M00 - Navigation

Keywords: orientation, navigate, access, find, understand, structure, breadcrumb trail, crumbtrail

Navigation in Moodle is supported by a number of features including:

Home: When you log in you will see the Home page which shows courses you are enrolled on in a list.
Events: The Events calendar can display site, course, group, user and category events in addition to assignment and quiz deadlines, chat times and other course events. The calendar can display site, course, group, user and - new in 3.4 - category events in addition to assignment and quiz deadlines, chat times and other course events. Note the colour coding on the screenshot below.
My Courses: The Courses block lists and allows navigation between all of the courses in which the logged in user is enrolled in. The block title shows as "My courses" and allows one-click access to a course's home page.
Help Pages: Access Student and Staff support services for Moodle, Lecturecast, Turnitin and Moodle FAQ's.
Services: Access to UCL internal and external services and systems,
Guest Login: This function is used if your course has Guest Login enabled. More information can be located at https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/x/xA9HAQ
View Options: To maximise your screen, there are two options.
1. You can click on the Hide blocks button to hide your blocks.
2. To enter the full screen, please click on Full Screen.
Timeline: The course overview block enables students to check their course progress and view upcoming deadlines. It allows teachers to easily see activities needing grading.
Legacy Moodle. Are you missing any courses that you have already completed, this Block allows you to navigate you to to the Legacy Moodle 1718.
Search Courses: Allows you search for courses and find out the names of the Course Administrator(s) and Tutor(s) will appear under the title of the course.

Using the navigation features in Moodle makes it easy to search and move between pages in Moodle. You can also use the back button to navigate, which is why it is important, as an editor that you always open links in the same window, expect if providing help information specific to that page.

Everyone can use the navigate features in Moodle.

Using a departmental course template makes it easier for both students and staff to navigate, since they will be familiar with the layout of the course from other courses they use.

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

1.3 Include navigation aids: to help students navigate you should ensure the Navigation block is set to display all course sections (topics).
See Questions and Answers for how to do this.

When you log in, your My homepage will appear listing all the courses you are enrolled on as a tutor, administrator or student. Hidden courses are not visible to students and will appear to staff at the bottom of the Course overview list.

You can Search for courses using the search box at the right of the Home area. You can also follow the All courses ... link at the bottom of the page to browse the Moodle course hierarchy.
Once you have identified the course you want, to enter it click on the course title. The course home page, the main web page for the course will appear. See M01 - Moodle course structure to learn more about the Moodle course layout.

Use the breadcrumb trail at the top of every page, which tells you where you are within Moodle and lets you navigate back to a parent page, such as your course homepage, or My Homepage.

To return to the course homepage, click on the short course name (in the example above this is The Digital Dep CMALT 2013).
The first link on the crumbtrail always takes you to your Home page (where all your courses are listed).
The Navigation block (to the left or right of the main content) provides links back to My home and from here you can click a course name to access that course. Within a course, the navigation block provides a clickable list of sections within each course (see caution below for required settings for this to work).
When you are logged in you will see in the top right of the screen a logout link and your name which links to your profile and some useful links to update your preferences.

Further help

Further guidance on Navigation is available from moodledocs.

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.

The navigation block doesn't display course sections by default. It is recommended that course editors modify the navigation block settings, so it displays course sections to students and staff alike.

– None at this time.

Turn editing on and click the cog icon in the Navigation block and choose 'Configure Navigation block'.
For 'Generate navigation for the following' choose 'Everything'.
Click 'Save changes'.

– None at this time.

What is it?

Why use it?

Who can use it?

Before I start...

Meeting the Baseline

How do I...?

Navigate to a course?

Navigate within a course and other areas of Moodle?

Caution

Examples and case studies

Questions & Answers

How do I display all course sections in the navigation block?

Further information