M00 - Navigation

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

What is it?

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

• When you log in you will see the My Home page which shows courses you are enrolled on in a list, alongside:
  • your profile block (where you can update your profile picture and add further information for your peers to see).
  • a link to MyFeedback, where you can view, download and reflect on feedback from all your Moodle courses on one page.
  • your calender, where all of the due dates for assessments and other events will appear from across all your Moodle courses.
  • your UCL Moodle messages from other students and staff.
• The breadcrumb trail at the top of every page tells you where you are within Moodle and lets you navigate back to a parent page.
• The Navigation block appears on every page and helps you to navigate to courses and within them.
• The Settings (Administration) block is also context sensitive and gives you access to functionality related to your current position in Moodle.
• The Activities block shows links to all the types of activities on a Moodle course, such as Assignments and Resources, so you can easily find them, regardless of where they have been placed on the course homepage.
• The drop-down menus at the top of every Moodle page provides links to staff and student help, courses you are enrolled on and links to external Moodle-related services.

Why use it?

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.

Who can use it?

Everyone can use the navigate features in Moodle.

Before I start...

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.

Meeting the Baseline

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.

How do I...?

Navigate to a course?

When you log in, your My home page 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.

1. You can Search for courses using the search box at the top of the My home area. You can also follow the All courses ...  link at the bottom of the page to browse the Moodle course hierarchy.
2. If you have a lot of courses you will see a link to show all my courses at the bottom of the course list.
3. 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.

Navigate within a course and other areas of Moodle?

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 Home page.

1. To return to the course homepage, click on the short course name (in the example above this is The Digital Dep CMALT 2013).
2. The first link on the crumbtrail always takes you to your My home page (where all your courses are listed).
3. 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).
4. 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.

Caution

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.

Examples and case studies

– None at this time.

Questions & Answers

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

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

Further information

– None at this time.