New Semester Tips

Creating Classes #

Moodle shells are created for all classes each semester automatically. Data is pulled from Ellucian Colleague, including courses, sections, student enrollments, and faculty assignments.
For access to a course prior to it being synced from Colleague, contact the I.T. Department at support@shawneecc.edu.
To create a Development course shell, request one from the I.T. Department at support@shawneecc.edu.

Courses are automatically visible to students when the course is synced from Colleague. It is recommended that you do not hide your course from students before it starts. Instead, provide some basic course information to your students prior to semester start.
- It is possible to hide a course from students. To do this change the “Visible” setting on your course’s settings page to “Hide”. Course settings are accessed via the “Settings” tab in your course.
Start and end dates are automatically set for a course. On the start date, the course will move to students’ “In progress” menu. After the course’s end date, it moves to “Past” in a student’s “My courses” page.

We recommend posting basic course information before a course’s start date — including a link to the syllabus.

You can’t add any activities or resources to your class until you toggle your “Edit mode” on. The edit mode button is in the upper right corner of your course page.
Make your syllabus and any other introductory content visible to students before the semester begins.
Hide/Show course items from the item’s edit menu – the vertical row of three dots that appears to the right of the item’s name.
Hidden items will have a “Hidden from students” label under them.
It’s good practice to set due dates via assignment settings and add important course events to your class calendar in Moodle – especially those within the next 30 days. This is because due dates and calendar events appear on students’ Moodle dashboard page and in students’ mySCC account.
Once due dates are created, you can also change them from the “Dates” report. Go to: “Reports” –> “Dates.“
Import old content into your new course shell using “Import” from the “Course reuse” menu (under the “More” tab).
Remove all unused content sections from your course. Empty content sections pose an accessibility issue for students using screen readers. Remove extra content sections from the section’s edit menu. Like an item’s edit menu, its only visible with “Edit mode” toggled on.

Use your class reports to assess student activity. Some classes (primarily online classes) will have an “Insights” report that highlights students who are at risk of dropping out. Setting up content, due dates, etc. ahead of time increases the usefulness of this report.
Use the role switcher to see what your course looks like from a student’s view. Click on “Switch role to…“ in your profile menu. Your profile menu appears when you click on your account icon in the upper-right corner of the page.

Refer students with technical issues to the I.T. Help Desk. Students can contact the help desk by emailing support@shawneecc.edu, or by calling the support number at (618) 634-3333.
Use your course roster in mySCC > Employee Self-Service > Faculty Courses to email students, record attendance (face-to-face classes), record 10th day/midterm/final grades, and to refer students for help with Retention Alert.