Access to Moodle questions

For example:

• Can’t log in to Moodle
• Moodle won’t let me in

Access to Moodle is controlled via SSO. Check that they really mean Moodle and not just a Moodle module space on Moodle (and vice versa, see below for access to Moodle courses). If people cannot access Moodle, try the following:

• Test other services such as SB, Tabula etc. If they cannot access, there is an account management issue.
• Check their membership record to check they are an active student (PWD cannot access).
• Try another web browser, clear cache, temporary internet files
• Check when they activated their ITS account. They should wait >24 hours to be sure, both applicants and brand new students may have this issue.
• If they can access everything else, and all details appear correct, then record the details from above, and escalate to LSS to check their data has been pushed correctly to Moodle. There is a rare issue where people have 2 accounts on Moodle and LSS can resolve this be removing the unwanted account.

Related guides:

• Introduction to Moodle
• Login to Moodle
• Visitor access to Moodle

Echo360 is the University's lecture capture and video management platform which enables presenters to capture, edit and share video content with students. See also video access issues in Moodle above.

The DLE team provides support with linking Echo360 videos to Moodle, lecture capture scheduling requests, and managing content within Echo360.

Audio Visual provides support for the Lecture Cature hardware in teaching rooms.

Learning Systems Support owns the Echo360 contract and the lecture capture scheduling tool used by DLE. It is very unlikely that an Echo360 call at the Help Desk needs to be assigned to LSS directly.

Related guides:

• Introduction to Echo360
• Getting started with Echo360 Lecture Capture
• Schedule a lecture capture
• Lecture Capture-enabled spaces
• Add content blocks (including the Lecture Capture block)

Padlet enables user to create online boards where students, tutors and colleagues can share and collaborate.

Log in to Padlet

Padlet uses Warwick login details to access but people can find this difficult.

1. In a browser, go to warwick.padlet.org
2. Click on Log in with Microsoft.
3. Enter your email address in this format: username@live.warwick.ac.uk (e.g. u1234567@live.warwick.ac.uk).
4. Enter your University IT account username (e.g. u1234567).
5. Enter your University IT account password.
6. Complete two-step authentication.

How to use Padlet

If users have questions about using Padlet, escalate calls to DLE.

Related guides:

• Introduction to Padlet at Warwick

Access to Moodle courses / Moodle permissions

For example:

• Can’t log in to my Moodle course
• Can’t see my course on Moodle
• Moodle says I am a student when I am staff

The terms course, module, space all refer to the same thing in Moodle - any page associated with a particular module, project or course in which resources and activities are shared with enrolled users.

Check they mean they cannot access a Moodle space not that they cannot access Moodle itself (see above).

Students and module leaders are added to Moodle spaces via SITS. For credit-bearing modules, this data is managed in SITS and cannot be changed by the DLE team/Academic Technology.

NB You can find the owner of a Moodle module space by going to the Module Catalogue and typing in the module code. This will show the ‘Module tutor’ who will be enrolled in Moodle as the Course leader with full edit permissions for that space.

Get the course URL and if possible a screenshot of the issue. Check they are actually referring to Moodle and not SiteBuilder (Web Team), MyWbs (help@wbs.ac.uk) or another tool (please try and identify the owner, and do not escalate to DLE if it is not one of our tools).

• If the issue in Moodle is:
  • ‘this course is not visible to students’ in a pink bar at the top of the course, the student* should contact their department / course owner. The course will need to be made visible by the course editors – commonly this is a request in term 1 for a course that starts in term 2 and is therefore not available yet.
  • ‘you cannot enrol yourself on this course’, student* should contact department / course owner in order to be enrolled.
  • Module/course not visible in list of courses - check MRM
    • If the student is not enrolled, get them to enrol / contact the department
    • If the student is enrolled but waiting for department approval, they need to contact the department
  • Non-module course not visible in list of courses, contact the department / course owner to be manually enrolled
• If the issue is being reported by a staff member:
  • Check they have made the course visible
  • Confirm that the student should be able to access – check MRM etc. and redirect staff member accordingly.
• If all the details are correct, screenshots and URLs have been requested, and there is no obvious issue (eliminated SITS / module enrolment, department have already checked and confirmed student should be able to access, they can access other courses on Moodle), escalate to DLE.

*student also means staff members trying to access training courses on Moodle. They are all ‘students’ as far as Moodle is concerned if they are not course editors / owners. You will see calls where people state ‘I am appearing as a student when I should be a staff member’ as they are conflating their University status with their Moodle role. These are not the same things.

Related guides:

• Login to Moodle
• Visitor access to Moodle
• Enrolment methods and managing access permissions
• Roles and their functions in Moodle

Echo360 scheduling requests

These should be submitted via the scheduling request form. Please direct people to the form and resolve the call.

