discussion forums page.

Oxford University Press Online Resources

Access to Oxford University Press Online Resources is available to some students.

If you are studying a short course with access to Oxford University Press Online Resources, you can access the resources via the link in the OUP Online Resources block. There may also be links to specific resources in your course materials. There is more information on the Oxford University Press online resources page.

Administration

This provides you with context-sensitive options and you will see a different list of links for different features of the course.

For example, if you are on a short course and navigate to a unit and then a chapter, you will see options to print the content of that chapter or the entire book. If you look at the Administration block when you are in a forum you will see options to subscribe and unsubscribe to that forum.

A quick guide to Moodle

Most of our online courses use a learning platform called Moodle.

The following guide is designed for confident web users who would like a brief introduction to Moodle. For more advice and support you might like to browse the Using Moodle area from the homepage.

You can get to this site at any time during your study by clicking the  button which you will see in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

How do I find my way around?

All features of your course can be found by visiting the course homepage. The homepage gives you links to all your course resources and discussion forums. The current week will be highlighted so you can easily find the materials for that week. You can get back to the homepage from anywhere in your course by clicking on the title of your course in the top banner.

Menu drawer

On the course homepage, you can open the main menu by clicking on the tab at the far right of the course title bar.

This will open the Menu drawer.

In this drawer you will find menus (or blocks) such as Navigation, Recent activity, Activities and Search forums. These provide quick access to the course content, recent postings, discussion topics and any subscription based resources that you can access while studying with us.

How do I update my profile and preferences?

In your Profile and Preferences, you can…

  • Share your photo.
  • Add information about yourself.
  • Change your password.
  • Set your notifications for forum posts and other features.

Finding your Profile and Preferences works differently depending on the type of course you are taking.

Short online courses

Login to Portal and remain on the site (do not click through to your course). Click on your name or picture in the top banner, choose Preferences. This must be done from Portal. If you are already in the course when you want to make this change, use the link back to the Portal page from User details in your profile (see image below).

Award-bearing courses

Login to your course and click on your name or picture in the top banner and choose Profile or Preferences.

How do I view my assignments?

Your Assignment details and submission pages are indicated by the  icon.  If your course has the Activities block click Assignments to see a list of all your assignments and their due dates. Click on a particular assignment to go to the details and submission page for that assignment.

How do forums work?

Forums are places for you to communicate with your fellow students and tutors; they can be accessed through links in the content, from the Activities block or by clicking on the links next to the  icon.

If you want to join in a discussion, click on the discussion title to open it, then click on the Reply link under any post.

If you want to start a discussion on a new subject, click the button Add discussion topic at the top of the page. This will take you to a new page to enter your discussion topic. Click Post to forum when you have finished to post your message.

You can find a few useful tips to use forums below, or for more detailed information on forums please go to the Discussion forums page.

Subscribe to a forum

Subscribing to a forum means you will be sent an email 30 minutes after somebody posts a message in that forum.

To subscribe to a discussion thread, in the Subscribe column on the forum overview page, click on the toggle so it turns red. Or from within the thread, use the settings option at the top right of the page and choose Subscribe to this discussion.

To subscribe to every thread in the forum you can click Subscribe to this forum from the first page of the forum).

To change your notification settings for all forums, click on your profile picture or name following the instructions above, and choose Preferences, then Forum preferences. For example, you can set the Forum tracking option to Yes: highlight new posts for me to see how many new posts there are in each forum when you log in. There are also Notification preferences to set your email notification preferences.

Search forums

You can type a keyword in the text box on the forum overview page to search all the discussion forums for your course.

How do I find out who else is on the course?

To see who else is studying the course, go to the course homepage and from the Navigation block, click Participants. You can also find your tutor’s email address by clicking to view their profile.