Admin quick guide

2016-05-25T18:57:20Z

Vipin321:

{{Managing a Moodle site}}
This page is an introduction to Moodle administration. You have a new, empty Moodle site installed. What to do next?

==Setting up the front (home) page==

# In the Administration block, click 'Edit settings'.
# Change the full name and short name if needed. (The short name shows in the navigation bar.)
# Decide what should be shown on the front page - news items, courses, course categories or none of these things? The same or different for logged in and non-logged in users? As for other settings, they can always be changed later.

For more information, see [[Front page settings]].

[[File:moodlecloudedit.png|thumb|center|600px|Starting to set up a [https://moodlecloud.com MoodleCloud] site]]

To add text and/or images to the central area of the front page

# In the Administration block, click 'Turn editing on'.
# Click the configuration icon (cogwheel) near the top of the screen. (If you don't see this, check in ''Site administration > Front page > Front page settings'' that 'Include a topic section' is ticked.)
# Add text and/or images to the summary box.

'''Note''': If you don't want to use your front page for displaying courses or information about your organisation, you can display the log in page only by checking "force login" in ''Site administration > Security > Site policies''.

==Changing the look of your site==

*Moodle comes with two [[Standard themes|standard themes]], called 'Clean' and 'More'. Both work well on mobile devices as well as desktops, and the 'More' theme is designed to be easily customisable from ''Site administration > Appearance > Themes > More''.

*Find out how to add dropdown menus, footer links, Google Analytics and more in [[Site appearance]].
*If your installation and organisation allow it, you can install a custom theme. See [[Installing plugins]] for details.
[[File:ChangingTheLook.png|thumb|center|600px|A standard site customised from the admin interface]]

==Adding courses==

* Courses are Moodle's learning areas, where teachers and students work together.
* You may [[Adding a new course|add a new course]] by clicking the 'Add a new course' button on the front page or via ''Site administration > Courses > Manage courses and categories''.
* If you plan to have many courses, you can [[Upload courses|upload courses]] in bulk via CSV file.
* If you want certain settings in your courses to be always pre-set for you when you make a new course, check out ''Site administration > Courses > Course default settings''.

See [[Courses]] for an overview of the various aspects of courses and see courses in action with user data on the [http://school.demo.moodle.net/ Mount Orange School demo site].

[[File:Courses.png|thumbnail|center|600px|An example Moodle course]]

==Adding users==

This is a two-step process, although it can be streamlined.

===Step 1: Authentication===

Everyone using your site must have an account. You can allow people to create their own account using [[Email-based self-registration]], or [[Add a new user|add new users individually]] or [[Upload users|bulk create accounts via CSV file]] or choose from a number of other authentication methods.

For more information, see [[Managing accounts]] and [[Authentication]].

'''Note:''' You do not yet decide who will be a teacher, student or other type of participant. If you're wondering why, read the documentation on [[Assign roles| Assigning roles]].

==Step 2: Enrolment==

Once users have an account, they need to be enrolled in courses. (Now is the time to give them their student, teacher or other role.) You can allow them to [[Self enrolment|self enrol]], or you can [[Manual enrolment|enrol them manually yourself]] or choose from a number of other enrolment methods.

For more information, see [[Enrolments]].

'''Note:''' You can create accounts and enrol users in courses at the same time if you wish by [[Upload users|uploading users]] or you can explore [[Cohorts]], site or category wide groups.

[[File:AddingUsers.png|thumbnail|center|600px|Enrolling learners into a course]]

==File management=
*Explore the process of [[Working with files|working with files]] in courses so you'll be able to advise others.
*See [[Managing repositories]] for information on allowing your users to use files from external sources (such as Google Drive, Dropbox and MS OneDrive) in their courses.
*If uploaded file size may be an issue for you, then you can add restrictions for both the user quota and the site as a whole from ''Administration > Site administration > Security > Site policies.'' See [[Site policies]] for more information.

[[File:FileManagement.png|thumbnail|center|600px|Some of Moodle's many ways of accessing files]]

==Important default site settings==
# Set your default [[Language|language]] in ''Site administration > Language > Language settings''. Moodle defaults to common English; if you need US English or another language, add that in ''Language > Language pack'' first then you can set it as the default.
# Set your default timezone and country in ''Site administration > Location > Location settings''.
# Turn off public Guest access (unless you are sure you know how to use it) in ''Site administration > Plugins > Enrolments > Manage enrol plugins'' and Hide its button in ''Site administration > Plugins > Authentication > Manage authentication > Guest login button''.
# Adjust your minimum password if you need to in ''Security > Site policies > Password policy''.
# Verify that [[Cron|cron]] is running when you set that up during install. Your site will not work properly without it. If the message "The cli/cron.php maintenance script has not been run for at least 24 hours." shows up in ''Site administration > Notifications'' then it is not running properly.
==Admin tips and tricks==

* Go through each activity in ''Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules'' and decide the most suitable default settings for your Moodle. Do the same for the gradebook, via ''Administration > Site administration > Grades > General settings.''
*Go to ''Administration > Site administration > Advanced features'' and review whether you want to make use of additional features such as [[Blogs|blogs]], [[RSS feeds]], completion tracking (for both [[Activity completion]] and [[Course completion]]), [[Conditional activities|conditional access]], [[Portfolios|portfolios]] or [[Badges|badges]].
* Consider enabling your site for [[Mobile app]] access via ''Site administration > Plugins > Web services > Mobile''.
* Provide the user interface in different languages by installing additional [[Language packs|language packs]] via ''Site administration > Language > Language packs.''
* Use wording more suitable to your users by changing Moodle's default terms in ''Administration > Site administration > Language > Language customisation''.

[[File:TipsAndTricks.png|thumbnail|center|600px|Badges -a feature to consider]]

[[Category:Quick guide]]

[[es:Guia para nuevos administradores]]
[[de:Kurzanleitung für Administrator/innen]]
[[fr:Guide rapide d'administration]]

MoodleDocs - User contributions [en]

Admin quick guide