Related guides:

• Where can I use lecture capture: Lecture Capture enabled spaces
• How do I use the lecture capture camera: Use a lecture capture camera

Any other scheduling related calls should be recorded against 'Echo360 - Lecture Capture Scheduling' unless this is hardware related / in-room support, in which case log as a technical support request under Audio Visual.

Update scheduling requests

If an update request is received by email or phone, check when this is for and do not escalate calls that request an update made in the past. Notify the customer that this will not be possible and why and then direct them to the links below for future requests.

• Amend an existing schedule
• Delete a completed recording

Echo360 accounts for Staff

Students should not have accounts and should always access via Moodle.

For staff members and research students who are teaching, they simply need to go to a Moodle module space where they are an editor and click on the Lecture Capture block. Reset password using the ‘forgotten password’ link on the Echo360 website if they need access to their personal library or Echo360 Universal Capture. They will then be able to access via Echo360.

If they do not have a suitable Echo360 space, then they can use this test course which contains instructions for setting up the account as above.

Full guidance for installing Universal Capture (Personal) including creating an account is available in the Getting started with Universral Capture guideLink opens in a new window.

Visitor or External user access to Moodle

People should have a University login name and password to access Moodle via SSO.

Direct visitors to their sponsoring department. Direct the department to the link above or to the ServiceNow Request an IT account for a visitor form.

NB IDG recommends against the use of ext-user accounts for access to Moodle. They will work but are limited and should not be offered as an alternative (please contact IDM (Monika Sowa-Jackson) for more information if required).

If they already have a login and password, see 'Access to Moodle'.

Users MUST have logged into Moodle at least once in order to appear in the Moodle user list so that they can be added to courses by departments/course leaders.

• Visitor access to Moodle

Equipment in rooms not working, or equipment issues with a completed lecture capture recording

Commonly this will be issues relating to green screens, no audio or the camera not working.

Escalate calls to Audio Visual in the first instance.

Related guides:

• AV Services FAQs
• AV Services Training presentation
• AV Services Basics Training presentation
• AV Services - Hybrid Teaching presentation
• Experiencing a "Green Screen" on your Lecture Capture recording?

Some common issues related to training courses can be resolved at first-line support.

Training will not load

Screenshots like this indicate that the page is not loading. This is most likely a browser issue and the first step is to ask the customer to try a different web browser: we recommend Chrome. We know that these courses do work so there is nothing Moodle-specific that the DLE team can help with.

User reports that they cannot progress through the course as there is no 'next' button or it is inactive

These calls should be fewer now that we have made changes to the settings that allow users to restart their attempts. If users get stuck, they can now exit the course and restart their attempt. These courses are not designed, enforced nor managed by any team in DLE/FOLD. We do not have access to the package contents or software to repair whatever is causing this issue. This is an internal issue within IDG.

Training Essentials

https://trainingessentials.warwick.ac.uk

You may see calls relating to notification emails etc that reference Training Essentials / refer to Moodle courses. This is because the courses above "send" results to Training Essentials which then provides reminders etc.

Info from Marius Jugariu, Head of Learning Systems:

"Data is being sent over from Moodle. Sometimes it's an issue with courses being updated in Moodle but not in SuccessFactors LMS or vice-versa. So there's a human error element which Rachel Taisler used to look after but she left the university and nobody owns this any more. As far as we (LSS) can tell all data is sent ok on a nightly basis to SuccessFactors. Can't do much more to help beyond that to help I'm afraid. Notifications are being sent by an app maintained by Software Engineering team. Would suggest a resolve would be needed by combining expertise from HR Systems and Software Engineering and if they need any help for info to give us a shout to provide from what we see in Moodle or indeed we're happy to give them the relevant Moodle access to see for themselves."

  HR Induction Courses (new!)

Please direct people to

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/humanresources/welcomehub/induction-training

for a list of courses people need to complete on arrival. They can contact the HR team for more information. Do not escalate requests relating to this to Digital Learning.

Issues relating to the content of the courses should be addressed to the owners of the respective course. Please check which courses the user has a problem with and then direct them to the appropriate team.

Contacts for some of the most frequently accessed courses are:

• GDPR: gdpr@warwick.ac.uk
• Infosecurity: infosec@warwick.ac.uk
• Estates H&S training courses: healthandsafety@warwick.ac.uk

Echo360 Universal Capture

Echo360 can also be used on a personal machine to record video presentations. The software required is Universal Capture (Personal).

• Getting Started with Universal Capture (Personal)

For example:

• Can’t access videos on Moodle
• Video will not play
• Clicking on video link in a Moodle course and gets an error

Before escalating any video-related call to DLE, please check if the video is on Stream, eStream or Echo360. Get a screenshot and/or URL if it is unclear.

Check the browser!

We have included this as specific guidance below as well but the most common issue that videos will not play is the browser. If there is no clear error indicating permissions or a specific issue, please always check first that they have tested with at least 2 browsers especially if they are using Safari on a Mac which seems to have innumerable problems. Test with Chrome (or Firefox if they are already using Chrome). NB If a video was not actually working on Moodle for everyone, there would not be just 1 report, there would be many reports from students, and from the department.

