Most of us choose to organize our Moodle courses by either dates or topics. Choosing your course format and updating the weekly dates are handled in the Edit settings link displayed when you click on the course admin gear in the upper right corner of your course main page. Whichever format you choose, you can customize the section titles to suit your needs.

Choose Format

Click on Edit settings and expand the Course format options area, just beneath the course description. From the pull-down menu, choose "Weekly format" or "Topics format." Scroll to the bottom of the page and Save changes.

Term Dates

Course shells are created with 11 sections in the weekly format. Course start and end dates are preset, with the course start date established in Banner and the end date set by the course end date plus several days to allow for end-of-term grading. Generally, you will not need to update the dates for the current term, and we strongly recommend not changing the course end dates so that courses remain "in progress" and listed in the course navigation panel. 

Pre-Term Sections

You may want to include sections in your course in addition to the standard 11 to provide pre-course or ongoing course materials. To do so, you can add sections at the bottom of the page, but you'll want to update the course start date so that the main course section titles align with the weeks of the term.  Open the admin gear and click on Edit settings. Locate the field in the General settings area at the top of the page labeled Course start date and use the pull-down menus to set a new start date a week (or two, if needed) prior to the actual start of term. Scroll to the bottom of the page and Save changes.

Customize Your Section Titles

To rename sections, with editing turned on, click on the Edit topic name icon in the summary area. Type in the new name and hit Enter to save your changes.

Reduce Scrolling

You can reduce scrolling in your course by setting up your course to display one section per page or by using the collapsed topics format. Contact the Center for Instructional Support for assistance.