If you are teaching one course with multiple sections, or a course that is cross-listed between departments, you may wish to create a combined Moodle site that incorporates the enrollments of each section and allows you to put all your course information in one spot.
Course Name Formatting
For a variety of reasons, it is important that the name of your new combined course be properly formatted. During the process of course creation, you will be asked to provide a full name for the course, as well as a short name and a course number. Follow these guidelines:
Full Course Name Guidelines
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For cross-listed courses with different course numbers:
[PSY 3030/BIO 3310] (Spring 2021) – Psy Research: Behavior Neuroscience -
For cross-listed courses with identical course numbers:
[ENG/FMS] 2050 (Spring 2021) – Screenwriting -
For cross-listed courses within the same department/subject:
LAS [2080/3080] (Spring 2021) – Rivera and Kahlo -
To combine multiple sections of the same course/lab:
BIO 208 [AB] (Spring 2021) – Cell Biology
Short Course Name Guidelines
The course short name is similarly formatted, but excludes the full course title:
-
Cross-listed courses:
[PSY 3030/BIO 3310] (Spring 2021)
[ENG/FMS] 2050 (Spring 2021)
LAS [2080/3080] (Spring 2021) -
Combined sections:
BIO 208 [AB] (Spring 2021)
Creating the New Combined Course in Moodle
You may combine any two or more courses for which you are listed as an instructor. You should create the merged course shell before making modifications to the source courses. Modifications to course content will not be carried over to the merged course shell.
- Locate the first course to be merged and open its top page. Click More from the course menu bar, and from the drop-down select Create merged course shell.
- In the Courses to merge search field, type the first section you'd like to combine. (In this example it is Test Merge Courses: Source B.) Select the correct course section from the search results. The search function is string-matching, so sometimes narrowing the search sufficiently requires some creative typing. Using a combination of department tag, course number, semester, and year usually narrows it down enough.
- Repeat this process until all source sections have been added.
- Name the new combined course in the Course Full Name section.
- Click Show More, and provide a short name consisting of the department tag, course number, semester, and year, including the closing parenthesis, like so: BIO 208 [AB] (Spring 2021). The easiest method is to just copy that section of the full name.
- Copy/paste that same information into the Course ID number field.
- If you want the original courses hidden (recommended), check "Hide original courses from students".
- Click Create. When the merge is complete, you will be taken to the new course shell.
Things To Be Aware Of
The one gotcha in the process above is that course data is not transferred, so if you are teaching sections A and B, build out your course in section A, then request a merge with section B, none of the setup work you did will carry over to the new AB shell. This may be remedied by doing a manual backup and restore, but that is not guaranteed to catch everything.
For best results, request the merge before beginning setup, then build your course in the new AB shell.