Stream Videos

• Stream is black and pink, so easy to spot. This is unlikely to be a Moodle/DLE issue, and DLE do not have access to Stream. Stream links embedded in Moodle are just hyperlinks. Stream embeds will work if permissions are correct and the browser allows access.
• Check if the link is working/what the error is e.g. if it returns a 404 error, then the link is broken and needs to be fixed by the course owner. Direct the student to contact their department.
• Are other students on the course able to access the video (if the issue is the video, then there will probably be other calls referencing this module or Moodle space)?
  1. if yes (or not sure), it is probably browser (see below)
  2. if no, and you have already checked the link is working escalate to Application Management (see below)
• Ask the student to test with an alternate browser or another device. This is the most common cause of people not being able to access Stream videos – cross-site cookie browsing issues, Edge or Safari security. If browser-related, advise to use the alternative browser in future or assist with troubleshooting browser settings.
• If ‘access is denied’ or similar, escalate the call to Application Management to check the video permissions.
  1. There is a slight chance that the person is using an o365 group generated from Moodle, in which case App Management will pass it to DLE (and DLE in turn will ask LSS to check as they cannot resolve issues with Moodle > Teams sync).
  2. Some issues have arisen around student status in SITS / Membership, App Management can investigate with IDM and SITS ARO, usually where people have had 2 or more identities.

eStream videos

If eStream, escalate to Digital Learning Environment support (Service: Digital Learning Environment; Service Product: eStream - media streaming). NB eStream is not Stream.

Echo360 videos

See Echo360 section for more information around access to and support for Echo360 lecture capture.

• If troubleshooting (screenshot / URL / description of issue) shows an Echo360 link, ask them to click on the lecture capture block first, then go back and try the link again. Students do not have Echo360 accounts - authentication to Echo360 is via the Moodle Echo360 lecture capture block and clicking on a direct link to a video without first authenticating means they will get an ‘Access denied’ error.
• Ask the student to test with an alternate browser or another device. This is a common cause of people not being able to access Echo360 videos. If browser-related, advise to use the alternative browser in future or assist with troubleshooting browser settings.
• If this does not work, get the URL, module code, screenshot if possible or a description of where the link is (name of the activity or resource), then escalate to DLE (Service: Digital Learning Environment; Service Product: Moodle - VLE)

Turnitin is a text-matching service which allows tutors to check the originality of student work and helps them to detect plagiarism.

For example:

• Inability to generate Turnitin reports
• Not getting a Turnitin report
• Submit directly to Turnitin

Turnitin is available via both Tabula and Moodle and the service owners are Learning Systems.

Related guides

• Turnitin via Moodle
• Turnitin via Tabula

Academic Practice or student requests

Anything related to how to manage Turnitin results should be directed to the Department - either find the appropriate contact from the department website, or advise the person to do so.

Turnitin submission reports

If the request mentions Turnitin, check if this is for an assignment on Tabula or on Moodle and assign accordingly. Tabula calls go to SITS ARO and Moodle to DLE.

Submit directly to Turnitin (to check a document before submission for example)

It is not possible to submit directly to Turnitin. However, staff with an editing role on Moodle can set up a Moodle assignment with Turnitin following the guidance here: and can set this to not store the uploaded item in the Turnitin repository. They can then make this available for people to submit documents, or can switch role to Student to submit a document to the assignment to get a similarity report.

Students requesting access to Turnitin

Turnitin is only available via Moodle and Tabula when submitting an assignment. There is no direct login for TII for students (or staff).

Turnitin errors or Turnitin is unavailable

Record details, identify the assignment location and link, and assign to LSS to investigate.

Not getting a similarity report

The most common issue is uploading a PDF of an image. Check the file type, if this is a PDF, ask for a copy and check it. If it is an image, then it is not possible to get a similarity report. If they have the original file in Word, then they can try recreating the PDF, checking this has text, and then resubmitting the assignment.

This prevents students from being able to fully log in to Moodle.

Student profile information comes from SITS.

• Caused by the student's data not coming from SITS but they've logged in to Moodle. The SSO mechanism adds some of their details, but not all.
• Are they a current student in SITS and fully enrolled?
• Is the student's ITS usercode been populated in SITS. (STU_UDF3). If not, the student will not be included in the SITS feed to moodle.

"if the student's usercode is not being written into SITS, then it's a fault that needs to be fixed."

"there is a process that writes that data from Identity Management systems into SITS"

The above quotes from Russell Boyatt. For Jag/IDM to investigate.

As an immediate fix, locate user in Membership to find out email address and edit their Moodle profile to populate the email field. This will then allow the student access.
Moodle > Site administration > Users > Browse users. N.B. Remember to search by name or username as the IDs and emails won't be searchable as they will be missing.