Moodle site - basic structure

Please refer to these notes before editing this page.

Moodle's basic interface structure is organized around courses. For a teacher or student, this is similar to a computers file system or a paper filing cabinet. A Context in Moodle is a location in the structure. Moodle assists the user to navigate and view/edit/create pages within it's structure.

An overview and hierarchy of the basic structure in simple terms:

• The Moodle site - the largest context, the entire file cabinet.
• Category - A place to organize courses, a file drawer
• Front Page - A special course, with it's own file drawer
• Course - A place to enroll users, a large hanging file folder in a file drawer
• Course sections/topics - A way to visually organize Activities and Resources - a special type of folder in a course
• Activities - Interactive tools the teacher can place in a course - each is a different colored folders placed in a topic
• Resources - Passive tools that may link to other places - a different colored folders placed in a topic
• Blocks - Areas in a course that are not visually in a topic- has its own colored folder in a course.
• Pages - visually what is seen at any moment, individual sheets of paper filed away.

What the user can do or see, depends upon their role in any specific context. Thus a teacher will see pages in a different way than a student. For example, a student can not see the "Editing and updating Quiz" page in the Features Moodle Course, in topic 8, for a quiz activity calleed "A listening quiz". However, both a student and teacher can view and interact with different question pages in that quiz activity.

See also

• Structural overview slide show by Mark Drechsler