Tips for teachers to check on their MyCourses spaces when creating a new course
MyCourses has been updated again during summer break and like every year, there are changes. We have listed some things that are good to check when you are creating a new course. Some are old, and some are new things.
1. Course space visibility – Who can see the course content?
Is the guest access on? The green globe icon on the course main page indicates if guest access is on. This means that anyone without login can see content that is written on pages, resources, and assignment descriptions unless the teacher has restricted content in other ways. See more about restricting course content in MyCourses help
2. How to import course content from your previous course?
Course content importing is now located on the course main page menu under More -> Course reuse.
3. How are hidden section/topic names shown to students?
Notice that you can view how your course space appears to students by visiting your course page and selecting “Switch role to…” from behind the user image located in the top right corner.
To change section/topic settings, go to the front page Course settings, open Course format, and find setting Hidden sections. As a teacher, you have two options on how to show sections to your students:
a. Show sections as Not available. In this case, students can see what kind of topics are coming but students have no access or see the content. Students will see the section name on the left navigation as gray.
b. Show sections as Completely hidden. In this case, topics are not shown to students at all. This is good in cases where the teacher has sections/topics that are not used at all in teaching.
4. Does the course page load slowly?
We have noticed that Completion progress can slow down the course page if it has lots of activities. So if you feel that pages load slowly there is an action you can take:
If you are not using activity completion or feel that page loading time is more important at this point, you can turn off Completion tracking from course settings -> completion tracking.
5. How to use Grades?
Default aggregation is now set to Natural (the sum of all grade values). The exclude empty grades check box is now visible under the aggregation selector so it is now easier to turn it off and on.
If you are grading some other objects in a course that are not in MyCourses, it is recommended that grades should be uploaded to MyCourses gradebook (Grades) for students to see. You can upload grades into gradebook (Grades) to a new column and use that as part of the final course grade.
See instructions on how to import grades in MyCourses help page
