I am using Moodle 3.5.1
Hi!
I want to share a course resource (for example a url or a page) for multiple courses. One example is that that I have an instruction page that is always the same for each of my 80 courses.
At them moment each course has its own page resource called "Starting instruction" and it has always the same content. If I want to make a change to this page, I have to do it 80 times. Is it possible that all my 80 courses are referencing to the same page "Starting instruction" - so that if I do changes to this resource, it effects all the other 79 courses aswell?
I thought that the Sharing Cart plugin would do what I want, but after installing it, I figured that this is just a short-cut tool to quickly copy and paste resources between courses. But changing a copied resources in course B will not change the original resource in course A. So it does not solve my issue.
Anyone know how to do this?
I have an idea of creating one course for all shared contents and enroll all users to this course.
then, you use links to that course in each specific course.
the shared course can be hidden, and give the users permission to see hidden content
or you can make it available.
maybe there is an easier way to do it.
I suppose thats a workaround. But it has the disadvantage that a "page" resource would be shown as a "url" and if I click on it the breadcrumb navigation would lead to another course, so its complicated to get back to the course overview page.
Still thanks for the idea!
Hi Adam,
If you use the single activity course, you can hide the breadcrumb as follows
- Change your Preferred Editor to 'Plain text area'
- Edit the page
- Switch to html editor
- Paste the following at the top of your page:
<style>
.breadcrumb-nav .breadcrumb {display:none;}
</style>
I think between this and the 'History back' button it could work.
Catherine
Hi Adam,
I've created a feature request for this in the tracker if you'd like to vote/modify the request.
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-63019
Thanks
In reply to Adam Nielsen
Re: Share one resource between multiple courses
You could make your Starting instruction page a Google doc which only you can edit, and others only view, and then add it as a URL resource to all your courses.
Hi Adam,
I have tried a number of ways to achieve this - we have a few activities that are useful for a number of course pages but to do it in a way that records grades/completions etc. without showing an additional course page in the students' dashboard does not seem possible with existing plugins. Ironically it is possible with a second Moodle site using the 'Publish as LTI' feature!
However, as you are talking about an introduction page, which more than likely won't require grades to be sent back to the students' main course page, then I think there is a way that might work:
- Create a new course.
- The format is Single Activity Format. Choose 'Page' as the type of activity
- Don't enrol anyone.
- Proceed to the course content. Add your general introduction to the page.
- Switch to HTML view and at the bottom of the page add a 'History back' button (see https://www.w3schools.com/Jsref/met_his_back.asp)
- Go to Course Administration > Users > Enrollment Methods
- Make sure that 'Guest Access' is enabled as an enrollment method.
- Now to to a 'real course page and add a link to the 'page' course.
Catherine
I take a different approach to this. In fact, I gave a presentation about my method at this year's MoodleMoot Spain and at MountainMoot,
At MountainMoot, I showed how with my method, an information page can be shared across many systems, including Moodle, MoodleCloud, Blackboard, Canvas, and a few more places, and how I was able to make a simple change and have the change be reflected across all systems.
Here is a link to my own support page to my presentation.
MoodleMoot2018 (Spain and Mountain), "Managing Course Content Using a “Personal Repository”
Adam - I don't know how much instructional content you have on your resource page so not sure if these suggestions will work.
Glossary
BPS uses the global glossary auto-linking functionality to have our content standards auto-link throughout the entire site. So when teacher construct content that is aligned to a standard, they just need to add the identifier in the content. Then when the filter settings is turned on for that activity or resource the standard will pop-up in it's own window. Works rather slick, we have customized the pop-up window to be larger than the default settings.
The key is to have something unique for the glossary Term, so that it doesn't pop-up on phrases it is not intended. The glossary Description allows users to add content such as what you put on your resource page. You can include pictures, videos and links. Plus you can also attach files that students could download if they wanted to printout the instructions. So I suppose it depends how much content you need to display to the students. The pop-up window is scrollable.
Then you could use the same global glossary for any other instructions that you need to share site-wide. However be careful with the filter settings. When you turn the glossary filter on for a course the performance is slowed. The same is for the wiki activity.
Otherwise the glossary has been very successful for BPS for sharing the content standards site-wide. We also have created a plugin that allows these content standards to auto-link to our Student Information System (SIS) so that parents can view the standard descriptions when looking at their children's standards scores.
H5P
Another idea which we are starting to use is H5P, which is an interactive content plugin. We are only starting to use this, so I cannot say much about how well it works. But H5P allows you to build your content in one of many different content types. Once the content "instructions" is built and save, you get an embed code that you could put on all the courses you need that resource. So it's similar to GoogleDoc suggestion, but has a unique interface because it is interactive content.