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Keywords: certificate, certify, certification, record of achievement.

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Info

The Certificate activity is being phased out for a newCustom Certificate will replace the Certificate activity from Monday 23rd September 2019. Existing certificates will need to be replaced by Custom Certificates before this date.

What is it?

 Use Moodle Certificate to Custom Certificates create customised PDF certificates for your students.

Why use it?

 Certificates can be used as a record of achieving or to recognise an obtaining a certain level with the course, or even completing a training course. They should not replace any official or credit-bearing certification at UCL.

Who can use it?

Tutor and Course Administrator can set up and issue Certificatescertificates.

Before I start...

...

  • Although you can design your certificate in Moodle, you may want to finalise your layout and images beforehand in Microsoft Word.
  • When using images be aware of your Copyright obligations. You can read more on the Copyright for eLearning webpage

Meeting the baseline

The  UCL E-Learning Baseline  suggests the following for Orientation :

  • 2.2 Explain participation requirements:
    • Identify which activities are compulsory and optional.
    • Provide an indicator of effort (such as timings or page counts) for all compulsory tasks.
    • Explain how students are expected to use UCL and external e-learning tools. This PowerPoint Induction template provides a starting point. Wholly online courses might provide this information as a screencast video, with a voice over.
    • Link to instructions for any e-learning tools that students are expected to use.

The The Assessment  category suggests that you should:

  • 4.1 Provide an assessment outline an assessment outline with a clear description of the module assessment, including schedule, criteria and submission details. To avoid duplication this might include a link to a module webpage.

How do I set one up?

  1.  Click the Turn editing on button in the top-right of your page.
  2. In the topic
  3. Use the toggle switch to turn 'Edit mode' on.    

  4. In the part of the course where you want the certificate to appear,
  5. click on the
  6. hover between/over the activities and a '+' icon will appear. Click on the '+' icon and select Custom Certificate from the 'Add an activity or resource
  7. drop down link and select Certificate.
  8. ' window. 
  9. Provide a meaningful
  10. Certificate
  11. certificate Name , as this is what students will click on to view it.
  12. The
  13. Introduction
  14. Description will be displayed to users when they click on the certificate link. This should clearly describe the requirements that will make the certificate available to students. e.g. You need to achieve at least 50% on all quizzes to receive a certificate.
  15. Select the
  16. Issue
  17. Options you want.
  18. We do recommend saving Certificates to Moodle for viewing by the teacher. 
  19. The next section lets you choose how to set up the core elements of the certificate itself, such as whether to include the print date, grade format, credit hours, teacher name(s)* *and custom text.
    1. Some limited HTML tags can be used in the custom text field, such as *<br>, *<p>, <b>, <i> and <u> and <img> (src and width and/or height are mandatory for images). Click on the blue question mark icon for this option Moodle Resource Centre > M19 - Certificates > M19 QUEST MRK a.png for a full list of HTML options.
  20. There is a UCL_Seal you can use for the Signature Image, or you can choose Line if you want the certificate to be signed manually. UCL has a few Seal or Logo Images, including UCL-logo (see right) which will appear in the bottom right of the certificate.
  21. The final section is where you decide on the design of the certificate. The Certificate Type can be A4 or Letter and the Orientation *either *Landscape or Portrait. You can choose a number of Border Images and Border Lines. There is no UCL-specific Watermark Image.
  22. There is
  23. Note. You can use the question mark icon to view a description of each option.
  24. There is a Group mode and Grouping option
  25. (click on the Show Advanced button if it is not visible)
  26. . Click on Common Module Settings and select 'Add group/grouping access restriction' to release the certificate to specific Moodle groups. Information on how to do this is given in M13- Groups and
  27. groupings
  28. groupings.
  29. You can also choose to apply date and grade conditions to your certificate. Information on how to do this is given in
  30. M35
  31. M34 - Activity completion and Conditional Release
  32. Click ' Save and Display'.
  33. In the toolbar at the top, click 'Ed it certificate' .
  34. This page allows you to customise the name and size of your certificate. You can also add elements to your certificate, such as images, background images, borders, the student's name, grade, grade item name etc. Alternatively, you can load a template certificate, which you can then customise. Note. contact the Digital Education team to discuss template options. 

  35. Once you have finished click Save and display. Clicking on Get your certificate to see a preview.
     

  36. Note

    If you add an image based element, such as the background image, you will have the option to upload your own image. Once you have uploaded the image, click save, you will then need to edit the element again to select the image you've just uploaded.

  37. When you have added all your elements, click 'Reposition elements' to arrange your elements. You can either drag and drop an element, or click an element to open up a menu of options, including to re-size text or to enter specific X and Y coordinates for elements.

    Note

    Elements can appear outside of the certificate frame on the Reposition elements page. We recommend you set X and Y values to make sure your certificate elements are well presented. If you use the standard A4 sizing of 210mm height and 297mm width, you can centre an element by setting its X position to 105mm or its Y position to 148mm. You should always view your certificate in pdf format to make sure your certificate looks as desired.

     

  38. When you have finalised the layout of your certificate, click 'Save Changes'.
  39. Finally, to preview your certificate as a pdf, click 'Save changes and preview'.


Info
titleFurther help

Further guidance on Custom Certificates is available from Moodle Docs.

If you find any inaccurate or missing information you can even update this yourself (it's a communal wiki).

If you have a specific question about the tool please contact the Digital Education team.

Caution

- None  at this time .

Examples and case studies

- None  at this time .

Questions & Answers

- None  at this time .

Further information

Administering your certificate: The student can obtain the certificate by clicking on the certificate link on your course home page. If students have met the conditions (if any) they will be able to access the certificate and a display page will allow them to Review your certificate. If they have not completed the requirements Moodle will display a warning.To edit the certificate, click on the certificate link and use the Settings > Certificate AdministrationEdit settings.
On the summary page, a link on the top right hand corner will display a list of certificates awarded, dates received, grade (if applicable) and the alphanumeric verification code.
The buttons at the bottom of this list can be used to export the list in ODS format (Open Office spreadsheet), Excel or text formats.

Verify certificate: Each certificate has a unique code. This feature allows you to check a code corresponds to an authentic course certificate.