Course settings
Category
Your Moodle administrator may have set up several course categories.
For example, "Science", "Humanities", "Public Health" etc
Choose the one most applicable for your course. This choice will affect where your course is displayed on the course listing and may make it easier for students to find your course.
Full name
The full name of the course is displayed at the top of the screen and in the course listings.
Short name
Many institutions have a shorthand way of referring to a course, such as BP102 or COMMS. Even you don't already have such a name for your course, make one up here. It will be used in several places where the long name isn't appropriate (such us in the subject line of email).
ID number
The ID number of a course is only used when matching this course against external systems - it is never displayed within Moodle. If you have an official code name for this course then use it here ... otherwise you can leave it blank.
Summary
The summary of the course is displayed in the course listings.
Format
A Moodle course may use one of the following three formats:
Weekly format
The course is organised week by week, with a clear start date and a finish date. Each week consists of activities. Some of them, like journals, may have "open windows" of, say, two weeks after which they become unavailable.
Topics format
Very similar to the weekly format, except that each "week" is called a topic. A "topic" is not restricted to any time limit. You don't need to specify any dates.
Social format
This format is oriented around one main forum, the Social forum, which appears listed on the main page. It is useful for situations that are more freeform. They may not even be courses. For example, it could be used as a departmental notice board.