Using the Moodle Calendar

Using the Moodle Calendar

If the calendar is not visible on your course, the Calendar block has probably not been added.  To add the Calendar block, select the gear icon in the top right-hand corner of your screen. From the drop-down menu under the gear icon, select “turn editing on.”   Then, click on the button with the three diagonal bars on the top left-hand side of your screen. Scroll down until you find “Add a Block.” Click on it. This will create a selection list in the center of your screen – use this list to select “Calendar”.  Once you click “Calendar”, the Calendar block should appear in your course on the right side-bar.  Dates that you have programmed within the course will appear on your calendar.

Assignments

Please note that “Allow submissions from” dates for assignments will not show up on the calendar.   This is the way Moodle programmed the feature.  However, due dates will appear in the calendar as visible reminders to students of when an assignment is due.  If you decide to program a cut-off date, please note that this date will also not appear in the calendar.  If you only program a due date, students will still be able to submit files to this assignment; they will simply be noted to the instructor that they were past the deadline.  If you would like to disable late submissions altogether, then set the cut-off date feature as well.

Quizzes

Both open and close dates will appear in the calendar for quizzes.

Forums

Forums contain “Restrict access” settings.  You can program these dates and times to limit when your students are able to access and post to the forum, but these dates do not show up in the Moodle calendar.  If you would like to program due dates for a forum, you can do so manually in the calendar:

1.  Access the calendar by clicking the month within the block (for example, “August 2013”).
2.  Click “New Event” in the top right-hand corner of the calendar.
3.  The type of event will be “Course” – you only want this event to be attached to this particular course as opposed to site-wide, and you want to ensure that all users in this course can view it, as opposed to just yourself.
4.  The event title for this example would be the forum title along with the word “Available” – the naming convention is your preference.
5.  Enter any description you’d like to include, followed by programming the date and time you’d like the event to start.
6.  Next you’ll program the duration – select “Until” and program a finish date and time for this event.  If you would not like to post a due date, then select “Without duration”.
7. If you’d like this to be a repeat event, you can program repetition.  Once you’re finished, click “Save.”  You will now have a forum ‘open and close’ date in your course calendar.  Please note that this does not affect the functionality of the forum – the forum will always be physically available to your students as long as you have it visible and available.  If you’d like to enforce your due dates, please program the dates into the “Restrict access” field in the forum settings, as well.