Chapter 9.  Course Formats

In the previous chapter, we have worked with the look and feel of our Moodle course in order to enhance it; now it is time to pay attention to course formats. Course formats are plugins that determine the layout of course resources. They are also important for proper sequencing and successful navigation so that instructional materials are connected to learning objectives. They determine how the course main page looks. The organization of the content of the course is also related to course formats.

There are some default course formats and a course format plugin, which allows different layouts and structures for course activities; we will explore all of them throughout the chapter. In this chapter, we will focus on course formats. By default, both Moodle on-premises and MoodleCloud come with four course formats:

• Weekly format

• Topics format

• Social format

• Single activity format

We will explain the differences and uses of these course formats. We will also work with the...

Creating a Moodle course

Before creating the Moodle course, we have to bear in mind the audience, so that we can decide on certain aspects of its appearance, such as the course format, which is the topic that we are dealing with throughout the book. Therefore, in this example, we will create a Moodle course for this chapter, Course formats; its audience is Moodlers who want to learn about theming. We will use Moodle on-premises and the steps are the same for MoodleCloud.

In order to design the new course, we have to enter Moodle and log in. Then, follow these steps:

1. Click on Turn editing on.

2. Click on Add a new course, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

3. Complete the necessary blocks to create the course.

4. Scroll down until you get to Course format.

5. Under Course format, Format appears. Click on the downward arrow next to Format and select Single activity format, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

   Tip

   If you click on the question mark next to the format, a pop-up window appears displaying...

Exploring the topic course format

Within the courses in our Moodle on-premises, we have already designed two courses. The first course that we designed is Moodle 3 Theme Development. It was created using topics; therefore, we can group activities related to specific subjects. The available courses are shown in the following screenshot:

We will edit the topics section in the Moodle course. Before doing this, we need to be in editing mode, so click on Turn editing on. Afterwards, follow these steps in order to edit the topics within the Moodle_3_Theme_Development course:

1. Click on the Moodle_3_Theme_Development course, the course created, or the course on Course formats.

2. Choose topic to edit.

3. Click on the downward arrow next to Edit and click on Edit topic, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

4. Click on the tick next to Use default section name [Topic 1], so as to write the name of the topic; it is shown in the following screenshot:

   

5. Enter a name in the Section name field.

6. Complete the Summary...

Changing a course format

We have already dealt with two default course formats, Single Activity and topics. It is time to learn how to change a course format if we realize that it does not work the way we have designed it. Another option is that, as time goes by, we need to group activities or resources; therefore, it is a good excuse to change the course format. These are the steps that we have to follow:

1. Log in to the Moodle course.

2. Click on Turn editing off.

3. Under Site administration, click on Courses | Manage courses and categories, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

4. Click on a course to edit it, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

5. Click on Course format.

6. Click on the downward arrow next to Format.

7. Click on Weekly format, as shown in the following screenshot:

   

8. Click on Save and display.

9. Click on Turn editing off.

10. The course looks as shown in the following screenshot:

    

11. Repeat steps 2 to 6.

12. Click on Social format, as shown in the following screenshot:

    

13. Click on Save and display.

14. Click on...

Downloading a course format plugin

We have already explored the four default course formats within our Moodle course. Therefore, if we need to design a course with another type of course format, we can download it from the following website: https://moodle.org/plugins/browse.php?list=category&id=19 . On this website, we can choose from several free and open source course formats.

We can only download course format plugins for Moodle on-premises; we can't work with plugins for MoodleCloud. It is the same with themes; they can be downloaded for Moodle on-premises, but they don't work on MoodleCloud. Thus, this section will deal only with Moodle on-premises.

Based on the Moodle version that we are using, a similar version course format plugin can be downloaded. It works in a similar way to themes. Therefore, in this section, we will download the Grid course format. Follow these steps in order to download it:

1. Enter the following website: https://moodle.org/plugins/browse.php?list=category...

Exploring plugin course formats

There are several course formats that we can download from the following website: https://moodle.org/plugins/browse.php?list=category&id=19 . They change the look and feel of the Moodle course, and the layout for displaying courses. In this section, we will explore the different course formats that we can download. We will focus on the formats that are available at the time of writing for Moodle 3 and Moodle 3.1.

Collapsed topics

This course format is useful when a course has several topics or weeks. It can be downloaded from the following website: https://moodle.org/plugins/format_topcoll . In the event where we want to use this course format, we click on Download and follow the steps mentioned in the previous section.

Socialwall format

This course format will turn the Moodle course into a social learning platform. There are many items that can be edited. We can download this course format from the following website: https://moodle.org/plugins/format_socialwall...

Test your knowledge

A. The course format determines ...

1. ...the layout of the course page.

2. ...the theme.

3. ...the activities of the page.

B. The default course formats are ...

1. ...grid and Social format.

2. ...single activity, Social, Topics and weekly format.

3. ...social and Topic format.

C. When we select the Topic course format ...

1. ...we can name the section or list the topics by default.

2. ...we number the sections, but we can't edit the names of the sections.

3. ...we can't edit the topics at all.

D. Once we select a course format ...

1. ...we can't change it.

2. ...we can edit it and change it.

3. ...we need to install a plugin to change it.

E. Course formats can be downloaded and ...

1. ...uploaded to Moodle on-premises so that they can be chosen.

2. ...they work in both Moodle on-premises and MoodleCloud.

3. ...they work.

Summary

In summary, in this chapter we have dealt with course formats. There are default course formats and there are also plugins for them. These course formats can be downloaded from the Moodle website and they can be installed in Moodle on-premises. We can also change the format of our courses in order to enhance it and make the course a little bit different. We have to bear in mind what type of course we need to create in order to choose the right course format. In the final chapter, we will put all the pieces together.