M06d - Bulk enrolment

Bulk enrolment allows you to enrol students or staff on a Moodle course and/or add them to groups using an Excel file containing their UCL email address or user ID.

This can be particularly useful before the start of a session, when Portico enrolments may not yet be available but access to the Moodle course is required. It also provides an easy way to add students to groups: the process will automatically create any groups that do not already exist in the course.

How to use bulk enrolment

Step 1. Create your CSV

To upload users successfully, you will need to create a CSV file containing their details. If you want to enrol both students and staff, you will need to create a separate CSV file for each. This is because each bulk enrolment can only assign one role type at a time (for example, students or tutors).

You can create a CSV file using a spreadsheet application such as Excel. When saving the file, make sure you select the CSV (.csv) file format.

Your CSV file must include at least one column containing each user’s main identifier. This will usually be their UCL email address, but you can use their UCL user ID instead.

Make sure that:

• The first row contains column headings. Moodle expects a header row and will ignore the first row of the CSV file, so do not enter any user data there.

• If you are using UCL email addresses, label the column email.

• If you are using UCL user IDs, label the column userid.

• If you want to add users to groups, include a second column containing the group name for each user. Label this column group.

• Enter group names exactly as they should appear. The bulk enrolment process will automatically create any groups that do not already exist in the Moodle course.

Open

 Step 2. Enrol the Students or Staff

1. From the main course menu, select the Participants tab. Then, from the drop-down menu, choose Bulk enrolments.

2. Select Choose a file, then upload your CSV file.

3. Check the following settings:

   • Role to assign: Leave this set to Student, or change it to Tutor if you are uploading staff.

   • First column contains: Select the type of identifier used in the first column of your CSV file: either the students’ email address or UCL user ID.

   • Create group(s) if needed: If you want to add users to groups, set this to Yes. Any groups that do not already exist in the course will be created automatically.

   • Create grouping(s) if needed: If you want to create groupings based on the groups that users are being added to, leave this set to Yes. If you do not want to create groupings, select No.

   • Send me a mail report: Leave this set to Yes if you would like to receive an email confirming which users were enrolled and which groups they were added to.

4. Select Enrol them to my course.

5. To check that users have been enrolled in the correct groups:

   • Go to the Participants tab.

   • From the Enrolled users drop-down menu, select Groups.

   • You should see a list of the groups, with the number of users in each group shown in brackets.

You can also use Bulk enrolments to unenrol users from a course. Go to the Participants tab, select Bulk enrolments from the drop-down menu, and follow the on-screen instructions.

Examples and case studies

Uploading students and their personal tutors to a departmental Moodle course to enable them to schedule Personal Tutor meetings

You will need to create two excel files for this purpose.

1. Create an excel file (saved as .csv) that contains a list of all your personal tutors.

   1. The first column will contain the personal tutor's email address or UCL user ID.

   2. The second column will contain the group they will belong to. In this case the group will contain their name - e.g. Jo Bloggs personal tutoring group.
      Note: although tutors can see all groups in Moodle, adding them to their own group will ensure this group is automatically selected on any activities with groups enabled. E.g. discussion forums.

2. Upload this file to Moodle (using the steps outlined above), making sure the Role to assign setting is changed to tutor.

3. Create a second excel file (saved as .csv) that contains a list of all your students, mapped to the personal tutor group.

   1. 1. The first column will contain the student's email address or UCL user ID.

      2. The second column will contain the  group  they will belong to. In this case the group will contain their name - e.g.  Jo Bloggs personal tutoring group .
         Note: students will need to be in the correct group in order to see any activities that are visible only to those group members. E.g. the scheduler tool that allows them to schedule an appointment with their tutor.

4. Upload this file to Moodle (using the steps outlined above), making sure the Role to assign setting is left as student.

5. Now you can set up any resources or activities (such as the scheduler tool) for each group and Restrict access , so only students in that group see the item.

Questions & Answers

Q.  Why am I getting an error message when I upload the CSV file to Moodle?

A.  Check the file is a .csv and not a .xls file, and ensure the First column contains field is set to UCL user ID or email address.