M07 - Personalise your Moodle

Keywords: profile, email, subscription, digest, communication, preferences, personal information, photo, picture, personal information.

What is it?

Moodle offers options for personalisation, including the creation of a 'profile', configuration of privacy and communication and accessibility preferences, and a personal file space.

Why use it?

Staff and students are strongly recommended to create a profile with an image, to help participants follow conversations on discussion forums and live chats more easily. If a photo is used this can also help link face to face and online interactions.

Who can use it?

Both staff and students have control over their communication and privacy settings.

Before I start...

Consider these questions:

• Who do I want to see my email address?
• Do I want to receive email notifications from important forums once a day (at 5 pm), or as individual emails as they are posted?
• What information do I want other UCL Moodle users to see about me (in the description field)?
• What picture will I use as my avatar?

How do I edit my profile?

1. Click on your name in the top, right corner of the Moodle page.
2. On the drop down menu click on Edit profile.
3. You may wish to consider changing these settings:

• • Email display:
    • Hide my email address from everyone: no one will see your email address when viewing your Moodle profile and any forum posts and other messages you send from Moodle (that generate an email) will be sent from a noreply address. 
    • Allow everyone to see my email address: any UCL staff or student will be able to see your email address should they view your profile. Forum posts and other messages you send from Moodle (that generate an email) will be sent from your address, allowing recipients to reply.
    • Allow only other course members to see my email address: only UCL staff and students enrolled on the same courses as you will be able to see your profile. Forum posts and other messages you send from Moodle (that generate an email) will be sent from your address, allowing recipients to reply.
  • You may want to add a Description, some text about yourself which will then be displayed on your profile page for others to view.
  • Under User picture, you can upload a photo using Moodle's File picker (accessed by clicking on the Add... button) or "drag 'n drop" your image file into the New picture box. This makes it easier to follow conversations in forum posts and can help you and others get to know each other.
    
    

Caution

- None at this time.

Examples and case studies

- None at this time.

Questions & Answers

How do I reduce the number of emails I get from Moodle forums?

Moodle discussion forums can generate a lot of emails. You can change your email settings so that Moodle only sends you one email every afternoon, containing all of the email notifications from that day. To do this:

1. Follow the instructions for updating your profile, as described above and when on this page click on the preferences link in the breadcrumb trail (which is just under the Staff Help menu in the top, left corner of the page).
2. On the Preferences page click Forum Preferences.
3. Where it says Email digest type choose: Complete (daily email with full posts).
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update profile.

How do I change your Message Settings?

You can choose when and how you get Moodle messages or emails by following these steps:

1. Log into Moodle
2. From the My home page click the Settings tab
3. Click the link that says Messaging
4. Find the option you wish to change
5. Tick (or un-tick) the box for Popup notification or Email (ticking will activate the option and un-ticking the option will prevent it).
6. Scroll to the bottom and click Update profile

How do I edit my accessibility preferences?

1. Click on your name on the top right of Moodle to open up the user menu.
2. Select Accessibility Tool
3. You can change the following options:
1. Colour scheme
2. Font style
3. Readability
4. Text size

How do I use my Personal File Space?

1. Moodle provides 30MB of private file space in an area called Private files. You have already seen this option in File Picker. This is intended as a temporary file space (like a USB stick) where you can upload files before copying them into courses.
2. To add files to this area, in My Home, My private files block click on Manage my private files.
3. Use the Add... button to upload files into the space. You can also select the Create folder option to organise them. Important: remember to Save changes when you finish.
4. The files and folders will be displayed in the block.
5. A link to My private files can also be found in the Navigation block, under My profile

Further information

• Under Preferences, you can choose which text editor you would like to use. Default editor is the Atto HTML editor (which autosaves your work), but if you would like more control over editing, such as advanced table controls you can choose TinyMCE HTML editor.