Guidelines For Instructors

It is important to set clear parameters and communicate realistic expectations to your online students. This will help you and your students have a positive experience

Technology Requirements

Be sure to communicate any specific technology requirements for your course, in addition to the general Moodle ones. Here are the technical recommendations for using Moodle. Feel free to use these in your course introductory documents There are more detailed versions of these recommendations in the "Getting Started" section on the Moodle home page:

Browser:

  • The latest version of the popular browsers Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari (older browser versions may not provide full functionality in Moodle)
  • Note: at least IE 10 is required to support drag and drop of files into Moodle from outside the browser

Browser settings:

  • javascript should be enabled for SCC's Moodle site
  • pop ups should not blocked for SCC's Moodle site
  • If you block javascript and/or pop ups in your browser, you will need to create exceptions for Moodle in your browser settings

Mobile:

  • Moodle has an official app for mobile phones called "Moodle Mobile." This app is very useful and can allow you and your students to participate in many parts of your course using a smartphone. However, at this time we do not recommend that students use a mobile device as their primary method of interacting with their online classes.

Course-Specific Guidelines and Expectations

In addition to general technical requirements, you should also make your students aware of your other course-specific guidelines. These may include (among others):

  • Information about your behavoral expectations for students in dealing with you and their peers (netiquette)
  • Details about posting to discussion boards (how often; at what level; responding to other student posts)
  • Expectations for how much time they should expect to give to completing course work/for how often they should access the class
  • A summary of your schedule in the class: how and when they can contact you; how quickly you will respond

Have a quiz!

One suggestion to have students interact with your expectations at the beginning of the semester is to have a quiz or other assignment related to it. A low-stakes assessment can ensure that they have reviewed your expectations and that they have practice using the activity, such as the quiz activity, so that they will be ready to use it for higher-stakes assessments later in the semester!