How to Set up a Moodle course

Knowing how to set up Moodle courses is essential for any and all Moodle LMS administrators. You can only add new courses if you have Moodle administrator, course creator, or Moodle manager rights. 

1. Log-in to Moodle. Go to Administration>Site administration>Courses>Manage courses and categories

2. Go to the category that the new course will be living in.

3. Click on the link that says “New course”

4. Now you ready to fill in the following course settings.

• Course name - both full name (Eg. English 100: Intro to Fiction)  and a shorthand name (Eg. ENG 100)

• Course category

• Course start date

• Course ID number

• Course description - including course summary, and course summary files (typically, an image)

• Course format - (Eg. weekly format, topics format, social format, etc.)

The next few steps will only be applicable if you have upgraded to Moodle 2.9.

5. You will be able to either “Save and return” to back to your course, or “Save and display” to go the next screen.

6. When you click “Save and Display”, you can begin selecting your students, and assigning teachers to the course.

Your course should now be ready to go!

Additional options you have in a new course:

• You have the ability to hide sections from students

• You have the option to display grades to students or not

• You have the option of showing reports of all activity in the course

• You can define the words you are using the course, for teachers and students to see and understand ahead of time

Keep in mind that you can always go back into these settings and make changes in the future if you wish. Changes can be made from your course administration panel. If you are wanting advanced instruction for creating Moodle courses, register for Moodle Course CreationTraining: