UTT’s Learning Management System: Moodle

The University of Trinidad and Tobago uses Moodle as its Learning Management System for the delivery and support of web-enhanced, blended and online courses. Moodle provides lecturers with tools to share course resources, communicate with students, facilitate learning activities, administer assessments, collect assignments, provide feedback and monitor student participation.

UTT operates separate Moodle environments for academic courses and professional development activities. Users should access the appropriate environment using the instructions provided below.

Academic Moodle
  • For scheduled undergraduate and postgraduate academic courses
  • Access through the Moodle tile in MyCampus
  • Uses institutional single sign-on
Professional Development Moodle
  • For staff development, training, workshops and other non-academic courses
  • Access through the designated Professional Development Moodle link
  • Login behaviour may differ from Academic Moodle

FAQ

Moodle can send notifications about course announcements, forum posts, assignments, messages and other activities.

To review your notification preferences:

  1. Select your profile image or initials.
  2. Select Preferences.
  3. Select Notification preferences.
  4. Review the available notification types.
  5. Choose whether each notification should be received through:
    • Moodle web notifications
    • Email
    • Mobile notifications, where available

Notification options may differ depending on the activity and your Moodle role.

Forum notifications

Forum notifications may also be affected by your subscription status.

Depending on the forum settings, you may be:

  • Automatically subscribed
  • Allowed to choose whether to subscribe
  • Prevented from unsubscribing
  • Subscribed only to selected discussions

Open the forum and review its subscription options if you are receiving too many or too few notifications.

Important

Some institutional or course notifications may be required and may not be disabled.

Keep your UTT email address active and review Moodle regularly so that you do not miss important course information.

A well-organized Moodle course helps students locate resources, activities and assessments more easily.

Lecturers should use the approved UTT course-shell template and follow the applicable OSCQR course-design guidance.

Recommended structure

Organize the course into clearly labelled sections, such as:

  • Course introduction
  • Lecturer information
  • Course outline
  • Assessment information
  • Weekly or topic-based learning sections
  • Student support resources
  • Course feedback or evaluation

Each section should use clear and consistent names.

Good practices
  • Use one consistent structure throughout the course.
  • Place related resources and activities together.
  • Use short, descriptive activity names.
  • Avoid uploading large numbers of files without explanation.
  • Provide instructions before major activities and assessments.
  • Remove or hide outdated content.
  • Check that all links, files and videos work.
  • Ensure that important dates are current.
  • Avoid making the course page excessively long or difficult to navigate.

Use Text and media areas, Pages, Books and course sections appropriately rather than placing all information directly on the main course page.

 

Moodle allows lecturers to control when and under what conditions students can access course content.

Access may be restricted based on:

  • Date and time
  • Activity completion
  • Grade achieved
  • User profile information
  • Membership in a group
  • A combination of conditions

Add an access restriction

  1. Turn Edit mode on.
  2. Open the settings for the required activity or resource.
  3. Expand Restrict access.
  4. Select Add restriction.
  5. Choose the required condition.
  6. Configure the restriction.
  7. Save the changes.

Visibility options

A restricted activity may either:

  • Remain visible with an explanation of the access condition; or
  • Be completely hidden until the condition is satisfied.

Use restrictions carefully and preview the course from a student perspective to confirm that the settings work as intended.

Moodle provides a grading interface for reviewing submissions, entering grades and giving feedback.

Grade an assignment
  1. Open the Moodle course.
  2. Select the required assignment.
  3. Select View all submissions or Grade submissions.
  4. Locate the student submission.
  5. Select Grade.
  6. Review the submitted work.
  7. Enter the grade.
  8. Add feedback, where applicable.
  9. Save the changes.

Depending on the assignment settings, you may also be able to:

  • Annotate a PDF submission
  • Add feedback comments
  • Upload a feedback file
  • Use a rubric
  • Use a marking guide
  • apply a grading workflow
  • Notify students that grading has been completed
Before releasing grades

Confirm that:

  • The maximum grade is correct.
  • The correct grading method is being used.
  • Feedback has been saved.
  • Grades appear correctly in the Moodle gradebook.
  • Grades should be visible to students.

Where grading workflow is enabled, grades may need to be changed to Released before students can view them.

Lecturers can temporarily switch to the student role to review how course content appears to students.

Switch to the student role
  1. Open the Moodle course.
  2. Select your profile image or initials.
  3. Select Switch role to…
  4. Select Student.

Review the course page, activities, resources and navigation.

When finished:

  1. Select your profile image or initials.
  2. Select Return to my normal role.
Important limitations

Switching roles does not always reproduce the experience of an actual student.

For example, it may not fully demonstrate:

  • Group membership
  • Student-specific restrictions
  • Grade conditions
  • Activity completion
  • Quiz attempts
  • Assignment submissions
  • Personal enrolment dates

Where a full test is required, a designated test-student account or sandbox course may be more appropriate.

The Moodle calendar displays course, activity, group, user and site events.

It may include:

  • Assignment due dates
  • Quiz opening and closing dates
  • Scheduled course activities
  • Personal events
  • Institutional events
View the calendar
  1. Select Calendar from the Moodle navigation.
  2. Use the available controls to move between months.
  3. Select an event to view its details.
Add a personal event

Where permitted:

  1. Open the calendar.
  2. Select New event.
  3. Choose the event type.
  4. Enter the event name, date and other required information.
  5. Save the event.
Course activity dates

Dates for assignments, quizzes and other activities are normally added to the calendar automatically when configured in the activity settings.

Lecturers should therefore confirm that:

  • Assignment due dates are correct.
  • Quiz opening and closing dates are correct.
  • Old semester dates have been updated.
  • Imported activities do not contain outdated dates.

The Moodle calendar may also support exporting or subscribing to events using an external calendar application, depending on the site configuration.

UTT Moodle can be accessed using a modern web browser on a desktop computer, laptop, tablet or mobile device.

For the best experience, use the latest available version of:

  • Google Chrome
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Apple Safari

Older or unsupported browsers may cause problems with course navigation, file uploads, quizzes, grading tools and multimedia content.

Recommended device use

A desktop or laptop computer is recommended when:

  • Creating or editing course content
  • Setting up assignments and quizzes
  • Managing the gradebook
  • Uploading multiple files
  • Grading student submissions
  • Completing timed or high-stakes assessments
  • Using advanced Moodle settings

A tablet or mobile device may be suitable for:

  • Viewing course materials
  • Reading announcements
  • Participating in forums
  • Checking notifications
  • Viewing grades and feedback
  • Completing selected activities

Some Moodle functions may be easier to use in a web browser than in the mobile app.

Before using Moodle

Confirm that:

  • Your browser is up to date.
  • Cookies and JavaScript are enabled.
  • Pop-up windows are allowed when required.
  • Your internet connection is stable.
  • Your device has sufficient storage for downloads and uploads.
  • Required documents can be opened using an appropriate application.
Experiencing a browser-related issue?

Try the following:

  1. Refresh the page.
  2. Sign out of Moodle and log in again.
  3. Clear the browser cache and cookies.
  4. Disable browser extensions temporarily.
  5. Try a private or incognito browser window.
  6. Try another supported browser.
  7. Restart the device.

If the issue continues, submit a request to Support TLIS and include the browser, device, operating system, Moodle environment and a screenshot of the error.

Turnitin is integrated with UTT Moodle and can be used to support originality checking for student submissions.

Depending on the Moodle configuration, Turnitin may be available within a Moodle Assignment or as a separate Turnitin activity.

Before creating the activity

Confirm that:

  • You are working in the correct course shell.
  • Edit mode is turned on.
  • The assignment instructions and due dates are finalized.
  • The maximum grade is correct.
  • Students have been informed that their work will be submitted to Turnitin.
  • The required file types and submission rules have been identified.
Enable Turnitin in a Moodle Assignment
  1. Open the required Moodle course.
  2. Turn Edit mode on.
  3. Add a new Assignment or open an existing assignment.
  4. Locate the Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings.
  5. Enable Turnitin for the assignment.
  6. Configure the available originality-checking options.
  7. Review the assignment submission, grading and availability settings.
  8. Save the changes.

The exact Turnitin options displayed may vary according to the institutional configuration.

Common Turnitin settings

Depending on the available options, lecturers may be able to control:

  • Whether student submissions are sent to Turnitin
  • When similarity reports are generated
  • Whether students can view their similarity reports
  • Whether submitted work is stored in a repository
  • Which sources are included or excluded from comparison
  • Whether quoted material or bibliographic content is excluded
  • Whether resubmissions are permitted before the due date

Lecturers should apply these settings consistently and in keeping with the assessment requirements.

Viewing a similarity report

After a submission has been processed:

  1. Open the assignment.
  2. Select View all submissions or the available submissions page.
  3. Locate the student’s submission.
  4. Select the Turnitin similarity percentage or report icon.
  5. Review the similarity report.

A similarity score does not automatically indicate plagiarism. Lecturers must review the matched sources, context, quotations, references and assessment requirements before reaching a conclusion.

Student access to reports

Students may be able to view their similarity reports if this option has been enabled for the assignment.

Where reports are made available, students should be guided on how to interpret the results and revise their work appropriately.

Important checks

Before students begin submitting, confirm that:

  • Turnitin is enabled.
  • The assignment dates are correct.
  • The file-type settings are appropriate.
  • The repository setting matches the purpose of the activity.
  • Students can see the assignment.
  • The instructions explain how similarity reports will be used.
Turnitin report not appearing?

Possible causes include:

  • The submission is still being processed.
  • Turnitin was not enabled before the submission was uploaded.
  • The submitted file type is unsupported.
  • The file contains insufficient readable text.
  • A resubmitted report is subject to a processing delay.
  • The Turnitin service is temporarily unavailable.

If the report does not appear after a reasonable period, submit a request to Support TLIS and include:

  • Course code and course name
  • Assignment name
  • Student name or ID, where appropriate
  • Date and time of submission
  • Screenshot of the submissions page
  • Description of the issue